Gary Sheynkman

General Partner, Co-founder, Leyden Ventures

Gary solves the knowledge gap between software engineers and traditional management, having held roles across product management and corporate development throughout his career. Residing in Dubai, he currently works across early stage venture and public sectors. Gary has invested in 30+ early stage companies over the past 3 years and led the launch and day-to-day management of Techstars Dubai in Partnership with GINCO (“TSDXB”).

Prior to launching TSDXB, Gary was consulting with The Executive Office of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai (“TEO”) on development of Area 2071, a new business cluster within Emirates Towers focused on creative collisions between startups and large corporates.

Prior to working with TEO, Gary was advising Dubai Holding on the spin up of their corporate venture initiatives working closely with HE Khalfan Belhoul, CEO of Dubai Future Foundation. Prior to that, Gary worked with Abu Dhabi Media to create a new digital product subsidiary, Advance, where he led product management, organizational structuring, vendor management, and new platform integrations in his advisory capacity to the CEO.

Previously Gary was the Video Technology Product Lead at VICE Media, the global youth media brand owned by Disney and 20th Century Fox and Director of Ad-Ventures, the corporate venturing arm of Carrot Creative, the digital agency which counts Jaguar, Rolex, and other marquee brands as clients. Until April 2012 Gary was serving as Director of Corporate Development for Piksel, the video technology firm behind BBC iPlayer in the UK and ATT U-Verse in the US.

Gary graduated from Kelley School of Business at Indiana University in the US.