| Maryse Liburdi | |
| Occupation: | Founder & Chief Executive Officer of Pokeware |
Maryse Liburdi (formerly Maryse Thomas) is the former[1] chairman and CEO of Pokeware, a technology company and ad exchange she founded in 1997.[2] [3] In September 2017, she was convicted of fraud for having deceived investors about the financial state of the company.
Liburdi has been an active member of the lobbying organization Technet[4] and has participated in regional events advocating innovation economics. In 2017, it was announced that she was one of the managers of a venture capital fund investing in sub-Saharan Africa tech startups.[5]
Liburdi was arrested in April 2016 in Rome, stemming from US charges[6] accused of investor fraud in the range of $25–30 million.[7] In June 2017, she pled guilty of having defrauded investors by falsifying the company's bank accounts, making Pokeware appear to be in better financial condition than it actually was. Over a million dollars in investor money was spent on Liburdi's personal life.[8] On September 29, 2017, Liburdi was sentenced to 49 months in prison, followed by three years of supervised release, and an order to repay the $7 million and to forfeit another $7 million.