Karen Gyulbudaghyan

Mr. Karén Gyulbudaghyan (pronounced: Kar-Rén Gool-boo-dag-ian) is a strategic advisor, investor, architect of cross-border innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystems, and board member. He founded Strategic Value Ventures LLC (SVV), a San Francisco-based strategic advisory firm supporting global ecosystem partners and startups. With 30 years of all-around and uncommon experience in government (e.g., State of California), Big4 consulting (e.g., PwC), Fortune 500 corporations (e.g., Yahoo!), and small businesses, Mr. Gyulbudaghyan excels in aligning strategic interests and designing and allocating incentives for multiple stakeholders—companies, governments, universities, and communities—to forge high-impact partnerships. Throughout his career, Mr. Gyulbudaghyan has orchestrated public-private partnerships, driven technology, tax, tech and business policy changes, and secured over $1 billion in benefits. He has collaborated with more than 70 economic development, investment, and trade promotion agencies worldwide and advised companies on IPOs (e.g., Tesla), M&A (e.g., Trimble), Digital Transformation (e.g., Autodesk, Symantec), and complex cases with U.S. federal and state authorities. At Yahoo!, Mr. Gyulbudaghyan pioneered an innovative business incentives program, a unique one across the industry focused on ecosystem building. He championed legislative changes at the U.S. state and local levels, led datacenter strategy, structured and negotiated multi-dimensional deals. Notable examples include orchestrating the first comprehensive deal with the State of Illinois, the City of Champaign, and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and implementing the largest global datacenter migration project in internet history. Mr. Gyulbudaghyan helped transform the University of California (UC) Berkeley SkyDeck into a Forbes top university accelerator for international startups with a self-sustainable model. He is the first global Ambassador, Key Advisor, and a member of their tech and biotech selection committees, which review over 4,000 applications from 100 countries. Mr. Gyulbudaghyan’s SVV is one of only a few UC Berkeley SkyDeck’s Global Innovation Partners in the world, alongside the South Korean and Japanese governments. The close collaboration between UC Berkeley SkyDeck and SVV has been instrumental in developing the high-tech ecosystem in Armenia and launching over 25 startups to global prominence, including superstar companies Krisp and SuperAnnotate. Mr. Gyulbudaghyan founded Ground Zero Specialty Coffee, the first venture café in Armenia and the leading one across EMEA and APAC region. “Ground Zero” symbolizes changes and a starting point for new ideas, contacts, and ventures. It brings together and cross-pollinates techies, creatives, and artists across geo & cultures. Fun fact- the café hosted more representatives from the Berkeley SkyDeck ecosystem than any place in the world outside Berkeley. As a venture capitalist, Mr. Gyulbudaghyan invested in a variety of early-stage startups in AI, aerospace, and biotech. Mr. Gyulbudaghyan is a member of the National Council for Science and Technology Development, an advisory board under the Prime Minister of Armenia, comprised of distinguished diaspora Armenians, including a Nobel laureate. Mr. Gyulbudaghyan’s credentials include A. Shahinyan’s Physics-Math special school, a B.S. in Economics and Math Modeling from Yerevan State University, an M.S. in Accounting, Audit, and Financial Analysis from Moscow State University, Strategic Decision and Risk Management program from Stanford University. He is a California-licensed Certified Public Accountant (CPA). Mr. Gyulbudaghyan is a keynote speaker and startup judge at global events. He volunteers for causes ranging from arts, education, and social impact.