Smush Parker
Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer
Noelani Parker
Co-Founder & Chief Operating Officer
Zaid Marji
Chief Technology Officer
Smush Parker
Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer
Former NBA player with firsthand experience navigating athlete development, visibility, and opportunity across every stage of the basketball ecosystem- from grassroots and AAU through collegiate, professional, and international play. Smush’s career spans the pre-social-media era, providing him with a unique perspective on how talent, reputation, and opportunity were historically fragmented and often lost as athletes transitioned between levels.He brings deep insight into the structural gaps athletes face beyond performance alone, including the absence of continuity, documentation, and professional identity as careers evolve. His lived experience informs Virtus’s core mission: to enhance athlete development and ensure that accomplishments and growth persist beyond a single team, league, or chapter of the game.At Virtus, Smush shapes vision, athlete trust, and ecosystem relevance, ensuring the platform is grounded in genuine athlete needs while positioned to support long-term career growth, both within and beyond basketball.
Noelani Parker
Co-Founder & Chief Operating Officer
Product and operating executive with extensive experience in building and scaling data-driven platforms within regulated, enterprise environments. Noelani has led product strategy, AI initiatives, and platform operations at companies including Amazon, Capgemini, and Atos, translating complex technical systems into user-centric products that enhance athlete development and career growth within the sports ecosystem.
At Amazon Alexa, she was part of the leadership team for Alexa’s Trust & Safety organization, where she pioneered privacy-by-design approaches and responsible AI practices for large-scale conversational systems. Her efforts included overseeing deep learning models that expanded across global customer bases while adhering to strict standards for safety, governance, and user trust. She collaborated closely with legal, compliance, and engineering leaders to ensure the operationalization of AI is responsible and scalable.
At Virtus, Noelani manages product strategy and day-to-day operations, ensuring the platform is built with responsibility, scales effectively, and is well-positioned to support athletes, coaches, and institutions with clarity, compliance, and long-term resilience. She holds a BA & MBA from New York University.
Zaid Marji
Chief Technology Officer
Zaid is a technology leader and systems architect with over 20 years of experience in building and scaling data-driven platforms within enterprise and high-growth environments. His expertise spans senior technology and architecture roles at notable organizations such as Amazon, Moody’s, and Alter Domus, where he managed large-scale systems operating in complex, regulated, and data-intensive domains that are crucial for athlete development and career growth within the sports ecosystem.
He has successfully led the development of products that have generated over $100M in revenue and is the founder of LoomLab.io, a venture studio dedicated to creating AI-native products and intelligent software platforms. Zaid specializes in designing resilient, scalable architectures that support long-term growth and enable teams to adopt AI with clarity, steering clear of unnecessary hype.
At Virtus, Zaid leads platform architecture and technical strategy, ensuring the system can scale effectively across sports, users, and data types. His focus encompasses security, cost-efficient infrastructure, and laying the groundwork for future AI-driven capabilities, including predictive analytics and talent intelligence. He holds a BS in Computer Science from SUNY Polytechnic Institute.
Customer Testimonials- Virtus is Trusted by Elite Player Development Coaches
James Hunt
Founder — Purpose Driven Training, Los Angeles
Trainer to 5 NBA players & Coach to Division I athletes
https://www.purposedriventraining.com
"In my career I’ve trained athletes who earned Division I scholarships, secured NIL deals in high school, and reached the NBA. The biggest challenge for most players isn’t talent — it’s access and visibility. Virtus is building a platform that can fundamentally change how athletes are discovered, developed, and connected to opportunity."
![[background image] professional setting (for a digital marketing & advertising agency)](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/69a7b8bcaaa4ae1799cd0681/69a7bb2eec960314640524b8_46a626c5-c48c-4212-8cb0-c002675c0f32.avif)
