Our Team

MANAGEMENT

Hamish Magoffin

MANAGING PARTNER

Hamish is Managing Partner and co-founder of Break Off.  Prior to Break Off, Hamish found HRM Global Investments to invest and provide consultancy services across a range of industries and geographies in both the public and private markets.

In his former life, Hamish was in the Institutional Equities Division at Morgan Stanley in London where he traded equity derivatives and worked on proprietary structured transactions.  Whilst based in London he worked closely with teams in the US, Europe, and Asia.

Hamish holds a Master of Business Administration from the University of Oxford (2011), and a Bachelor of Commerce (with Honours) from the University of New South Wales, Australia (2006). During his studies at Oxford, Hamish was an active member of the Finance and Entrepreneurship Oxford Business Networks, and the Oxford University Athletics Club. In addition to university studies he is also a CFA Charterholder.

hmagoffin@breakoffcapital.com    |    LinkedIn Profile

Ricardo Celaya

PARTNER

Ricardo cofounded ARTO, an art, design & communication agency. Today, ARTO has three successful business branches: ARTO Studio, a strategy and creativity boutique studio; Celaya Brothers Gallery, a contemporary art gallery; ALL CITY CANVAS, a street art media and production platform. Ricardo has a degree in Art & finance from the Sotheby’s Institute in New York.

He holds a Master of Business Administration from the University of Oxford (2011), and graduated with honors from a Bachelor’s in Industrial Engineering from the Technological Institute of Monterrey, Mexico (2005). During his studies at Oxford, he served as president of the Social Entrepreneurship Oxford Business Network. Also, during his time in Oxford, he worked at Swicorp, a Private Equity fund in the Middle East. In 2010, he had the honor to be recognized as one of the Top 100 entrepreneurs of the Northeast of Mexico during the Monterrey Venture Capital Conference.

Ricardo’s professional career started in 2006 at Xignux Group in Monterrey, Mexico. He worked for two years as a process engineer, implementing lean manufacturing systems in Mexico, Nicaragua and Brazil. In 2008, he worked in strategic planning, leading several commercial intelligence projects for the company in the US, Mexico, Brazil and Colombia. In 2011, he became the Strategic Intelligence Manager for the Group, obtaining a certification from the Academy of Competitive Intelligence in Boston.

rcelaya@breakoffcapital.com    |    LinkedIn Profile

Victor Celaya

PARTNER

From 2013 to 2015, Victor served as Creative and Innovation Director of the transnational direct sales company Omnilife, which has presence in more than 21 countries.

He holds a Masters Degree in Politics & Mass Media from the University of Liverpool (UK). Through his studies, he worked to understand the relationship between the mass media and politics in modern democracies, with special emphasis on Britain. After his Masters, he worked in the United Nations Non-Governmental Liaison Service at the Headquarters in New York. Prior to his studies in the United Kingdom, Victor received a Bachelor’s degree in Communication Science from the Technological Institute of Monterrey (Mexico).

In 2009, Victor also cofounded ARTO, an art, design & communication agency with three business branches: ARTO Studio, Celaya Brothers Gallery and ALL CITY CANVAS.

vhcelaya@breakoffcapital.com   |    LinkedIn Profile

 

 


 

CORPORATE ADVISERS

Ricardo Villanueva

PUBLIC AND PRIVATE SECTOR ADVISER

Career Diplomat for over 35 years with a focus on Economic promotion. BA Management & Economics. Puebla University. Former Mexican Ambassador to Finland, Chile, Perú, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia and Poland. Trade Consultant for the Middle East and South America. Fluent in Spanish, English and French.

LinkedIn Profile

 

 


 

SCIENTIFIC ADVISERS

Shervin Kamkar, MS

APPLIED GENETICS AND BIOTECHNOLOGY ADVISER

Sales and Market Development Leader with 18 years experience in the Biotech and Clinical Diagnostics space. Currently, Market Development Director at Illumina, the leading genomics company in the world with over 90% market share of next-generation sequencing. Passionate about bringing the best minds together to revolutionize the way healthcare is practiced. Masters of Science in Molecular Biology, UCSF Cancer Center/SFSU.

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Evan Williams, PhD

ADVANCE MATERIALS ADVISER

Evan Williams joined the Institute of Materials Research and Engineering (IMRE), Agency for Science Technology and Research, Singapore in 2008 as a research scientist and engineer. Since 2013 he has served as an Innovation Lead in the Materials Centre of Innovation (MCOI), a partnership with Singapore’s Standards, Productivity and Innovation Board (SPRING), focused on translating IMRE technology to local enterprises.

Evan has been an active member of the Materials Research Society of Singapore since 2011, having held positions of joint-treasurer, joint secretary and secretary. He served as the executive chair of the inaugural International Union of Materials Research Societies International Conference of Young Researchers on Advanced Materials (IUMRS-ICYRAM) in 2012, bringing together 900 attendees, primarily under the age of 40, from over 30 countries.

Evan completed his BS and MEng degrees in Materials Science and Engineering from Cornell University. He earned a MS degree in Optical Sciences from the University of Arizona and, in 2007, a PhD in Material Science and Engineering from Arizona State University under the supervision of Professor Gahssan E. Jabbour at the Flexible Display Center. Evan spent three summers during his graduate studies in the Research Participant Program at the National Renewable Energy Labs.

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Leslie Dewan, PhD

ENERGY ADVISER

Dr. Leslie Dewan is a nuclear engineer and conservation technologist, with a focus on new nuclear power technology, carbon-free energy production, and applications of artificial intelligence for global good. From 2011 to 2018, she was the CEO of Transatomic Power, a company that designed safer nuclear reactors that leave behind less waste than conventional designs. She currently is working in conjunction with National Geographic to develop new technology to protect national parks in the Democratic Republic of Congo, using machine learning to rapidly detect illegal logging, mining, and poaching. She is also an adjunct professor in the Department of Nuclear and Quantum Engineering at KAIST, the Korean Advanced Institute of Science and Technology.

Leslie received her Ph. D. in nuclear engineering from MIT in 2013, with a research focus on computational nuclear materials. She also holds S. B. degrees from MIT in mechanical engineering and nuclear engineering. Before starting her Ph. D. , she worked for a robotics company in Cambridge, MA, where she designed search-and-rescue robots and equipment for in-field identification of chemical and nuclear weapons. Leslie has been awarded an MIT Presidential Fellowship and a Department of Energy Computational Science Graduate Fellowship. She is a member of the MIT Corporation, MIT’s board of trustees. She was named a TIME Magazine “30 People Under 30 Changing the World, ” an MIT Technology Review “Innovator Under 35, ” a Forbes “30 Under 30, ” a National Geographic Emerging Explorer, and a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader.

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