The Doing it Right program speakers lend their time and expertise so that the Astia entrepreneurs might cultivate invaluable relationships and enhance their company's ability to attract funding.
Keynote Speakers:
Shellye Archambeau, MetricStream
Bill Campbell, Intuit
Panelists, Facilitators and Moderators:
Brent Ahrens, Canaan Partners
Stewart Alsop, Alsop Louie
Sam Angus, Fenwick & West
Narinder Banait, Fenwick & West
John Bashkin, Triple Ring Technologies
Brooks Beard, Morrison Foerster
Amy Belt, ATV Capital
Robert Bettigole, Elm Street Ventures
Amy Boggs
Kathryn Bowsher, Act One Marketing
Debra Brackeen, Hewlett-Packard
Patty Burke, Bell Mason Group
Kathryn Cavanaugh, De Novo Ventures
Janice Chaffin, Symantec
Arlene Chan, Moss Adams
Connie Chen, Cisco
John China, Silicon Valley Financial Group
Joyce Chung, Garage Technology Ventures
Rosemary Coates, Blue Silk Consulting
Andrea Cohen, Morrison & Foerster
Donna Collins, Aravasc
Walter Conroy, Morrison & Foerster
Kathy Conte, Hercules Capital
Robert Dellenbach, Reed Smith
Chuck Devita, Growth Process Group
Derek Dowsett, Moss Adams
Deb Doyle, Stage 2 Marketing
Lara Druyan, Allegis Capital
Bob Dunkle, PlexPress
Christina Ellwood, Moreland Associates
Brian Evje
Monique Farantzos, doubleTwist
Wilson Farrar, ASK Silicon Valley
Shauna Farr-Jones
Jenny Fielding
Nancy Floyd, Nth Power
Stephanie Fohn, White Hat Security
Cynthia Francis, Reality Digital
Toby Freedman, Synapsis Search
Ooshma Garg, Anapata, Inc.
Heather Gates Massoudi, Deloitte
Angela Gillespie, Weisscomm Partners
Bhaskar Gorti, Oracle
Simon Greenwood, Genentech
Paula Groves, 4Front Partners
Rob Guthrie, Export Import Bank of the US
Tim Haggerty, Taku Group
Peter Heinecke, Xalud Therapuetics
Gloria Hofler, Corning, Inc.
Barry Hotchkies, eCFOs
Andy James, Osborne Clarke
Matt Jones, Nth Power
Tarun Kalra, Battery Ventures
Jeff Karras, Levensohn Venture Partners
Margaret H. Kavalaris, Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal
Lisa Kenkel, Fenwick & West
Matt Kirmayer, Mintz Levin Cohen
Renee Knee, Gap Inc
Tom Kosnik, Stanford Technology Ventures Program
Sue Kunz, BioVantage Resources
Dan'l Lewin, Microsoft
Bret Logue, Wellford Energy Advisors
Kelsey B. Lynn, Firelake Capital
Susan MacCormac, Morrison & Foerster
Jason Mandell, LaunchSquad
Heidi Mason, Bell Mason Group
Linda McAllister
Jennifer McFarlane, CleanSource Power
Margi McLoughlin, Pfizer
Sonia Medina, EcoSecurities
Micheal Melnick, CMEA Capital
Tamara Mendelsohn, EventBrite
Marten Mickos, Benchmark Capital
Jo Anne Miller, Milk Street Ventures
Nancy Mize
Helen Moore, UKTI
Lee Ng, Siemens
Gabie Noack,
Eghosa Omoigui, Intel Capital
Karran O'Neal, Moss Adams
Cindy Padnos, Illuminate Ventures
Bhairavi Parikh, Apieron
Susan Petty, AltaRock Energy
Nancy Pfund, DBL Investors
Kim Polese, SpikeSource
Sue Preston, Clean Energy Angel Fund
Prakash Ramachandran, Nordic Windpower
Geetha Rao, Springborne Life Sciences
Amanda Reed, Palomar Ventures
Donald Reinke, Reed Smith
Cynthia Ringo, DBL Investors
Tom Rodgers, ATV Capital
Sue Rowinski, Sue Rowinski Group
Dan Sapp, Dan Sapp & Associates
Tessa Schwartz, Morrison Foerster
Mike Selfridge, Silicon Valley Bank
Prashant Shah, Hummer Winblad Venture Partners
Lori Sherer
Carl Showalter, Opus Capital
JC Simbana, Silicon Valley Bank
Rich Simoni, Asset Management
William Sloan, Morrison Foerster
Laura Smoliar, PepperTree Engineering
& Astia
Judith Stant, Alveolus, Inc.
Mark Stevens, Fenwick & West
Barbara Tallent, LiveBinders
Nandini Tandon, Lumira Capital
Shanna Tellerman, Sim Ops Studios
Rob Theis, Scale Venture Partners
Kathleen Toland
Rob Trice, SK Telecom Ventures
Lynda Twomey, Fenwick & West
Sharon Vosmek, Astia
Ted Wang, Fenwick & West
Joy Weiss, Dust Networks
Kimberly Weisul, Business Week
Andrew Williamson, Physic Ventures
Stephen Wilson, Osborne Clarke
Marianne Wu, Mohr Davidow Ventures
Jennifer Zeszut, Scout Labs
Teddy Zmrhal, Presidio Graduate School
Keynote Bios:
Shellye Archambeau, CEO, MetricStream
As the CEO of MetricStream, a Silicon Valley-based, governance, risk, compliance and quality Software Company that enables corporations to comply with rules, regulations and mandates such as Enterprise Risk Management and Sarbanes-Oxley, Ms. Archambeau has grown the company into a global market leader. MetricStream has been recognized for growth and innovation over the years and was recently named in the top 10 of the “Deloitte Technology Fast 50”. In 2008 and 2009 MetricStream was named a global leader in Governance, Risk and Compliance by Forrester Research and Gartner.
Ms. Archambeau has over 25 years of experience in technology leading organizations focused on business to business as well as business to consumer. She is a recognized expert in marketing and co-authored, Marketing That Works: How Entrepreneurial Marketing Can Add Sustainable Profits to Any Sized Company. She has held Chief Marketing Officer roles for two public companies and as President of Blockbuster.com, launched the entertainment retailer’s online presence.
Ms. Archambeau is a leader in both business and the community. As a member of the board of directors for the Silicon Valley Leadership Group, an organization focused on fostering a cooperative effort between business and government officials to address major public policy issues affecting Silicon Valley, Ms. Archambeau has led initiatives and Washington, DC delegations to address regulatory compliance and improve governance regulations. She was recognized for her efforts with the President’s Award in 2008.
In addition to being recognized as one of the Top Women of Influence in Silicon Valley in 2008, she was named one of the top 50 African Americans in IT in 2009. She serves on the boards of: Arbitron [NYSE:ARB], a media ratings company, the Forum for Women Entrepreneurs and Executives and the IT Senior Management Forum, a non-profit focused on building the pipeline of African Americans in IT. In 2010 she was awarded their President’s award for her impact on the organization’s mission.
Ms. Archambeau is also a sought after speaker on governance, risk and compliance as well as marketing and entrepreneurship. She guest lectures at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business and The Wharton School of Business. She has been featured or referenced in major publications such as The Wall Street Journal, Business Week, USAToday, San Jose Mercury News and The San Francisco Chronicle.
Bill Campbell, Chairman of the Board, Intuit
Bill Campbell assumed his role as chairman of the board of directors in August 1998. He previously served as Intuit’s president and chief executive officer from 1994 to 1998 and as chief executive officer from September 1999 until January 2000. During Campbell’s tenure, Intuit solidified its position as the clear leader in tax, personal finance and small business accounting software. During that time, the company also invented a new class of Web-based finance businesses delivered through Quicken.com, Intuit's Web site.
For the three years before joining Intuit, Campbell was the president and chief executive officer of GO Corp., a pen-based computing software company. Previously, he founded and served as president and chief executive officer of Claris Corp., which was purchased by Apple Computer Inc. in 1990.
Before starting Claris, Campbell was Apple's executive vice president, group executive of the United States. He joined Apple in July 1983 as vice president of marketing and added the title of vice president of sales in January 1984. In September 1984, his duties were expanded to include distribution, service and support when he was promoted to executive vice president. In June 1985, Campbell was named group executive of the United States and has served on its board of directors since August 1997.
Campbell joined Apple from Eastman Kodak Co. where his last assignment was general manager of consumer products for Kodak Europe. Prior to joining Kodak, he was vice president of J. Walter Thompson, a New York-based advertising agency. Before entering the technology industry, Campbell was the head football coach at Columbia University for six years, and has been chairman of the university's Board of Trustees since 2005. He is also a director of the National Football Foundation and Hall of Fame.
Campbell holds a bachelor’s degree in economics and a master’s degree from Columbia University.
