Our People

The Team

Kristen Ayer

Kristen Ayer

Formerly Kristen Wade

Founder, Chairman & CEO

Kristen spent nearly a decade on Wall Street, most of her time at Lehman Brothers and Goldman, Sachs & Co. Kristen worked closely with all areas of the investment bank during her Wall Street tenure, including private equity, investment banking, equity capital markets, private client services, and asset management.

At Lehman, she serviced the venture capital community and entrepreneurs of private technology, telecommunications, and health care companies with their investment banking and capital needs. Frequently, entrepreneurs asked for her assistance in selling some shares of their companies while they were still private, something that was nearly impossible. This is how the idea of NETCIRQ was generated.

Kristen left Wall Street to join the senior management team of an e-commerce consulting firm, Etensity (now DDLabs), then founded NETCIRQ in 2000. She received her B.S. and B.A from Xavier University, and her M.S. in Finance from Boston College.

Kristen is on the board of Junior Achievement and in her free time enjoys yoga, fine dining, real estate, traveling, hiking and watching baseball and college football.

Advisors

Advisory Board

Frank Bonsal Jr.

Founder of NEA (New Enterprise Associates)

Andrew Hart

Former Senior Managing Director, Bear Stearns

Chris Kitze

Founder of Xoom.com, NBCi, Former CEO of wine.com