Our Team
Our Story
It starts with us being boxed out. Outsiders in our own industry. Even though we worked close to the money, it remained curiously out of reach. Mile-high minimum investments meant that even the most basic alternative investments were far out of our reach for personal investing. We saw and felt a problem, which of course, is an opportunity.
You know how these things go. Ali, as a technologist, started building. He could solve part of the problem with technology. But it wasn’t until Daniel and Manuel came on board that the vision crystalized. They’d set out to solve similar problems — helping investments become more accessible. The three found Joe to help turn their vision into a consumer friendly product. Their collective vision began to take shape, and eventually, became Accrete. Where anybody can secure bigger returns, together.
Our Founders
Ali Shekofti Founding Partner and CEO
Ali is the Founder and CEO of Accrete. He’s spent time at Goldman Sachs, he was a PE partner at Alvarium Investments. As co-CEO of a leading e-commerce business, he helped grow it from ~400 employees to over ~10,000 employees. And Ali has been an independent advisor and consultant to many sponsor firms and fast growing companies around the world.
He has been married for 14 years and has three daughters. A self-proclaimed Social Capitalist he enjoys reading, is passionate about show-jumping and spending time with his family.
Joe Bilman Co-Founder and COO, Americas
Joe is an entrepreneurial, data driven, C-suite executive with 20 years of experience in leading profitable growth in the direct to consumer and e-commerce sectors, accelerating growth & building new businesses. His expertise includes product innovation, growth, strategy, design, development/execution, M&A, business optimization & transformation. Joe is equally comfortable building version 1.0 in startups and driving product innovation and transformation in multinational Fortune 500 companies.
A dedicated New Yorker, when not working Joe can be found shuttling his kids up and down the east coast to soccer matches and horse jumping competitions accompanied by his trusty french bulldog sidekick, Gus and his admittedly out of his league wife, Kate.
Daniel Grossmann Partner
Daniel is a seasoned investor with years of Private Equity experience in Consumer and Technology. In 2015 he co-founded Kharis Capital, a direct investment private equity firm that invests in consumer and technology across all stages.
Daniel started his career as a lawyer in Digital, Medial and Technology at Allen & Overy and later joined a specialty retail PE firm where he managed offline and online investments across Europe and Asia. He then led the direct investments and internal developments for a consumer-focused family investment firm Verlinvest for nearly a decade.
His creative mindset, dynamism and results-driven approach are a steady driver of Kharis’ investments.
Manuel Roumain Partner
Manuel has extensive experience with major wirehouses such as Goldman Sachs, UBS and CitiGroup. He managed direct and indirect investments across all asset classes during his 10-year tenure as the Chief Investment Officer of Edmond J. Safra Philanthropic Foundation. Manuel’s strategic thinking, focus and accountability have enabled him to establish and foster a wealth of key relationships with long term investors.