Meet our Team

Celine Krzan is an innovative educator dedicated to providing students with real and relevant learning experiences. She serves as an adjunct instructor teaching “Introduction to Entrepreneurship” in the Entrepreneurship Lab. Additionally, Krzan is program director and a facilitator for the M&T Bank Minority and Women Emerging Entrepreneur program in the School of Management’s Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership, and director of the BOLD Fellowship Program at UB in collaboration with Network 2020. Beyond the classroom, Krzan works with multiple founders nationwide, helping them to develop marketing and product launch strategies and storytelling techniques. Krzan is driven to help startups tell their stories at scale.

In the community, she has served in board and leadership roles for such events and organizations as Startup Weekend; Western New York Prosperity Alumni Association; Big Brothers Big Sisters of Erie, Niagara and the Southern Tier; Every Person Influences Children; and Second Generation Theatre Company.

Before joining the University at Buffalo, Krzan was a change management and transformation consultant at M&T Bank. She also supported marketing and programming efforts at Launch NY, and led public relations and storytelling for Shea's Performing Arts Center. She holds a BA/BFA from Niagara University and an MBA from the University at Buffalo School of Management.

Ajit Pendse is a seasoned leader with a Fortune 100 executive background and a 25-year record in starting or transforming five technology startups in areas of health care information technology, voice/video communications, ecommerce, IoT and embedded software. An innovator with 13 patents, he has turned concepts into successful tech companies and brought five award-winning and category-defining products to market with his blend of business, product and organizational development skills. He has crafted successful exits for his ventures with more than $250 million in value creation and has raised $75 million in funding.

As founder and CEO of eFusion Inc., Pendse was instrumental in bringing the widely deployed “Click to Call/Click to Chat” products that brought VoIP human interaction to the web. He has managed complex technology development with more than 100 engineers. His ventures have involved global sales and operations in the U.S., U.K., EU, South Korea and India. Previously, as director of strategic alliances at Intel, Pendse led business development, strategic partnerships and customer engagements worldwide. He has a BS in Engineering and an MBA and teaches a course on entrepreneurship to MBA students in the School of Management.