Panelists, Facilitators and Moderator Bios:
Brent Ahrens is passionate about investing in cutting edge medical technologies, diagnostics and therapeutic treatments. Since joining Canaan in 1999, Brent has led successful investments in novel medical companies such as Cerexa (FRX), one of the largest private biotech M&As in history; DexCom (DXCM), the largest diagnostic IPO of 2005; Peninsula Pharmaceuticals (JNJ), acquired by a Johnson & Johnson subsidiary; and Revivant (ZOLL), a cutting edge medical device company acquired by ZOLL.
Prior to joining Canaan, Brent honed his operational and investing skills at a variety of top tier companies, including General Surgical Innovations, Ethicon Endo-Surgery, a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson, and IAP Research, a developer of technologies for defense and industrial applications. During his career, Brent diversified his healthcare experience, working in a variety of sales, marketing, business development and technical roles. His technical expertise as a professional engineer with several patents to his credit is also an invaluable asset to Canaan’s innovation-driven portfolio companies.
Brent currently sits on the boards of Calixa Therapeutics, Coapt Systems, a revolutionary “soft tissue fixation technology” that enables surgeons to reliably place and shape soft tissue without sutures, pins, or screws during a variety of orthopedic, plastic and reconstructive procedures; CoAxia, a pioneering device company focused on acute stroke treatment; Novare Surgical Systems, maker of RealHand technology, which represents an entirely new category of High Dexterity (HD) instruments for minimally invasive surgery and is first full range of motion hand-held laparoscopic instruments; Pavad Medical, the first device company to develop system-based approach for the treatment of sleep apnea; Relievant Medsystems, maker of minimally invasive devices to relieve chronic back pain; and Transoma Medical, a pioneer and the world’s largest supplier of implantable wireless sensors for medical research.
Brent earned an MBA from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College and a BS and MS in mechanical engineering from the University of Dayton. In 2007, Brent was included on the Forbes Midas List, a prominent list ranking the best dealmakers in technology and life sciences. He is also an alumnus of the prestigious Kauffman Fellows Program, an educational program designed to identify, develop and network future leaders of the global venture capital industry. An avid runner, Brent can also be found tinkering on home carpentry projects when time permits.
Stewart Alsop is partner of Alsop Louie Partners, a venture capital fund focused on helping technology entrepreneurs start companies. He was a general partner with New Enterprise Associates through 2004 and lead that firm’s investments in companies such as TiVo (TIVO), Portola Communications (sold to Netscape), Glu Mobile (GLUU), and Xfire (sold to Viacom). During that time, he also wrote a column for Fortune. Prior to NEA, Alsop was Editor in Chief of InfoWorld, a weekly newspaper for information-technology professionals. He also published PC Letter, a fortnightly newsletter for computer industry insiders, and produced the Agenda and Demo conferences for executives of companies in the computer industry. Before 1985, he served in several executive editorial positions at business and trade magazines, including Inc. magazine. Alsop graduated from Occidental College in Los Angeles.
Samuel B. Angus is a partner in the Corporate and Venture Capital Group of Fenwick & West LLP, a law firm specializing in technology and life sciences matters. Mr. Angus is resident in the San Francisco office and his practice concentrates on the formation of start-up companies, venture capital and debt financings, mergers and acquisitions, intellectual property licensing, joint ventures and general corporate matters.
Mr. Angus represents a broad range of companies from privately held start-up companies to publicly traded corporations. His practice also includes advising entrepreneurs and investors.
Mr. Angus served as counsel for In-System Design, Inc. in connection with its acquisition by Cypress Semiconductor Corporation. He also counseled Naxon Corporation (Wineshopper.com) on its acquisition of Wine.com, Inc., Micro Focus Group on its $500 million merger with Intersolv, Inc., Junglee Corp. on its $300 million acquisition by Amazon.com, Inc., and Blue Lava Wireless on its $140 million acquisition by JAMDAT Mobile.
Mr. Angus received a Bachelor of Arts degree in law and society from the University of California at Santa Barbara. He received a J. D. from University of California Hastings College of the Law in 1993. At Hastings, he was the Executive Articles Editor for the Hastings International and Comparative Law Review. Mr. Angus is a member of The Bar Association of San Francisco, the State Bar of California and the American Bar Association. Prior to joining Fenwick & West, Mr. Angus practiced commercial lending law at Lillick & Charles. Prior to becoming a lawyer, Mr. Angus was a founder and the chief executive officer of Design Look Publications, Inc., a publisher of fine art calendars and other published gift products.
Mr. Angus sits on the advisory board of the Lester Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation at the University of California, Berkeley. He also frequently lectures at the Haas School of Business and the Stanford Technology Ventures Program.
Narinder S. Banait is a partner in the Intellectual Property Group of Fenwick & West LLP, a law firm specializing in technology and life sciences matters. Dr. Banait has legal, and technical experience representing companies in pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and high technology areas that include pharmaceuticals, polymer based inks, photomasks, nanotechnology, chip manufacture, microfluidics, microarray, and genomics. Dr. Banait has published over a dozen scientific papers in peer reviewed journals. In addition, he has written and prosecuted patent applications related to polymers, peptides, carbon nanotubes, photochemistry, chemical processes and method of manufacture, small molecule and oligonucleotide drug candidates for the treatment of CNS disorders, telomerase inhibitors, treatment for cancer and osteoporosis, and applications on synthetic methods.
Dr. Banait received his undergraduate education at University of Toronto, graduating with a B.S. in chemistry and biochemistry. He received a M.S. in synthetic chemistry and a Ph.D. in organic chemistry, both from the University of Toronto. Dr. Banait was a Post-doctoral fellow at Brandeis University, and at University of California. In addition, he worked as a research scientist at Syntex Research, a pharmaceutical company that was acquired by Roche, where he primarily focused on 5-HT3 antagonists for the treatment of emesis and anxiety disorders. He received his J.D. from the Santa Clara University in 1997.
Dr. Banait is a member of the State Bar of California and is registered to practice before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
Dr. Bashkin is currently a business development consultant to life science and medical device companies. He has held senior business development positions at SRI International and, most recently, at Artificial Muscle, Inc. While at SRI for seven years, Dr. Bashkin headed up business development efforts for life science and medical device technologies from across the institute as well as led his own NIH-funded research programs and served on the IP Committee for the Institute. At Artificial Muscle, he was responsible for all corporate contract matters as well as business development for the medical industry. Prior to joining SRI, Dr. Bashkin was a senior researcher at Molecular Dynamics and Amersham, where he led the development of the first high-throughput DNA sequencing system. He received his B.S. in Chemistry and Physics from the University of Arizona, his Ph.D. in Chemistry from Indiana University, and held post-doc positions at the University of Rochester and Johns Hopkins University. In 2000, he received his MBA from Santa Clara University, and he is a co-inventor on five issued U.S. patents.
Brooks Beard has a trial and appellate litigation practice focusing on complex commercial matters. He represents clients in state and federal court, as well as before state and federal administrative agencies, in connection with matters involving false or deceptive advertising, patent infringement, trade secrets, CERCLA/Superfund, California’s Proposition 65, and constitutional conflict preemption. His clients have come from a wide gamut of industries, including mining, consumer products, Internet, technology, pharmaceuticals, financial, consumer retail, food products, and restaurants.
In addition, Mr. Beard sits on the Steering Committee for Morrison & Foerster’s Cleantech Practice Group. In this rapidly evolving area, he is currently providing counseling and litigation advice on issues surrounding false or deceptive advertising allegations relating to environmental or “green” claims made by companies in connection with consumer products and services. He is also involved with patent infringement matters relating to Cleantech companies and subject matter. In addition to the Cleantech Practice Group, Mr. Beard is part of Morrison & Foerster’s Trial Practice Group, IP Litigation Practice Group, and e-Discovery Task Force. Mr. Beard has also been active in Morrison & Foerster’s pro bono program, having successfully represented inmates in prisoner civil rights actions; a single, non-resident mother in a retaliatory lawsuit brought by a former employer; and a middle school student in a school expulsion proceeding.
Mr. Beard is also active in the San Francisco community. In October 2007, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom appointed Mr. Beard to serve as a commissioner on the San Francisco Rent Stabilization and Arbitration Board. He was sworn in as a commissioner in January 2008.
Mr. Beard was born in Long Beach, California, in 1968. He received his B.A. from the University of California at Santa Barbara in 1991, his J.D., cum laude, from Vermont Law School in 1995, and his LL.M., with distinction, from the Georgetown University Law Center in 1996. While in Vermont, he served as a judicial intern to Justice John A. Dooley of the Vermont Supreme Court. He is a member of the California and District of Columbia bars, and is admitted to practice before the Northern, Eastern, and Central Districts of California; the Eighth, Ninth, and Eleventh Circuit U.S. Courts of Appeals; and the Supreme Court of the United States.
