HOPE TAITZ has been the Chief Executive Officer of ELY Capital, LLC since 2004. Ms. Taitz began her career as a mergers and acquisitions analyst at Drexel Burnham Lambert. Ms. Taitz then served as a Vice President at The Argosy Group (now part of CIBC) and a Managing Director at Crystal Asset Management until 1995 before founding her money management firm, Catalyst Partners. Now acting as an investor and advisor through ELY Capital, Ms. Taitz has extensive expertise in financial services, the consumer, media, and technology sectors. She helps innovative enterprises grow through financial leadership, capital markets strategies and connections to established businesses. Ms. Taitz currently sits on the boards of Athene Holding Ltd., MidCap Finco Holdings Limited, Summit Hotel Properties, Inc. and Yahoo!. She previously served on the boards of Apollo Residential Mortgage, Inc., Diamond International Resorts, Inc., Greenlight Capital RE, Ltd. and Lumenis Ltd. Ms. Taitz also focuses on non-profit entities in education and is an advocate for STEM. Originally sitting on the board of Girls Who Code, she also was a board member on The New York City Foundation for Computer Science working on CS4All and the 2025 STEM Initiative. Ms. Taitz is also a founding board member of YRFDarca, a member of the Wharton School Undergraduate Executive Board as well as an emeritus board member of Pencils of Promise. Ms. Taitz graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a degree in economics. The Board believes Ms. Taitz is qualified to serve as a director due to strong financial skills, corporate governance expertise as well as her experience in the industry and in digital transformation.