James Goulka serves as the president and CEO of AZ Venture Capital Inc., a venture capital fund that invests in pre-seed to Series B funding rounds for early-stage Arizona startups and early growth companies addressing significant customer challenges. He retired as the Chairman of Arizona Tech Investors (ATI) on December 31, 2022. Under his leadership for over 12 years, ATI expanded to more than 100 individuals who invest their own resources in disruptive startups in information technology and life sciences. Since its founding in 2007, ATI members have invested in over 90 companies, two-thirds of which are based in Arizona. He has personally invested in more than 50 angel-funded startups. Goulka previously led three angel and Venture Capital backed software companies. He also led the National Technology Transfer Center, which commercialized intellectual property developed in all 10 NASA labs and parts of the Department of Defense; the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation and the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture; and the Encyclopaedia Britannica Inc. and its worldwide subsidiaries, where he was responsible for digitizing its products. Goulka began his corporate finance and private equity career at JP Morgan Chase and Citibank. Goulka is a past Angel Capital Association board member and served on its Education and Smart Practices Committee. He was a member of the Angel Syndication Network Advisory Board and a governing or advisory board member of several ATI portfolio companies. Previously, he was Chairman of Merriam-Webster Dictionaries and most of Britannica’s worldwide subsidiaries, and a board member of various early-stage companies. His not-for-profit board involvement included Steppenwolf Theater Company, Chicago Shakespeare, the Dallas Zoological Society, the Associate Board of the Cox School of Business at Southern Methodist University, and many other social service and arts organizations. He has also served on elected school and township boards. Goulka holds two degrees from Yale and has taught cases at Harvard Business School, Yale School of Management, and Ohio State University. He also taught a class on angel and VC funding in the Executive MBA Program at ASU and a course on business case analysis at eight US Navy bases.