Amy Belt, ATV Investor, ATV Capital
Amy joined ATV's healthcare practice in 2006 where she focuses on investments in the medical device sector in the firm's Palo Alto, CA office.
Prior to joining ATV, Amy was at Guidant Corporation (later Abbott Vascular) leading the international launch of the Xience drug eluting stent. The launch marked the company’s entrance into the $5 billion worldwide DES market. Amy has launched and managed product in the US, Europe and Asia working closely with clinical, regulatory, manufacturing, R&D, and sales. In addition, Amy spent time in Bristol-Myers Squibb's international group working on several cardiovascular and neuroscience projects. She began her career as a Management Consultant for APM/CSC Healthcare where she worked on projects with almost 40 hospitals across the US and Canada.
Amy holds an M.B.A from the Walter Haas School of Business at the University of California at Berkeley and a B.A. from Yale University. She is also a Kauffman Fellow.
Rob is the founder and Managing Partner of Elm Street Ventures. Mr. Bettigole has broad experience as an entrepreneur and as a venture capitalist. His venture capital experience was gained as a partner at Rothschild Inc. and Investor AB, where his investments included Maxim Integrated Products, Gensia Pharmaceuticals, and Microgenics Corporation. Subsequently, he helped found Surety Technologies, Inc., a spin out from Bellcore, and Alexion (NASDAQ: ALXN), with researchers from the Yale Medical School. Before founding Elm Street, Mr. Bettigole was president of Exodermic Bridge, Deck, Inc., which developed and marketed a product for the bridge and highway industry. Mr. Bettigole sold EBDI to DS Brown Company in 2003.
Mr. Bettigole has a BS in Engineering & Applied Science from Yale University and an MPPM from the Yale School of Management, where he is an Entrepreneur-in-Residence. He is a Licensed Professional Engineer and holds several U.S. and foreign patents. Rob sits on the boards of Elm Street Ventures’ portfolio companies Retail Optimization, Inc., Samara Innovations, and ShareGrove, Inc., and is Elm Street’s board observer at BioRelix and Affomix Corporation.
Amy Boggs, Ph.D.
Dr. Boggs is an independent consultant with more than ten years experience in anti-infective drug discovery and development. In addition to grant-writing, she provides companies with help in the preparation of technical reports, INDs and NDAs, technology assessment, strategic research planning, and competitive landscaping. Prior to her work as a consultant, Dr. Boggs worked at Microcide and at IntraBiotics, where she managed an interdisciplinary technology in-licensing team that resulted in three screening technology partnerships and two product in-licenses. Dr. Boggs is an inventor on three issued patents and has worked on investigational new drug (IND)-enabling projects. Dr. Boggs received her Bachelor’s degree with high honors in Biochemistry from the University of California at Berkeley. She completed her Ph.D. in Pharmaceutical Chemistry at the University of California at San Francisco under Dr. David Agard, with a dissertation on protein structure-function, folding, and extracellular secretion.
Kathryn Bowsher
Kathryn M. Bowsher, the Founder and CEO of Act One Marketing, is a seasoned strategic marketing executive with a specialty in bringing new products to market. She has over 20 years of experience and a proven track record of bottom line results in both large and small companies. Ms. Bowsher's extensive background in moving new products from idea through launch includes launching 7 products and working with over 25 development teams. Principal services included New Product Opportunity Assessment, Commercialization Strategies for development stage products, and Corporate/Clinical Business Planning.
Prior to founding Act One Marketing, Kathryn was VP of Marketing at Somnus Medical Technologies and has directed global marketing and product development strategy for a $725 million drug line at Baxter International. Other clients and employers have included Goldman Sachs & Co., BiPar Sciences, Raptor Pharmaceutical, Alza, Corus Pharma and PhotoThera. Act One Marketing partners with Healogix, LLC and Pacific BioDevelopment to offer life science companies a more comprehensive range of services. Ms. Bowsher holds an MBA from Stanford and an AB from Princeton.
Debra Brackeen, Vice President Strategic Alliances, Hewlett-Packard
HP is the world’s largest information technology company at #9 on the Fortune 500. The company’s offerings span IT infrastructure, global services, business and consumer computing, and imaging and printing. HP has 321,000 employees and does business in more than 170 countries. Fiscal 2008 net revenue was $118.4 billion USD.
Debbie Brackeen is Vice President, Strategic Alliances within HP's Office of Strategy & Technology; she leads HP’s worldwide relationship with Adobe. Debbie is responsible for developing and executing a company-wide strategy to maximize the HP-Adobe partnership potential as measured by growth, profitability and innovation. Previous roles at HP include more than 3 years leading the Corporate Ventures group, and leading HP’s global alliance with Nokia.
Debbie is a versatile technology executive with 20 years’ experience at leading companies in Silicon Valley including Apple, Sun, Cadence and eBay. She has founded new ventures within large companies and has held executive roles in 2 VC-backed software startups. Debbie’s primary areas of expertise include strategic planning, new business development, strategic partnering and collaboration, and building and leading high performance teams.
Debbie graduated from Stanford University with a BA in American Studies.
Patty Burke is a veteran Silicon Valley marketing executive and a recognized expert in go-to-market strategy development and implementation, consulting to business-to-consumer and business-to-business companies, across a wide range of industries and geographies.
Patty has been with the Bell Mason Group for more than 3 years, working with multinational corporate clients on venture and innovation development. Patty previously held executive positions with Silicon Valley software and networking companies for more than fifteen years, leading product marketing, sales/channel and business development, corporate branding and lead generation programs. As the first VP Marketing at start-up Ramp Networks, she was responsible for marketing and sales strategies as a foundation for Ramp’s IPO and later acquisition by Nokia).
Previously, Patty was VP Marketing for Madge Networks, a UK-based network equipment company, leading a worldwide team responsible for corporate, channel marketing and sales support. Prior to that Patty was VP Marketing at security software leader Symantec, managing all aspects of corporate, product, channel and promotional marketing. She also led the Networking and Telecom Practice at the technology marketing consulting firm Regis McKenna Inc. (RMI) and held positions in consumer and sports marketing in her early career. Patty is a frequent industry speaker on topics ranging from corporate positioning to product planning and launch and serves on the advisory board of several privately-held companies.
Kathryn joined De Novo Ventures in September 2005. Prior to De Novo, Kathryn worked for Merck & Co., Inc from 1997-2003 in the US, Europe and Asia. Her experience includes process engineering, equipment and automation design, procurement, process validation, plant construction and operations. At Merck, she played a key role in the design, construction, commissioning and start up of a $400 MM grassroots bulk chemical manufacturing facility in Singapore, Merck’s first new site in 40 years. On this project, Kathryn led the design of $30 MM of large scale automated manufacturing equipment from inception through start-up production, while stationed in England and Singapore for five years. In this role, she oversaw several multinational cross-functional teams to expedite project issues, resulting in the successful on-time start-up of the Singapore facility.
In addition, Kathryn worked at Genentech in strategic planning and operations strategy. Working closely with Marketing, Finance, R&D and Manufacturing, she performed capacity planning for E.coli product pipelines and identified potential spin-out candidates in light of operational, regulatory and investment risks.
Kathryn is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame with Bachelor of Science degrees in Chemical Engineering and Biochemistry. She holds an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.
Kathryn is actively involved with a variety of portfolio companies, including Axogen, Sierra Surgical and WaveTec Vision Systems.
Janice Chaffin, Group President, Consumer Business Unit, Symantec
Janice Chaffin is group president of Symantec’s Consumer Business Unit (CBU), which includes Symantec’s Norton brand, the world’s security market share leader for consumer software and services. In this role she leads engineering, sales, marketing, strategy, business development, support, and services worldwide for the consumer group. In FY ’09 the CBU grew to become a $1.8 billion business.
Under Chaffin’s leadership, the CBU developed and launched Norton’s 2009 products, which have won more than 130 awards and are the fastest, lightest consumer security products in the industry. She has also led an effort to expand the consumer portfolio, both through acquisition and internal development, to drive more customer value in areas such as online backup, consumer PC services and software utilities.
Providing the best possible customer experience is a cornerstone of Chaffin’s leadership. During her tenure, Norton customer satisfaction and loyalty has reached record levels. For two years running, Symantec has received a STAR Award for its outstanding support from the Service and Support Professionals Association.
Most recently, Chaffin served as Symantec’s chief marketing officer. As Symantec’s first CMO, Chaffin built a global marketing operation, which was named as a leader in the 2006 IDC Marketing Performance Matrix.
Prior to Symantec, Chaffin spent 21 years at Hewlett-Packard in general management and marketing leadership roles. She has been publicly recognized for her career accomplishments and community involvement, including being named to Women 3.0 Magazine’s “Top 100 Women in Corporate America.” Chaffin is a member of the Dean’s Advisory Council for the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science. She is the President of the Saratoga-Los Gatos Chapter of National Charity League, Inc.
