Samuel Hendel, Director, is a Co-Founder of Dataminr, the leading company for event and risk detection, which he began with two of his former Yale classmates in 2009. Dataminr’s platform offers the earliest signals of major events to corporations, financial institutions, news media, and the public sector. CNBC recognized Dataminr as one of the world’s “most disruptive technology companies,” which raised $475 million in March 2021 at a $4.1 billion valuation. In 2021, Mr. Hendel partnered with KKR to purchase KMR Music Royalties II, a unique catalogue of 62,000 music copyrights, from Kobalt Capital for $1.1 billion. Mr. Hendel will serve as a founding board member of the new joint venture, Chord Music Partners, that will continue to scale by providing flexible capital solutions for artists and creators and exploring NFT monetization opportunities. In addition, Mr. Hendel has 18 years of experience in the investment management industry and most recently served as Portfolio Manager and President of Easterly Investment Partners, the $4 billion AUM value manager. Prior to Joining Easterly, Mr. Hendel was Co-Portfolio Manager for risk arbitrage and event-driven strategies at Satellite Asset Management from 2006 to 2009. That position followed 3 years at UBS, from 2003 to 2006, where Mr. Hendel was an Associate Director, serving in both the portfolio trading and proprietary trading groups.
In his personal capacity, Mr. Hendel is an Associate Fellow of Davenport College at Yale University in addition to being Co-Founder of Accelerate Yale, an alumni shared interest group focused on promoting entrepreneurship at Yale. Mr. Hendel has additional board experience, serving as the Chairman of OkayMedia, which includes OkayPlayer, a music and lifestyle website founded in 1999 by Ahmir (Questlove) Thompson of the hip hop band The Roots, and OkayAfrica, the leading digital media company focused on African culture. He has also served on the board of Virtuoso since January 2021, where he serves as a member of the Audit and Compensation Committees. He also serves on the board of ImpaCT, a Connecticut-based charity focused on providing support to underprivileged youth in the local community alongside his wife. Mr. Hendel received a B.A. from Yale University.