Wade Luders
Wade has over 20 years of experience with startups and high-tech businesses in the San Francisco Bay Area as a technology consultant, developer, executive, founder, and law enforcement officer. Currently a licensed REALTOR®, Wade is an active real estate investor working with local contractors and service providers to rehabilitate dilapidated homes. Prior to that, Wade ran a franchised senior care agency in San Jose, growing the business from inception to profitability, ultimately expanding to multiple offices within the Bay Area. With a staff of over 90 certified caregivers and three full-time care coordinators, Wade was able to provide best-in-class non-medical homecare services to elderly clients across the Bay Area. Before starting a home care company, Wade was a Special Agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation working on cyber crime and crimes-against-children matters in San Jose. Ultimately promoted to the lead investigator for the San Francisco Division's Innocent Images National Initiative (IINI) at which time Wade was responsible for all aspects of the Division's IINI casework, from budgeting and reporting, case management and investigation, to indictment and prosecution in conjunction with the United States Attorneys' Office. In addition, Wade was a member of the FBI Evidence Response Team that provides specialized crime scene services for sophisticated federal and state investigations. After graduating from the Leavey School of Business at Santa Clara University with a Bachelor of Science degree in Accounting, Wade worked at the accounting firm Deloitte & Touche assisting with onsite audits of Fortune 1000 companies in the Bay Area. He later joined Red Pepper Software, a startup that was quickly purchased by PeopleSoft, where he worked for a number of years as a technology consultant and later, the Director of Professional Development. Using skills learned along the way, Wade attended the Founder Institute, an idea-stage startup accelerator and later founded KinderIQ, a learning program for children getting ready for school and their parents that incorporates hundreds of online skills questions, assessments, puzzles, and resources for kindergarten-aged children. Passionate about startups and new business creation, Wade now invests time and resources to help entrepreneurs succeed.