What is the Lion's Den?
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The Lion’s Den DFW was created to fuel the expansion of the Kingdom economy through investing in transformative entrepreneurship. Through our yearly conference and pitch competition, we connect and equip business leaders to use their wealth and experience to change the world and create a tremendous impact. Our goal is to facilitate value-aligned investments by connecting Christ-centered entrepreneurs with investors.
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Lion's Den DFW Board
Ed Pearce
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Ed has a long history of supporting entrepreneurial businesses in the city of Dallas as a corporate executive for two separate publicly traded computer software companies, as a partner in a Dallas based venture capital firm, and as an owner of a company providing information management solutions to Energy companies and companies in other vertical markets. He is active as a member of the executive team for Movement Day Greater Dallas, a city transformation ministry, and teaches a young married small group at Park Cities Baptist Church in Dallas.
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Vip Vipperman
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Vip Vipperman is Vice President at Eagle Venture Funds, a family of funds dedicated to helping audacious entrepreneurs battle for causes & places that are desperate for change (with a current focus on tech to combat human trafficking and slavery) . He is cofounder of The Lion’s Den DFW pitch competition & was one of the early team members at Faith Driven Entrepreneur & Investor co-creating projects like Marketplace, Demo Days, and Unmuted. He previously worked for one of the nation’s largest faith based multifamily developers and spent his early career doing missions works alongside underground church planters in China. He has been married for 20 years to Carrie and they have 3 kids and a yellow lab. His spends a lot of time at volleyball games, on Boy Scouts camping trips or at gymnastics meets.
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Doug Williamson
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Doug has forty years of experience working in operations and finance, with over ten years in healthcare or healthcare related industries and projects, including eight years as CEO of an ophthalmic medical device company in Dallas engaged in successful FDA studies. Doug also ran the Dallas office of Bank of America Capital Investors (BACI), one of the venture capital groups owned by Bank of America (previously NationsBank) from 1989 to 2002, and directed and managed deployment of over $100 million in twenty different companies with an overall portfolio MOIC of 3.5 x. Since 2015, Doug has been involved in Christian impact investing as a member of the core team for The Lion's Den DFW, a board member, and recently Director of Operations. Doug has been blessed to support multiple ministries domestically and internationally and has travelled extensively in support of many Kingdom initiatives. Doug earned his MBA from Columbia University and his bachelor's degree from Denison University graduating with honors.
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Kurt Knapton
Board Member |
Kurt is an innovative business leader and “impact investor” passionate about his calling to help equip and encourage entrepreneurs to make a positive difference in the world. Kurt is the former CEO of Research Now. During his twelve years there, Kurt helped start-up and scale the world’s leading digital data-collection company serving the market research industry. Today, the company (rebranded Dynata) executes over 75,000 projects a year and generates over half-a-billion dollars of annual revenue. Early in his career Kurt spent a decade as a management consultant working for Booz Allen Hamilton and Accenture specializing in business strategy and improvement for Fortune 500 clients. Kurt earned his MBA from Dartmouth’s Amos Tuck Graduate School of Business and was an Honors Program graduate at Baylor University where he holds a BBA in Management.
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Steve Helms
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Steve is an investor, nonprofit leader, and technology sales professional with 30 years of experience. A
Richardson native, Steve received a BS in Manufacturing Engineering from Texas A&M University and an MBA from SMU Cox School of Business with a focus on Venture Capital and Entrepreneurship. Sun Microsystems provided Steve his first professional opportunity, where Steve began to sell computer technology to telecom providers at a time when the industry was building out the modern internet. This gave him opportunities to serve customers across multiple functions and industries. Following his time with Sun, Steve worked with a variety of tech companies providing research, consulting, services, hardware, and software. Steve is one of the founders of the DFW Technology Prayer Breakfast and serves as the organization’s President. His hope is that the DFW Technology community will be known as the most loving, inviting, and Christ honoring network of professionals in the world. Currently Steve is an investor and advisor who serves as a Managing Director of Wise Family Trusts guiding the strategy for growth of a portfolio of investments under management. |
Lion's Den DFW Operating Team
Ed Pearce
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Doug Williamson
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Tamanno Hodjihanova
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Lion's Den Core Team
Stephen Jackson
Steward Advisor Group |
Stephen Jackson's passion for gospel centered, Kingdom formation has led him into numerous pastoral discipleship roles over the years. In 2019, the Lord shifted his focus toward Kingdom investing and took him on a journey of surrender and learning as he traveled the globe engaging with faith driven entrepreneurs in frontier markets. This journey significantly altered his personal investment strategy, activating his heart to support both likeminded investors looking to steward their investments for kingdom outcomes and the portfolio companies actively pursuing kingdom impact through their businesses. Now, Stephen is proud to serve as the Chief Impact Officer for the faith driven team of financial professionals at Steward Advisors Group. Steward serves their clients through financial planning and advising as they create custom portfolios for their clients investing in publicly traded and privately held companies that align to biblical values and see eternal outcomes. Stephen is a servant of God, husband to Misty and dad to Oakley, Oxley, & Olive.
