The Team

The people building it.

Frank McDermott

Founder & CEO

Serial technical entrepreneur, software engineer, and operator with 25+ years building and running companies. Frank co-founded CARAVAN in Brooklyn in 2010 and has led the company through 17 years of technology evolution, from mobile apps to machine learning to AI-native products and ventures. Based in Atlanta, GA.

Hugo Samayoa

Infrastructure

Hugo has over 25 years of experience delivering at scale for some of the world's most demanding organizations, including Google, Etsy, Anthem, McAfee, Facebook, American Express, Symantec, Deutsche Telekom, HBO, Showtime, Marvel Studios, Netflix, and US FedRAMP. He brings the technical depth and operational rigor to build things that do not break. Based in Long Beach, CA.

Chris Samayoa

Government

Chris Samayoa is a network security and infrastructure veteran with over two decades of experience protecting critical public-sector systems. He has spent the last 11 years at the Port of Long Beach, one of the busiest seaports in the Western Hemisphere, where he serves as Manager of Technical Security, overseeing the integration and maintenance of network and server infrastructure for the Port's entire security division. Before moving into management, he served as Technical Project Manager and Team Lead at the same institution. Earlier in his career he worked as a Senior Systems Engineer at Lanair Group, a network engineer at Tierzero, and a technical support and junior research engineer at eEye Digital Security, a leading vulnerability research firm. Since 2022 he has taught Network Security as an Adjunct Professor at California State University, Long Beach. Chris brings the operational credibility and institutional relationships to help CARAVAN deliver AI-powered solutions in regulated, mission-critical environments.

Chris Park

CFO

Chris Park is a finance executive with nearly two decades of experience at the intersection of high-growth startups, global art institutions, and complex multi-entity operations. He began his career at Sotheby's and Christie's before spending over six years at Kasmin Gallery, rising from Financial Controller to CFO and building the financial infrastructure to support the gallery's rapid growth. He then served as Head of Finance at Superblue, the immersive art experience company, where he supported Series B fundraising and built the financial systems for a first-of-its-kind global business. As Senior Director of Global Finance and then CFO at Levy Gorvy Dayan, he managed finance and accounting across New York, London, Paris, and Hong Kong through a post-merger integration, implementing ERP systems, FP&A frameworks, and capital strategies that enabled the firm to operate at scale. He currently serves as Director of Finance at the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation. His core strengths span capital planning, financial modeling, M&A, investor relations, board governance, and ERP implementation across both startup and institutional environments.

Strategic Advisory Board

Experienced operators, investors, and builders who help us think bigger.

Bela Musits

Strategic Advisor

Bela Musits is a serial entrepreneur, venture investor, and educator with a career spanning corporate research, company founding, fund management, and academic leadership. He spent a decade as a Senior Manager at IBM Research before co-founding Integrated Surgical Systems, a robotic surgical company spun out of IBM Research that went public. He then served as President of Serotta Sports, guiding its turnaround and sale, before co-founding High Peaks Venture Partners in 2003, a seed and early-stage venture fund that grew into Primary Venture Partners with over $100 million under management. He has served on more than a dozen boards, including Vnomics, Apprenda, and the National Ski Patrol, where he served as Chairman. In higher education, he was Dean of the School of Management at Union Graduate College, led the institution's merger with Clarkson University, and held the David D. Reh Professorship in Entrepreneurship Practice. He also taught in the MBA program at Babson College for eight years and served as Director of the Incubator Program at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. He co-hosts two podcasts, one on entrepreneurship and one on sailing.

Evan Schechtman

Strategic Advisor

Evan Schechtman has spent 25+ years solving the same problem in different arenas: taking nascent technology at its current state, projecting its trajectory, and helping organizations place the right bets before the market catches up.

As founder of Outpost Digital, acquired by RadicalMedia, and later CTO of RadicalMedia, he led teams behind Emmy and Grammy-winning projects, including the landmark Taylor Swift American Express Unstaged experience, for clients including Apple, Nike, NASA, and American Express. He went on to serve as SVP and CTO at Madison Square Garden Ventures, where he defined the full technology stack and strategy behind MSG Sphere, with a personal focus on the media systems and screen infrastructure at the heart of the venue.

Following a successful exit from The Cuttlefish in 2023, a company focused on location-based, technology-driven immersive experiences, Evan developed a patent-pending five-sense, real-world immersive experience platform for the hospitality sector, which he sold to a group of private investors in 2025. Since then, he has dedicated himself full-time to AI systems, specifically the development and deployment of local and open models on private compute infrastructure, with work spanning private enterprise and the intelligence community. He currently serves as CTO of Be Sentient.