ACHiEVE ART Aseem Giri

John Friel was born and raised in the Midwest, just outside of Chicago. Since young, he has had a penchant for bringing creative friends together in an artistic pursuit, be it a band or a magazine. He earned his undergraduate degree at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and in addition to pursuing his artistic endeavors he became involved in some technical projects where he could develop his expertise in computer coding and programming. He has brought this expertise to bear in the start-up he co-founded called Art in Res, broadening the distribution of art through an online platform.

Aki Karja was born and raised in Finland, just north of Helsinki. He became very fond of skateboarding at a young age. This passion enabled him to travel the world. He studied finance at NYU and secured a job in investment banking at Morgan Stanley. From there he moved to the prestigious private equity fund Blackstone. After a few other stints in finance he opted to follow another life passion that he developed around art, largely influenced by a number of artist friends in his life, and launched Artfare, a site that matches artists with collectors.

John Sillings started his career as an equity research analyst working for hedge funds. After several years he discovered a love for collecting art. He chose to follow his passion and co-founded Art in Res, a platform to purchase art with installment payment plans. He recently completed the startup accelerator program at Y Combinator.

Marcela Florido was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and left her home country and loved ones to study art in London, as she found the course of study there more rigorous. She also completed her Master's of Fine Art at Yale University. She now resides in New York.

Jaqueline Cedar earned her BFA from UCLA and her MFA from Columbia University. Through her paintings, drawings and sculptures, Jaqueline celebrates her interest in mannered human gestures, interpersonal interactions and the motivations that may be driving them using economical choices of expression in terms of form and color palette.

Regina Herod started her career studying theater at Juilliard but re-directed her life to her childhood passion of art. Regina evaluates themes of oppression drawn from current events which she portrays through sculpture and through the process of encaustic painting, relying on drawing over burnt wax to share her narrative. Hosted by Aseem Giri. https://achievepodcast.com.