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John Kaserman
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John is the Director of Business Development for Breck Partners, a Dallas-based private equity firm. He leads the firm deal origination efforts; working with intermediaries to identify investment opportunities and source financing from lending partners. Before joining Breck Partners, John served as a Principal at Waco Ventures, an early-stage investment firm that partners with research institutions to commercialize intellectual property. During his time at the firm John partnered with the portfolio companies on strategy and financial operations, performed due diligence on new investments, assisted with capital raising, and developed relationships with new research institutions seeking to commercialize intellectual property. Prior to Waco Ventures, John worked at McNeill and Company originating and analyzing investments in private equity, real estate, banking, and venture capital. Other relevant experience includes business development roles at Transition Capital Partners, a lower-middle market private equity firm, and Vision Research Capital, a long-short equity hedge fund. In between Transition Capital Partners and McNeill & Company, John and his family spent one-year abroad serving as missionaries in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. John holds a Bachelor of Science in Finance from Baylor University. He lives in Dallas, TX with his wife and three children.
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Wes Lyons
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Wes serves the entrepreneurs who are restoring the world. He is a General Partner at Eagle Venture Fund, where he leads Eagle's investment themes of combating human trafficking and economic opportunities for the poor. Wes has previously been a general partner in two private equity funds focused on real estate and venture capital. Wes has been the primary operations and compliance partner for every fund he's been a partner in. He's been the lead partner for more than a dozen investments before Eagle and more than a dozen at Eagle.
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Hall Martin
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Hall T. Martin is the Founder and CEO of TEN Capital and Host of the Investor Connect podcast
program. He launched the firm as the Texas Entrepreneur Networks in 2009. Today, TEN Capital has over 18,000 investors in its network, and has helped startups raise over $900M. Mr. Martin serves as the Vice-Chair of the Baylor Angel Network. He previously led the Central Texas Angel Network (CTAN) as its first Executive Director. Mr. Martin is the Host of the Investor Connect podcast program. He is the founder and director of Investor Connect which is a 501(c)3 non-profit dedicated to the education of startup investors. Mr. Martin is a Founder and former Managing Director of SKU (Incubation Station), a consumer product goods accelerator based in Austin, Texas, and the former Managing Director of AccelerateNFC, an accelerator based in Dallas, Texas, focusing on Near Field Communication. Mr. Martin serves as an adjunct professor for the University of Texas leading the Idea to IP program which fosters startups from the engineering program. |
Andrew Clark
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Andrew Clark consults on strategic direction and partnerships in faith-driven markets through his advisory practice, Wherewithal. He is currently pursuing a new venture to support faith-driven founders’ startups. He co-created The Lion's Den Event where it began, in Birmingham, ran it for 8 years, and assisted other events in the Faith-Driven space. He is committed to globally grow faith-driving enterprises. Earlier, Andrew served as a Broker at Marcus & Millichap and Realtor at RE/MAX. He’s run a youth sports development startup, Noble Brands coffee e-commerce company, and sold diamonds. A Samford University alumnus with a B.A. in Classics and Philosophy, he’s blessed to mentor students, serve on advisory board of the College of Arts and Sciences, and teach in the Brock Business School as an Entrepreneur in Residence. He advocates for the generosity movement, serves as a deacon in his church, loves to read, play golf, watch movies, learn from others and history, and slightly misses the stage where he previously played various leading and supporting roles. Above all, his life is marked by Christ and living alongside Kari, his wife of 20+ years.
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Ross O'Brien
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Ross O’Brien has served at Dallas Baptist University since 2003. Prior to that time, he started and ran a small Internet firm in Birmingham, Alabama after working for AT&T’s Business Network Sales division as an Account Executive. Ross’ Ph.D. is from the University of Texas at Arlington in Business Administration and his MBA is from Dallas Baptist University. He began the undergraduate entrepreneurship program at DBU as well as the Center for Business as Mission, in which he serves as the Director. In this capacity he works closely with the Lion’s Den DFW, serving on the core team. He assisted in launching the Patriot Angel Network, an angel investment network, and also serves on the Board of Beyond Angels. In the summer of 2023 Ross took on the role of leading the Graduate School of Business overseeing six graduate business programs including the MBA. Ross and Lisa have been married 37 years. They live in Waxahachie, Texas where Lisa runs their independent bookshop, O’Brien’s Bookshop.
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Wade Myers
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Wade Myers is a serial entrepreneur, investor, advisor, author, and speaker that has founded, invested in, and been a director of scores of companies and has completed over 100 financing and M&A transactions. He is the founder and CEO of Capital Works, an award-winning digital investment banking firm, and is also a founder and general partner of Eagle Venture Fund, a global seed capital firm that focuses on impact investments. Wade’s previous ventures include a global SaaS-based big data company and an Inc. 5000 nationwide SaaS-based property management firm that has grown to be the fourth-largest firm in an industry of 6,500 competitors since he founded the company in 2004. Wade has a BS from North Dakota State University, an MS from Texas A&M University, and an MBA from Harvard University where he graduated as a Baker Scholar (top 5% of his class). He also helped develop an executive education course for Harvard Business School and is a Harvard case study author. Wade is also a published author with articles in Inc. Magazine, Forbes, Huffington Post, and Apple News. He was also featured in Episode 4 of Season 1 of the Curious Entrepreneur series on Amazon Prime. Wade and his wife Andreanna live in the Dallas/Fort Worth area and have five children.
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John Raymond |
