Bekele will lead the firm’s AI strategy and ongoing development of its AI solution offerings
Union Square Advisors, a technology-focused investment bank, announced that Gelila Bekele has joined the firm as its Head of AI Strategy. In this role, Bekele will lead the further development of the firm’s AI-driven advisory solutions for clients, as well as its internal AI adoption initiatives.
Bekele is working closely with the firm’s leadership to enhance its AI assessment framework for clients, a proprietary solution for evaluating AI readiness, defensibility and value creation potential across technology businesses and investment portfolios. This solution leverages the combination of over 300 years of team experience at the firm, 220+ unique data sources and more than 400 individual company assessments to prescribe specific monetization paths and potential exit structures. As venture capital, growth equity, private equity and private credit investors contend with the rapid, structural repricing of software companies and markets, Union Square Advisors is able to help them better assess their portfolios, uniquely complementing the firm’s existing capital solutions and M&A advisory offerings.
Before joining Union Square Advisors, Bekele founded Aone Partners, a search fund partnership backed by software CEOs and investors, where she built AI-native M&A workflows and agents specifically for transaction origination, evaluation and diligence. In this role, Bekele collaborated with software company founders and CEOs to evaluate their companies’ AI defensibility and initiatives; she also measured the degree to which hundreds of companies’ AI capabilities were embedded in their products, protected by proprietary infrastructure and positioned to generate meaningful value.
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“We have made significant, deliberate investments in AI over the past eighteen months,” said Mike Meyer, CEO and Head of Capital Solutions at Union Square Advisors. “Gelila’s appointment meaningfully expands both our internal capabilities and our client-facing AI solutions.”
“AI is rapidly reshaping how technology businesses are built and valued,” added Bekele. “We are building this practice to solve the hardest problems fund managers and technology companies face in an AI-first market.”
“AI is inextricably linked with enterprise value in today’s technology markets, making it crucial for our clients and their investors to evaluate AI defensibility and positioning to achieve success,” added Ted Smith, President and Co-founder of Union Square Advisors. “Gelila’s leadership and expertise will allow us to further institutionalize AI within our advisory model and continue to deliver differentiated capabilities to our clients.”
Bekele began her career at BlackRock’s Multi-Asset Investment Strategies and Solutions Group, partnering with the world’s largest sovereign wealth funds, foundations and endowments, and subsequently served as Director at Banyan Software. Bekele has published studies on technology businesses with Harvard Business Review that are taught in Stanford’s flagship entrepreneurship courses, covering IPOs, M&A and venture capital fund formation. She holds a bachelor’s degree in economics and computer science from Columbia University and an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
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