Chaffin graduated summa cum laude from the University of California, San Diego. She earned a master’s degree in business administration from the University of California, Los Angeles.
Arlene Chan is a member of the Technology & Life Science practice group.She has 15 years of public accounting experience with a Big 4 firm, 16 years total experience. She has an extensive focus on technology and life science companies ranging from early stage start-ups to multi-national entities, both public and private. Her areas of expertise include revenue recognition, complex equity and debt transactions, stock-based compensation, private placements, initial and subsequent public stock offerings, SOX 404 internal controls reporting and SEC reporting and compliance matters
She received her B.A. in Political Economy of Industrial Societies with a minor in Business Administration from the University of California, Berkeley.
She is a member of both the American Institute of CPAs and the California Society of CPAs.
Connie Chen, Cisco
Ms Chen is Senior Corporate Counsel at Cisco and is part of a two-person in-house legal team supporting Cisco’s acquisition and investment activities worldwide. Based in San Jose, she is responsible for legal, regulatory and contractual issues in transactions undertaken by Cisco’s Corporate Development investment professionals located in six countries.
Prior to her current role, Ms Chen provided IP licensing support to several Cisco business units and counseled the sales and services organizations in Western Europe for the mobile vertical.
Ms Chen joined Cisco in April of 2001, and has worked in both the San Jose and London offices of Cisco. Before Cisco, she was an associate in the Los Angeles office of the international law firm Latham & Watkins, specializing in technology, corporate finance and mergers & acquisitions. Ms Chen obtained her law degree from Harvard Law School and an undergraduate degree from Princeton University.
John China is head of SVB Capital’s Venture Capital Group where he oversees the company’s network of relationships with venture capital and private equity firms. China has more than 14 years of banking experience working with entrepreneurs and venture capital and private equity firms. Currently, he leads a team that leverages the SVB Financial Group platform of products and services including commercial banking, private banking, funds, global markets as well as valuations and corporate equity management tracking.
Before joining SVB Capital, China held several leadership positions at Silicon Valley Bank including head of sales for the Western Division and opening offices in Santa Barbara, Calif. and New York, New York. He has also served as managing director and national sales manager for SVB Asset Management and SVB Securities, non-bank affiliates of SVB Financial Group.
China holds a bachelor’s degree in industrial engineering from Stanford University. He is currently a board member of ASTIA, and previously served on the advisory board for the Executive Roundtable of New York City.
Ms. Coates is the President of Blue Silk Consulting. Prior to Blue Silk Consulting, she was a Senior Director at SAP, the Supply Chain Practice Leader at KPMG Peat Marwick and at Answerthink, and a Regional Manager at Hewlett-Packard.
Ms. Coates is a Licensed United States Customs Broker. She is a Lifetime Credentialed Instructor, California Colleges and Universities. She taught Management, International Business and Importing and Exporting for 10 years.
Ms. Coates earned an MBA in Finance and Operations Management from the University of San Diego and a Bachelor of Science Degree in Logistics from Arizona State University.
She has extensive knowledge and experience in manufacturing and outsourcing in China. She has authored a new book: 42 Rules for Sourcing and Manufacturing in China. (Available at Amazon.com November, 2009)
Andrea Cohen represents investors in and managers of private equity funds, venture capital funds, funds of funds, leveraged buyout funds, real estate funds, debt funds, and emerging growth companies in all facets of business. Her practice emphasizes the formation, organization, and operation of limited partnerships, limited liability companies, and corporations.
Further, Ms. Cohen represents start-up and venture capital-backed companies in general business, corporate, and securities law matters, including venture capital and other private financings. Ms. Cohen’s practice has a strong emphasis in the sustainability and related life sciences sectors.
Ms. Cohen has advised companies in the clean energy and sustainability sectors for many years, in areas ranging from green chemistry to second- and third- generation biofuels, efficiency technology, and challenges arising as early stage technologies struggle to scale. She is a frequent speaker and moderator at Cleantech events, including, most recently, BayBio and the Los Angeles Venture Association. Ms. Cohen is further engaged in bi-directional efforts to address carbon-related issues in China.
Ms. Cohen is a member of San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom’s Cleantech Advisory Council. Ms. Cohen was commended by clients as “a well-prepared and commercially sophisticated lawyer” in the 2008 Chambers USA: Guide to America’s Leading Lawyers for Business. She ranks nationally in the Investment Funds: Venture Capital (Band 2) category of Chambers.
Ms. Cohen received her J.D. from Northeastern University School of Law, and her M.B.A. from Northeastern University Graduate School of Business Administration, where she was elected to Beta Gamma Sigma. Ms. Cohen received her B.A. from Boston University with a major in philosophy, graduating cum laude.
Ms. Cohen is an active participant on the advisory board of Astia, an organization whose mission is to foster the full participation and leadership of women in entrepreneurship and as accelerators of high-growth businesses. She is also a director of the BayBio Institute, a non profit 501(c)(3) charitable organization that has been operating continuously in Northern California since 1990. The BayBio Institute serves the life science community in the region primarily through best practice dialogues, entrepreneurship, workforce training, and science education. She is also a member of the National Association of Pension Plan Attorneys (NAPPA).
Donna Collins, COO, Aravasc
Coming soon
Joyce Chung has over 10 years of operating experience in technology companies and 10 years of venture capital investing experience. She is a Managing Director at Garage Technology Ventures, a seed and early stage fund focused on emerging technologies. Prior to Garage, she was a founding partner of Cardinal Venture Capital, a $125 million early stage venture fund. At Cardinal, Joyce was responsible for investments in Chipcon (acquired by Texas Instruments), Mobilygen, Valista, and Zilliant. She continues to co-manage the current Cardinal portfolio.
Prior to forming Cardinal Venture Capital, Joyce managed venture investments for Adobe Ventures. Her portfolio companies included Vignette (Nasdaq: VIGN), DigitalThink, Digimarc (Nasdaq: DMRC), and Virage. Joyce also held operating roles at Adobe Systems, Sony Corporation, and Cambridge Technology Group.
Joyce received an S.B. in Chemical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an M.B.A. from Stanford University Graduate School of Business. Joyce is active at the Stanford Center for Entrepreneurial Studies and is on the board of the Association of MIT Alumnae (AMITA), Chair of the Northern California chapter of AMITA and Member of the Executive Council of Astia.
Mr. Conroy is a partner in the firm’s Corporate Finance Group and a co-chair of the firmwide Mergers & Acquisitions Group. Mr. Conroy’s practice includes a broad range of corporate and securities transactions focusing on U.S. and international mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, strategic alliances, and public and private securities offerings. His experience includes transactions in industries including, software; investment banking; Cleantech; print, film and digital media; telecommunications; electronics; consumer products; foodstuffs; wineries and many other industries. He has represented both issuers and underwriters in public offerings and private placements of equity and debt. Mr. Conroy has represented several investment banks acting as financial advisor in M&A transactions.
Mr. Conroy is co-author of “Managing the Deal in 2008: The Developing Role of Proxy Advisory Services” (Deal Drivers Half Year 2008 Data), “Some Lessons from 2007: The Year of the MAC” (Deal Drivers Full Year 2007 Data) and “Acquiring or Selling a Controlled Company in the U.S.” (Global Counsel M&A Handbook, 2005-2006). He is a member of the Business and Intellectual Property sections of the California Bar Association.
Mr. Conroy joined Morrison & Foerster in 1999, and worked in the firm’s New York office before moving to the San Francisco office in September 2000.
Mr. Conroy received his A.B. from Cornell University in 1989 and his J.D. from Fordham Law School in 1996, where he was an associate editor of the Fordham Law Review. Mr. Conroy is admitted to practice in California and New York.
Kathy Conte, Managing Director of Life SciencesHercules Capital
Kathleen Conte joined the company as a Managing Director of Life Sciences in November 2004. From December 2003 to November 2004, she worked as an independent consultant. From 1993 to December 2003, she served as Senior Vice President at Comerica Bank running its West Coast Life Sciences Group. Ms. Conte was at Prudential Capital Corporation from 1987 to 1993 originating structured private placements. Prior to that she spent 13 years at Wells Fargo Bank in various lending positions. Ms. Conte holds a B.A. degree and an M.B.A. from the University of Delaware.
Rob’s practice focuses on high-growth companies, their financing and their strategic, complex and cross-border transactions. He has more than 20 years of experience working with technology, life science, energy and clean tech, online media and hosted services, and other high-growth companies in Silicon Valley and worldwide. Over the course of his career, Rob has led teams that have advised clients on hundreds of venture capital and private equity financings, mergers, acquisitions, public offerings and strategic intellectual property transactions aggregating several billion dollars in value. Rob serves as general counsel and trusted advisor to many of his clients. He’s particularly skilled in business planning and has written and advised on many of his clients’ business plans, private placement memorandums and prospectuses. Rob speaks frequently on business planning, venture capital finance and acquisition strategies.
