fnGlobal Keynote & Roundtables with Ami Daniel (June 25, 2025)

In this session, we’ll hear from the founder of Windward, a pioneering maritime AI company that uses satellite technology to bring visibility to ocean shipping. From his background as a naval officer to co-founding Windward and achieving a $270M exit, he’ll share key lessons learned throughout his entrepreneurial journey, offering valuable insights into the challenges and strategies that shaped his success.

He’ll discuss how market choice is one of the most important decisions a founder can make, often more impactful than assembling the perfect team. He’ll explain how surrounding yourself with positive, motivated people is essential for company growth, while negativity can hold back progress.

As a hands-on leader with a “fighting to win” mentality, he combines strategic vision with meticulous attention to detail, from reading sales reports daily to speaking directly with engineers and customers. Founder-led marketing was crucial to Windward’s growth, with Ami personally engaging with stakeholders and driving a content strategy that resulted in 13 billion unique views and regular media coverage in outlets like the NYT and WSJ.

Opening Remarks @ 9:30am PT

Join us for opening remarks with Dina Wagner, Head of Member Success at Founders Network, to get the latest updates from the Network and opportunities for getting involved.

Keynote Speaker @ 9:40am PT

Ami Daniel is co-founder and CEO of Windward. In this capacity he has been featured extensively as an expert in shipping and AI at multiple conferences, events, op-eds and interviews including by The Economist, FT, WSJ, Bloomberg and many others. He was recognised as one of the 40 most promising entrepreneurs in Israel twice by Israel’s leading economical newspapers – Globes and The Marker. Under his leadership Windward has been awarded multiple awards including as a finalist in the Boldness in Business Awards by the FT, Red Herring, The Hottest Startup in Israel by Wired and many others. Ami serves on the advisory board of “My Wave” NGO which empowers traumatized or misprinted youth by teaching them to surf.

Before founding Windward, Ami has been one of Israel’s most impactful youth social entrepreneurs, founding a community centre in Haifa when he was 16, as well as another national scale social empowerment program. For these he was given multiple awards including the President’s Award and the Ramon Award (both the most distinguished for youth in Israel).

Ami served as a naval officer (Lieutenant) in the Israeli Navy and he holds an LLB from Tel Aviv University.

Stage-Based Roundtables @ 10:30am PT

Community Partners:

Jeff Erickson

Jeff leads the Partnerships Team at Forecastr — a leading FP&A software company that helps startups create kick-butt financial models to impress investors, confidently raise capital, and effectively run their businesses better.

Jeff serves on the advisory boards of several startup companies and is an active angel investor. He's passionate about startups and enjoys working with founders and mentoring entrepreneurs.

Jeff is an experienced entrepreneur and was the founder and CEO of a successful consumer goods company that he rapidly grew from $1M in sales its first year to over $40M in annual revenue in its fourth year of operations and was ranked #138 on the Inc. 500 list of fastest growing companies.

Prior to founding his own company, Jeff was a partner at Beanstalk Partners where he led the sales and business development activities. He also served as the National Sales Director for a venture-backed tech startup where he generated over $45M in client contracts and developed the company’s channel partner program.

Jeff has a degree in accounting and graduated Magna Cum Laude from the University of Utah. After receiving his MBA in Finance from the University of Utah he served as the Vice President of Investments for Sentry Financial Corporation.

Blake Caldwell

Blake Caldwell is the CEO & Founder of FoundersBoost. He has 350 alumni, 100 new startups a year, 8k newsletter readers. He's driven by his passions to create and build community. He's also the founder of 2332 Collective (music production & festivals with the goal of bringing music to West LA) & The MoGuard (consumer product cup attachment protecting glorious mustaches).

FoundersBoost is a free pre-seed & seed stage mentorship driven pre-accelerator helping promising tech-startups with accelerators, investment, and revenue.

Guests Are Welcome!

Please bring a guest! Every member can bring one (1) guest to each event. Each guest must be a full-time tech startup founder so they can bring new perspectives, skillsets, and experience to your chapter.

All guests must be full-time tech startup founders and you can register them directly on this function page. See How to Register a Guest here.

Confidentiality Policy:

All information shared within Founders Network is strictly confidential. We are built on a foundation of trust, and the community takes confidentiality seriously. Investors, members, and staff all share experiences and opinions off the record. In this roundtable forum, we continue to model our fnValues of Reciprocity, Humility, Authenticity and Inclusivity.