Our Board

Residing in Harlem, New York by way of Benin, West Africa. Justin Lokossou has spent the majority of his life in the service to students. As a curriculum designer, educator, academic advisor, and fencing instructor, Justin has worked with students from grades K through 12, and has since focused his passion towards working with high school students. He enjoys long walks on the beach, riding his bicycle, judo, lying about enjoying walks on the beach (he and sand do not get along, the sand knows what it did), and writing amusing biographies about himself. This is amusing bio #8. Justin hopes to bring his love of writing, poetry, fantasy fiction, music and comic culture into designing an engaging curriculum for BUILD that will help students not only see themselves in their lesson, but fulfill and exceed their own expectations of how great they can become. 

Matt brings to BUILD NYC a wealth of experience in entrepreneurship and technology leadership. Matt is the founder of ResoluteAI, a venture-backed SaaS startup building
enterprise search solutions for R&D organizations. Prior to Resolute, Matt founded
ZergNet, an ad-tech startup currently serving over a billion ads daily. Earlier in his career, he
was the VP of Engineering for Fina Technologies, where he built trading systems using
machine learning. He has also lectured at NYU on machine learning and other computer
science topics. Matt is passionate about advocating for children and underserved
communities. He is a former board member of the Child Care Resource Center, a nonprofit
helping families find and afford quality child care. Matt has also often served as a volunteer
tutor for high school and middle school children in New York City through organizations
such as New York Cares. Matt received his S.B. and M.Eng. degrees in computer science
from MIT.

Michael is the Founder and Principal Attorney of Springer Law PLLC, where he represents
entrepreneurs, startups, and creative professionals in a variety of legal areas, including
business law, venture finance, intellectual property, corporate governance, entertainment
law, and commercial litigation. Michael is also an active angel investor in early-stage
companies, focusing on a range of industries, including wearable technologies, software,
fashion, medical devices, and home delivery. Michael holds a J.D., cum laude, from Harvard
Law School and a B.B.A., magna cum laude, from the Mays Business School at Texas A&M
University. He and his wife split their time between New York City and Houston, Texas.

Ram Vijayanathan is the Head of Internal Audit at Pinterest, a visual discovery engine with
the mission to bring everyone the inspiration to create a life they love. His responsibilities
include helping the organization manage strategic, operational, and financial risk by
providing oversight to the internal audit team, developing and executing on the annual
audit plan, and supporting the company’s Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) compliance efforts. Ram
and his team evaluate Pinterest’s systems of internal controls and operational efficiency
and effectiveness. Before joining Pinterest, Ram was an Internal Audit Director at Facebook,
Inc., where he was a part of the corporate audit function and led teams that supported the
company’s SOX efforts along with managing an operational audit plan. Prior to Facebook,
Ram held various positions of increasing scope and responsibility in audit for QVC and
American Standard. He has a background in public accounting from Deloitte. Ram has
previously served as the President and a board member of the Philadelphia Institute of
Internal Auditors and graduated from The Pennsylvania State University with a B.S. in
Business Logistics. In his free time, he enjoys watching all Philadelphia sports teams, riding
his Peloton, and traveling.

Sarah Malonda was born and raised in Queens, New York, and was the daughter of Indonesian immigrants. She graduated from CUNY Hunter College with a degree in Political Science. She’s interested in local politics and community organizing  — and has been participating in outreach events like getting people registered to vote, informing folks about upcoming elections, and visiting local businesses to pass out PPE and other resources. She is committed to helping under-resourced communities such as her own and she is a strong advocate of student engagement in school, so she truly believes in the work BUILD NYC is doing.