Rob devotes many hours to pro bono representation and promotion of diversity in entrepreneurship and in the legal community. Among other activities, Rob supports Astia, the international nonprofit organization promoting women as entrepreneurs and leaders of high-growth businesses; the Climate Protection Campaign, a nonprofit organization dedicated to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and our carbon footprint; and a private foundation that promotes education and support for women-led businesses in West Africa. Rob also serves as an advisor and guest lecturer at the Lester Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley.
Chuck DeVita founded and leads Growth Process Group, a strategic sales
out-source and consulting firm that helps enterprise solution providers enter markets and improve sales productivity, pipeline health, revenue growth and profitability.
He has over thirty years experience in Sales and Marketing management. He has developed regional and worldwide sales forces and has extensive international background. His experience spans a range of business solutions including: infrastructure, CRM, business intelligence, security, manufacturing software, supply chain, EDA, software development, energy technology and semiconductors. As an officer, he led the growth of two startups and the turnaround of Consilium, a public company (acquired by Applied Materials). As a consultant, he has helped numerous enterprise software and hosted solution companies in the U.S. and Europe including serving as interim VP Sales & Marketing for several companies.
Chuck is a recognized speaker and visionary on sales and marketing management for technology companies. He teaches several courses to professionals at Stanford including “Selling & Marketing SaaS to the Enterprise”, “Developing Clear Value Propositions & Pricing Models” and “Sales Management Excellence”. He is a frequent speaker at industry forums, including the SaaS University series by Softletter. Chuck holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Santa Clara University and an MBA from Stanford University.
Derek is the Northern California practice leader for the firm’s Technology and Life Sciences Industry Group and a member of the firm’s SEC/Corporate Finance Group. He has over eighteen years of public accounting experience working with technology and life sciences companies ranging from early stage start-ups to multi-national public entities. He consults with clients on private placements, public stock offerings, mergers and acquisitions, and SEC compliance matters. He also advises clients on technical accounting issues related to revenue recognition, equity and debt transactions, stock-based compensation, valuations of private company stock, asset impairments, corporate restructurings, and segment reporting.
Moss Adams LLP is the 11th largest public accounting firm in the United States with 20 offices in California, Oregon, Washington, Arizona, and New Mexico. The firm has over 1,800 employees, with more than 240 partners, and through an affiliation with Praxity, Moss Adams has resources in over 70 countries throughout the world.
Deb Doyle is the president of Stage2 Marketing, an agency helping consumer companies crystallize and execute their marketing plans. By combining of insight, meaningful messaging and superior execution, she creates results for a client base that includes start-ups, brick-and-mortar companies and non-profits.
Launched in 2006, Stage2 is a natural outgrowth of Deb’s 20+ years in advertising and marketing. She led teams at advertising agencies such as McCann Erickson and Publicis & Hal Riney. Her clients included Sprint PCS, where she introduced the first US camera phone, Stanford Hospital & Clinics, where she created their first brand campaign and Applied Materials. During the decade she acted as regional CMO and agency director for McDonald’s Restaurants in Arizona and California, her markets led the country in sales and profits.
She has a BA English from Pennsylvania State University. She is an Integrated Marketing Instructor at San Francisco State University Continuing Education. In addition to serving as a coach for Astia, she sits on the Board of the Academy of Friends.
Prior to joining Allegis Capital, Lara Druyan had responsibility for Silicon Graphics' desktop software business. She identified market opportunities, developed and evangelized business strategy, and oversaw the successful development, execution and deployment of the SGI NetMeeting collaborative software suite into Fortune 500 companies. As a product manager, Ms. Druyan was also part of the team that launched the O2 and Octane desktop machines worldwide.
Previously, Ms. Druyan worked at Merrill Lynch as an investment banker where she advised global media and telecommunications companies on corporate finance and merger and acquisition strategies. Notable transactions on which she worked include: E. W. Scripps’ $1.6B sale of its cable systems to Comcast and a high-yield debt offering by Videotron Canada. In 1991, she was a key member of the team that identified and engineered the use of auction technology for stock trading which culminated in the establishment of AZX, Inc.
Ms. Druyan is currently a member of the Board of Directors of Apprion, SonicSwap and Rosum Corporation. She represents Allegis on the Board of Directors of Packet Design. Ms. Druyan serves on the Board of Advisors to the Forum for Women Entrepreneurs, an organization that supports and encourages the development of women-run businesses.
She holds a bachelor's degree with Honors in Economics from the University of Chicago and a Masters of Business Administration from the Harvard Business School.
Bob Dunkle has more than 20 years’ experience leading business growth in life sciences, informatics and process monitoring and control. He has served as CEO of three life scientific companies; VP/GM at the world’s largest cheminformatics company; and acting-CEO of a medical diagnostic company.
He serves as CEO of PlexPress, a startup company providing novel gene expression analysis tools and diagnostics. He also served as CEO of Scimagix – another start-up company that pioneered how information within and about images can facilitate the understanding of biology and for decision-making. Previously, he was president and CEO of the National Center for Genome Resources charged with developing a mission and strategic plan for this provider of bioinformatics and computational biology products. In addition, Dunkle was vice president at MDL Information Systems, managing the successful penetration of the flagship ISIS™ cheminformatics software platform supporting valuation growth prior being acquired by Reed Elsevier.
Coincident with his role at PlexPress, Dunkle is president of A.B.E.S Partners, a management consulting company focusing on corporate strategy, M&A and fundraising for life science and software companies. Through A.B.E.S he has been engaged is formulating strategic alternatives for stem cell businesses, disease management, biological testing, molecular diagnostics, platform technologies and R&D informatics as well operational roles as acting-CEO.
A seasoned senior executive, Christina has over 20 years experience as a marketer. She is the President and CEO of Moreland Associates, which she founded in 2001. Moreland provides interim executive, market research, and marketing project services for clean tech and high tech start-ups, services providers, and enterprises. Christina’s clients include companies in the clean tech, software, telecom, mobile and security sectors. Prior to Moreland, she founded and served as President and CEO of OfficePlease Inc., an intranet software company and ASP and currently serves as the Chairman for the OfficePlease Foundation. Prior to OfficePlease, she was the VP of Marketing for Sentient Networks a telecom switch manufacturer, until their acquisition by Cisco Systems. Previously, she was director of carrier development and marketing at Premisys, a telecom and enterprise Integrated Access Device (IAD) manufacturer, which was later acquired by Zhone. Prior to Premisys, she held business development and marketing positions with N.E.T., a TI multiplexer manufacturer and Kevex Instruments, a provider of EDX and XRF spectrometers and detectors. She is on the advisory board of SolarNexus and NexTier Networks and regularly contributes to entrepreneur support organizations including: the Clean Tech Open as the program chair for the 2009 Accelerator; VC TaskForce Clean Tech series and Venture Backed Executives Club; SVASE East Bay Series for high tech and clean tech entrepreneurs; Astia’s clean tech committee, mentor and workshop presenter. Christina is known for her strong, clear leadership and drive.
Brian Evje
Brian Evje helps people and organizations manage change and growth. This involves organizational health, leadership development, change management, coaching, strategy, culture, performance improvement, and hiring the right people in the right roles. He has worked in human resources and business operations with early-stage and high-growth startups, public companies, the public benefit sector, and as a private consultant. In addition to his current consulting, Brian is working with Charles Feltman, author of “The Think Book of Trust,” in field-testing “Trust at Work: A Facilitator’s Guide,” a program focused on building, maintaining, and restoring trust among people who work together. Brian is a graduate of Santa Clara University and is completing the Master’s program Consulting and Coaching for Change at HEC School of Management/University of Oxford.
Monique Farantzos, CEO and Co-founder, doubleTwist
Monique Farantzos is the co-founder and CEO of doubleTwist. Prior to doubleTwist, she was the Managing Director of DoubleTwist Ventures, a DRM interoperability company. She has also been a consultant for Intellectual Ventures and a Director at the Miller Porter Group, a consulting firm focused on the Life Sciences and Biotechnology industries. Monique holds an MS in Applied Science with emphasis on Bioengineering from UC Davis and worked as a Physicist at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
Coming soon
Shauna Farr-Jones, Ph.D.
Shauna Farr-Jones, Ph.D., has a record of writing successful government grant and contract proposals on diverse life science topics, providing strategic input on both research and business plans. For nine years, she has consulted for life science companies and universities preparing research plans, marketing plans, IND’s, white papers and proposals. She also conducts technology assessment, competitive intelligence and primary market research on a wide variety of biotechnology platform technologies and disease therapeutic areas.
Jenny Fielding
Jenny Fielding has a background in law and private banking and went on to found, build and exit a leading US Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) technology company. She began her career as a lawyer negotiating and drafting contracts in the US and the Netherlands and went on to work at JP Morgan in New York, where she cultivated and managed high net worth client portfolios. In 2005, Jenny established Switch-Mobile, a VoIP mobile software company, providing low-cost international calling from mobile phones. The disruptive technology filled a gap in the US market and the company went on to scale into Europe. Jenny was responsible for general management and strategy as well as forging key partnerships with international distributors, licensors, operators and investors. In 2007, Jenny sold the company and intellectual property rights to Via One Corporation, a leading international telecommunications and payment processing company. Since the sale of her company, Jenny has been advising US based VC's on global investment opportunities as well as working with technology focused companies to build valuations, obtain funding and attract suitable acquisition targets.
Nancy Floyd, Founder and Managing Director, Nth Power
Nancy has led Nth Power’s investments in Silicon Energy (Nasdaq: ITRI), Northern Power (Nasdaq: DESC), Smartsynch, Serveron, SpectraSensors and Propel Biofuels. In addition to these Boards, Nancy sits on the boards of ACORE (American Council on Renewable Energy) and the Center for Resource Solutions. She has been an advisor to the National Renewable Energy Lab, was a board member of Sustainable Asset Management in Zurich, Switzerland and is an active member of E2. She also helped organize the Northwest Business Leaders for Clean Energy campaign and was also appointed by Governor Ted Kulongoski to serve on the Oregon Economic and Community Development Commission.
Prior to founding Nth Power, Nancy built, managed and negotiated the sale of two high-growth energy and telecommunications companies. In 1982, she founded NFC Energy Corporation, one of the country's first wind development firms utilizing advanced technology developed by NASA and Sandia Labs. She developed over $30 million in projects and sold the company, generating a 25-fold return on the original capital invested in three years. In 1985, she helped found PacTel Spectrum Services, a network management company for private voice and data networks and a subsidiary of Pacific Telesis. Nancy was responsible for the nationwide launch of Spectrum Services, which was ultimately sold to IBM in 1987.
In 1977-1980, Nancy worked for the Chairman of the Vermont Public Utilities Commission where she worked on energy and telecommunications issues as well as served as the Commission’s chief legislative liaison. She sat on the New England Regional Facility Siting Council and founded one of the first non-profit companies in the U.S. to fund home energy audits.
Nancy holds a masters degree in political science from Rutgers University (1977), where she was an Eagleton Fellow. She received a bachelor's degree in political science from Franklin and Marshall College (1976), where she currently serves as a Trustee.
Ms. Fohn has a broad base of management and entrepreneurial experience, with particular expertise in information security. Most recently, she was president and chief operating officer of SecurityFocus, a provider of enterprise security threat management systems. She led the company to a dominant industry position, resulting in its acquisition by Symantec in August 2002.
Previously, she served as vice president of marketing and business development for Tripwire, Inc. and director of distribution partnerships for Infoseek/Go Network. She also co-founded and led two start-ups - Lucidian Technologies, a developer of network-based intrusion detection software, and The WWWorks, a web development firm focused on e-commerce and database integration.
Ms. Fohn began her career in the security industry as director of business development for Pilot Network Services, Inc., one of the industry's first managed security service providers. Prior to joining Pilot, she spent six years in venture capital and investment banking in the technology arena. Ms. Fohn holds an M.S. degree in management from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and bachelor's degrees in business and psychology from University of Washington.
Cynthia Francis, CEO and Co-Founder, Reality Digital
Cynthia is a serial entrepreneur with extensive experience building and leading pioneering companies in digital media management and online media technologies. She has served as Chief Operating Officer for the Content Group and Chief Marketing Officer / VP of Business Development for eMotion, Inc., as well held positions at Apple and Eagle River Interactive. She is a well-respected leader in her industry and a frequent speaker at events such as Under the Radar, Digital Hollywood, DPAC, NAB, OMMA and more. Cynthia holds two degrees from the University of California at Berkeley.
Toby Freedman is an author and Founder/President of Synapsis Search. A scientist by training, she transitioned into business as a recruiter, writer, and entrepreneur. Her book Career Opportunities in Biotechnology and Drug Development was published by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press and provides a comprehensive overview of many careers in the life sciences industry. Her book covers over 20 vocational areas ranging from venture capital to marketing to discovery research.
She recently started her own recruiting firm, Synapsis Search, which is focused on executive R&D and business placements in the life science industry. She previously worked at BioQuest, an executive search firm, placing VP to CEO-level executives, and as Director of Business Development at SLIL Biomedical, a drug discovery company developing therapeutics for cancer and other diseases.
She earned a Ph.D. in molecular biology from UNC Chapel Hill, a B.S. from the University of California, and as an NIH Fellow, conducted postdoctoral research at Harvard University and at the University of Texas-Austin.
Ooshma Garg is the founder of Anapata, Inc., a web-based networking and recruiting platform designed to help diverse students succeed in their careers. In one year, she developed Anapata from an idea into a company that now connects employers to diverse students at top tier universities nationwide. Ooshma studied BioMechanical Engineering at Stanford University and in her role as co-President of Stanford Women in Business, she organized internships and career skills workshops for the organization's membership of over 400 women. Previously, she has worked at Morgan Stanley (Sales & Trading), JPMorgan (Investment Banking), and SayNow (Product Management).
Heather Gates Massoudi, Deloitte
Heather’s primary focus is building venture capital relationships, working with venture capital funds and their portfolio companies to provide innovative service offerings and quality professional services. She frequently speaks on market trends, business issues facing entreprenuers, and other hot topics. She is a leader in the firm’s National and local women’s initiative.
Before joining Deloitte Services, Heather was a Chief Financial Officer at a telecommunications software company. She wrote the business plan, led financing discussions, led operations and participated and all aspects of management of the Company. Prior to that, she was Vice President of Business Development at a venture-backed software and services company. While there, she successfully closed and managed relationships with large consulting firms including IBM Global Services. She was an investment banker at Hambrecht & Quist (now part of JP Morgan) in the software and internet industry group executing on initial public offerings, private placements, mergers and acquisitions, and private equity investment opportunities. She previously spent nine years as an audit professional at another Big 4 firm serving the technology sector. Heather has worked on numerous IPOs and other security offerings and has also served an as the key audit relationship for companies in the venture capital and technology, media and telecommunications industries.
Heather earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Accounting from the University of Colorado and is an active CPA. She is a member of the California Society of CPAs and the AICPA. She is the mother of two children ages 6 and 4.
Angela Gillespie brings more than a decade of communications experience working with industry leaders such as Guidant, Medtronic and Welch Allyn, as well as early stage start-ups including eCardio Diagnostics and Spiration, in such therapeutic areas as cardiology, oncology, pulmonology and gastroenterology. She joins WeissComm from MDMC Group, a firm she founded, managed and grew herself over the past two years. Prior to that, she was vice president of FischerHealth/Porter Novelli’s medical device and diagnostic practice. Before making the transition to healthcare, she was vice president of corporate communications for Equity Marketing Inc., responsible for internal and external communications for the parent company and its seven subsidiaries worldwide. Prior to that, she managed several award-winning national and local consumer education and safety programs as an account manager at Porter Novelli.
Angela has a Master’s degree in Communication Management with an emphasis in Strategic Marketing from the University of Southern California Annenberg School. She received a B.A. in Speech Communication and Public Relations from the University of Alabama.
Bhaskar Gorti, Oracle
Bhaskar Gorti is senior vice president and general manager of Oracle’s Communications Global Business Unit. Prior to joining Oracle, Mr. Gorti served as CEO of Portal Software, and has held executive positions at Chordiant Software, Hewlett Packard, Sun Microsystems, and ARPANET. A recognized Telecommunications and IT industry leader, Mr. Gorti holds a Master of Science degree from Virginia Tech.
Dr Greenwood is the manager of GenenFUND, Genentech’s private equity fund that invests in early stage biotechnology companies, and has led investments for Genentech in companies such as ProActa and Intradigm. He has also developed strategic partnerships with companies such as Array Biopharma, Exelixis and Phenomix. Dr Greenwood joined Genentech in 2000 in the Molecular Biology department before joining Business Development in 2002.
Prior to joining Genentech, Dr Greenwood was a postdoctoral research fellow at Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the University of California, San Francisco. Dr Greenwood has also lectured at the University of Auckland School of Biological Sciences and has published peer reviewed scientific articles.
Dr Greenwood holds a Bachelor of Science (Honours) in Molecular Genetics and Biochemistry from Massey University, New Zealand, and a Ph.D. in Genetics and Development from Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York, New York, where he was a Fulbright Scholar.
Paula Groves, 4Front Partners
Ms. Paula Groves-Hawthorne has over 18 years of private equity and investment experience and has helped generate over $85 million in returns to investors. Ms. Groves-Hawthorne is currently a founding partner of 4Front Partners, a firm specializing in venture capital and private equity, helping small businesses raise capital, obtain new clients, and sell companies. —Prior to 4Front, Ms. Groves-Hawthorne was co-founding partner of Axxon Capital a fund based in Boston, MA that specialized in technology oriented companies led by women and/or individuals of color.
Rob Guthrie was recently appointed as a Business Initiatives Specialist within Office of Renewable Energy & Environmental Exports. Mr. Guthrie is based in Newport Beach, California, and serves as the West Coast representative for the Office.
Mr. Guthrie began his career as a Business Development Officer at Ex-Im Bank’s Western Regional Office in Newport Beach, where he was responsible for export transactions originating in central California, Santa Barbara, Ventura, and north Los Angeles Counties, as well as the states of Montana, and Utah.
A native of the San Francisco Bay Area, he holds a Bachelor’s degree in history from Principia College in Illinois, and a Master’s degree in Latin American studies, emphasizing economics, from San Diego State University. Mr. Guthrie is fluent in Spanish, and conversant in Portuguese.
Tim Haggerty is a seasoned business and marketing professional with more than 20 years experience specializing in brand strategies and integrated communications. Much of Tim's work has spanned multiple disciplines of marketing including market research, public relations, advertising, promotion, e-commerce and sponsorship. He has worked in business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) environments and understands the nuances necessary to achieve successful results in these distinct relationships. Tim earned his Bachelor of Music degree from the University of Michigan, and he earned his MBA in Marketing from Golden Gate University, where he was honored as Outstanding Graduate. He also holds professional certificates in project management from Loyola University Chicago and in business writing from the University of Chicago.
Peter Heinecke, Xalud Therapeutics
Mr. Heinecke is an independent business and legal advisor to early stage life science and high technology companies. He currently serves as Vice President of Finance and Corporate Development at Xalud Therapeutics, Inc., a pre-clinical biotechnology company focused on treating neuropathic pain and other CNS conditions. Prior to Xalud, Mr. Heinecke was Chief Business Officer at Experimed Bioscience, Inc. and a founder and Vice-President of Finance and Corporate Development at Aviir, Inc., a venture-backed molecular diagnostics company. Mr. Heinecke was a corporate and licensing attorney in private practice for over 10 years at the law firms of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich and Rosati, PC and Kirkpatrick & Lockhart Nicholson Graham LLP. In his practice he represented a wide variety of public and private companies on matters such as venture capital financings, technology licensing, mergers and acquisitions, SEC compliance, and corporate formation and governance. Mr. Heinecke also worked for two years as an investment banker with Morgan Stanley & Co. Mr. Heinecke holds a J.D. and an MBA from the University of Chicago and an A.B. in Politics from Princeton University.
Dr. Gloria E. Höfler has over 15 years of industrial experience building and leading cross-functional and multi-national teams. She held managerial and engineering positions at 3M (Corporate Research Laboratories), HP (Optoelectronic Division), LumiLeds Lighting, and Agilent Technologies in the area of opto-electronics ranging from new product innovation to high-volume manufacturing. In 2006, she co-founded Argos Tech, a start-up company pioneering the commercialization of mid-infrared semiconductor lasers. While at Argos Tech, she secured a mix of VC, strategic investors and government grants to demonstrate and sample prototypes. In 2008, she joined Corning in the role of business development to explore and develop new products for photovoltaic applications. She received her Ph.D. M.S. and B.S. degrees in Electrical Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She has published in numerous peer-reviewed journals and holds several patents.
Barry Hotchkies, eCFOs
Barry Hotchkies has over 30 years of experience in financial management in large and small; public and private companies. He is an active angel investor and is a member of the Keiretsu Forum (the largest angel investor group in the U.S.) where he is a member of the Life Science and Clean Tech Committees. He is the founder and principal of eCFOs, LLC - a consulting firm providing CFO services to early stage companies on an interim, part-time or project basis. He has extensive experience in financing (debt and equity), strategic planning, budgeting and forecasting, international business (Europe, Asia and Latin America), designing and implementing system solutions, SEC and internal reporting, treasury and all administration requirements.
Barry was CFO of Epitomics, Inc. (a private biotech company) from 2004 to 2006 and CFO of Applied Imaging Corp., a NASDAQ-listed medical device company in Santa Clara, from 2000 to 2004. Mr. Hotchkies was CFO of the Berkeley National Laboratory from 1997 to 1999 and CFO of the Corporate Technical Group of WR Grace from 1989 to 1997. He was CFO of Jacques Borel Enterprises from 1987 to 1989 and served in senior financial positions of divisions of WR Grace from 1973 to 1987. He holds a B.S. degree from the University of Glasgow, Scotland and an M.B.A. degree from the Amos Tuck School at Dartmouth College.
Andy is based in Palo Alto, California, in the heart of Silicon Valley and specialises in European antitrust law and commercial law with a particular focus on the technology, telecoms and biotechnology sectors. Andy advises his clients on commercial and corporate transactions and the European regulatory rules that form an integral part of doing business in the European Union. Working in Silicon Valley, Andy works closely with trade associations, technology companies, investors and other professional advisers to provide a total service to US clients looking to do business in Europe, whether through investment, corporate set up, or sales and distribution networks.
He has previously advised various international companies on a range of transactions, including antitrust clearances for pan-European mergers and acquisitions, establishing distribution networks across the European Union, and international outsourcing.
Andy gained an LLB(Hons) from Bristol University in 2001, a post graduate diploma in legal practice from the University of the West of England in 2002, and a post graduate diploma in European Competition Law from University College, London in 2006. He joined Osborne Clarke in 2002, and moved to Silicon Valley in January 2008.
Matt Jones joined Nth Power in 2000. His main focus at Nth Power is on deal origination, due diligence and deal structuring. He has been the lead principal on 10 investments in the areas of materials and nanotechnology, distributed generation and storage and biofuels. Mr. Jones serves on the board of XeroCoat, and is an observer on the board of Superprotonic.
Prior to joining Nth Power, Mr. Jones was a consultant for Accenture in the utility practice group. He advised clients on market restructuring, cost reduction, risk management and information technology initiatives. He helped create a new organization within an investor owned utility for the purpose of interacting with the deregulated energy market.
Mr. Jones received a BS in mechanical engineering from the University of California at Davis and an MBA from Duke University's Fuqua School of Business. He was a Keller Scholar at Fuqua and received the V. Glen Winslow Award as the most outstanding graduating man at UC Davis.
Tarun is an Associate at Battery Ventures where he focuses on emerging segments across enterprise applications, on demand services, security software, and mobile. Prior to joining Battery, Tarun was a member of Deutsche Bank’s Technology Investment Banking Group where he worked on equity and debt financings and strategic advisory assignments for leading technology and software clients, including: Hewlett-Packard, Cadence Design Systems, Concur Technologies, Taleo Corporation and SuccessFactors. Before Deutsche Bank, Tarun worked at Citigroup Investment Research, initially focusing on Internet and new media and subsequently covering security and infrastructure software.
Tarun is a graduate of Middlebury College with a dual degree in political science and economics with a minor in mathematics. He is engaged in the community leading the development of underserved regions of India, helping female entrepreneurs build the skills and networks to achieve, mentoring college students, and opening doors in Silicon Valley for Russian entrepreneurs. He enjoys travel, tennis, golf, skiing, and philosophy.
Jeff Karras joined Levensohn Venture Partners in January 2001 and specializes in digital media and demand-side cleantech technologies. Before joining LVP, Jeff was a Group Product Marketing Manager at Sun Microsystems, where he was a key strategic driver behind their Portal Server product line. Prior to Sun Microsystems, Jeff was a Principal Consultant with PricewaterhouseCoopers' Strategic Change Group, where he provided strategic guidance across a variety of industries including telecommunications, software, energy and financial services.
In the past, Jeff has worked closely with a number of LVP portfolio companies including Atheros, Veraz Networks, Covigo, Rapt, and Reconnex. Currently, Jeff is a board observer at ShotSpotter and holds board seats at Plum and Sim Ops Studios. In addition, Jeff is an active member of the Board of Trustees for Astia.
Jeff received a BS in Commerce from the University of Virginia and an MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
Ms. Kavalaris is a member of Sonnenschein’s Corporate Practice Group. Her practice focuses on corporate finance, securities and intellectual property licensing, with an emphasis on the representation of venture-backed, emerging growth companies, in particular, technology companies.
Her transactional experience includes venture financings, mergers and acquisitions, and public offerings, including underwriter side representation of investment banks in technology company equity offerings. She also advises companies in all stages of development with respect to corporate governance and operations, technology development, transfer, licensing and distribution.
Ms. Kavalaris is a frequent speaker on technology, corporate finance, intellectual property, law firm management and women in leadership and law firms.
Prior to joining Sonnenschein, Ms. Kavalaris was a partner in the Venture Capital, Emerging Companies, Public Offerings, Mergers & Acquisitions, and Technology Transactions practice groups in the Washington, D.C. office of Cooley Godward Kronish LLP. Before that she served three terms as a member of the Executive Board of Gray Cary from 1996-2005, its national Marketing Partner from 1995-2004 and chair of the Corporate and Securities Group from 1999 to 2002. She also served as Managing Partner of Gray Cary’s Washington, D.C. office from 2003-2005.
Ms. Kavalaris received her J.D. from the University of San Francisco in 1981. She earned her B.A. from the University of California Berkeley in 1977, where she was elected to membership in the Prytanean Honor Society and the Order of the Golden Bear.
E. A. Lisa Kenkel is a partner in the Intellectual Property Group of Fenwick & West LLP, a law firm specializing in technology and life sciences matters. Ms. Kenkel practices out of the firm’s Mountain View, California, office. Her practice focuses on working with information technology and life sciences companies on all forms of commercial transactions involving technology and intellectual property, including structuring and negotiating joint-development agreements, collaborations, strategic alliances, and patent and technology licenses. She also advises clients on the intellectual property aspects of mergers, acquisitions, joint ventures, and venture capital and strategic investments. She has been involved in over 50 acquisitions in the technology and life sciences industries and specializes in the structuring and execution of business spin-out transactions.
Prior to joining Fenwick & West, Ms. Kenkel has served as General Counsel of Corel Corporation, a developer of business and graphics software and previously was an associate with Blake, Cassels & Graydon in Ontario, Canada.
Ms. Kenkel received her undergraduate education at Queen's University in Canada, graduating with a degree in biochemistry. She attended law school at Osgoode Hall Law School in Toronto, Ontario, graduating with an LL.B. in 1988. Ms. Kenkel is a member of the bars of California, New York and Ontario.
Matt is a member is the Corporate Practice.
His practice is focused on the representation of emerging technology companies, venture capital and private equity funds, and institutional investors. Matt represents clients in many industries, such as multimedia, wireless technologies, networking, Internet infrastructure and security, nanotechnology, life sciences, and medical devices. He also represents NY Money Center Banks and institutional investors in capital market transactions.
Before joining Mintz Levin, Matt was a partner at a San Francisco area law firm. He began his career in New York City, handling securities offerings and merger and acquisition transactions. Matt is admitted to practice law in California and New York. He was awarded his B.A. from the State University of New York at Albany and his J.D. from Rutgers University. Matt obtained his LL.M. from New York University School of Law.
Renee Knee, CIO and Senior Vice President Technology, Gap Brand, Gap Inc
As CIO and SVP Technology of GAP Brand, Ms. Knee is responsible for the IT Strategy of the GAP Brand – the largest division of GAP Inc – a $15B iconic retail industry leader. She and her team lead the development and deployment of business and technology solutions for the brand’s global operations; including Product to Market, Store Operations/Customer Experience, Supply Chain and Information Management. As member of the IT Leadership Team, managing a $300M combined investment portfolio and operating budget, Ms. Knee oversees the technology investments of the GAP Brand.
Prior to joining GAP Inc., Ms. Knee was Senior Vice President of Global Business Operations, and a member of the SAP Senior Executive Team. She was responsible for developing and syndicating the best practices, selling tools and policies across SAP’s global field organization; including developing and executing global and regional business plans; managing global sales and services operations, and executing on strategic routes to market initiatives. Her areas of responsibility included: Knowledge Management, Customer Data Governance, Business Systems (SAP on SAP), Sales and Marketing Excellence, Global Customer Value References and Field Solutions – an investment portfolio of over $200M with an indirect revenue line of $100M.
Prior to SAP, Ms. Knee was with PeopleSoft (acquired by Oracle, December 2004), where she was the Lead Executive in charge of the merger and integration of PeopleSoft’s acquisition of J.D. Edwards; a $3B integration effort.
During her time at PeopleSoft, Ms. Knee also held the role of Group Vice President of WW Education Services, the $250M training division of PeopleSoft Global Services, where she was responsible for developing, managing, and growing PeopleSoft’s training business. Ms. Knee joined PeopleSoft in 2002, taking responsibility for PeopleSoft’s Global Strategic Relationships. In this role, she was responsible for identifying and developing global initiatives, sales programs and revenue with PeopleSoft’s strategic partners, as well as overseeing PeopleSoft’s Global Partner Program, partner business practices and infrastructure.
Prior to PeopleSoft, Ms. Knee was with Oracle Corporation as Senior Vice President, Global Support Services. She began her High Tech career in 1993 joining Oracle’s Consulting Services developing and managing service delivery groups for Oracle’s Manufacturing Vertical. She served as Vice President of their Application Global Service Line from 1996 to 1998. In 1999, Ms. Knee was promoted to Senior Vice President, Worldwide Alliances, where she managed partner strategy, programs, revenue and investments for three years.
Ms. Knee studied at University of California, Berkley, California State University, Hayward and has completed INSEAD’s Executive Development Program in France. She is on the Board of Trustees at Dominican University of California. She was recently named to the C-Level Suite of Astia.org – a global non-profit organization for women entrepreneur development and is a member of the Accenture Women’s Leadership Executive Steering Committee and Sierra Ventures CIO Advisory Board. She has consulted for IDC on their Alliance Advisory Panel, has served on the Board of Advisors for the Silicon Valley partner and channels firm, Amazon Consulting and is a member of FEW&E (Forum for Women Entrepreneurs and Executives). Ms. Knee has been on the Board of the Glenwood School Foundation in Marin County since 2006.
Tom Kosnik is a Fenwick and West Consulting Professor, Stanford Technology Ventures Program, and an International Advisor for National University of Singapore Entrepreneurship Centre. He taught Marketing at Harvard Business School from 1985-89, and launched HBS’ Entrepreneurial Marketing course in 1995-97. His current courses are Global Entrepreneurial Marketing, High Tech Entrepreneurship, New Venture Creation, and Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders Program.
He is engaged in field research with multiple co-authors on seven themes: 1) Crossing the Chasm X.0; 2) Circles of Influence; 3) Clean/Green Technology Ventures; 4) Negotiating across Social Chasms of Generation, Gender and Culture; 5) Dynamic Positioning and Brand Building; 6) Managing Portfolios of Global Products, Projects, Partnerships; 7) Designing Systems that Summon the Spirit.
Kosnik helps business and government leaders to: create real-time learning programs; enter new country/markets; dynamically position products, services, and brands; execute global sales and marketing campaigns; manage portfolios of products, projects, and partnerships; recruit talent; and raise money. Past clients include: Apple Computer; Applied Materials; China Mobile Communications Corporation; Cypress; Electronic Arts; Ernst & Young; HP China; IBM; Microsoft; Nuance Communications; and numerous startups.
Education: BA, History/International Relations, Duke University (1972), MBA, University of Virginia (1977), Ph.D., Stanford Graduate School of Business (1986).
At BioVantage Resources, Inc., Sue is responsible for corporate vision, strategy, execution and capitalization. Her prior experience spans numerous roles including CEO, Founder and corporate executive. As founder and CEO of Solidware Technologies, Inc., Ms. Kunz led the company to a successful acquisition in less than 4 years. Prior to Solidware, Ms. Kunz’s corporate experience included Sun Microsystems where she was Director of Marketing & Business Development for the Microelectronics division, Six Sigma Deployment Director, Marketing Director for Services, and held various engineering and management positions. Prior to Sun, Ms. Kunz founded an independent consultancy selling digital imaging solutions in Germany. Also in Europe, Kunz held various international product/strategic marketing positions at IBM. Ms. Kunz started her career at Precision Visuals, Inc., a Boulder based startup, and as the only headquarters’ representative, Kunz was instrumental in setting up their European offices in Frankfurt, Germany. Ms. Kunz currently serves on Governor Bill Ritter’s Council for Innovation and serves on multiple boards and advisory boards including Boulder Environmental Science and Technology, Silicon Flatirons, Linerate Systems, Electrochance, Impact on Education, and Summit Middle Charter School, and is a Techstars mentor. She is a recipient of the Tribute to Women in Industry Award from the YWCA, Santa Clara and a recipient of the 2009 Colorado Entrepreneur with Impact Award. Kunz graduated cum laude with a BS in Computer Science from the University of Idaho. She speaks regularly on entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial finance, women in business/tech, technology, and fundraising and has published multiple articles internationally.
Dan'l Lewin, corporate vice president for Strategic and Emerging Business Development, is responsible for Microsoft Corp.'s global relationships with startups, venture capitalists and the business relationships with industry partners such as Adobe Systems Inc., Sun Microsystems Inc. and IBM Corp. Based in Silicon Valley, Lewin also has executive and site responsibility for the company's operations in Mountain View, Calif., which currently employ 2,000 people.
Strategic and Emerging Business Development consists of three groups: the Emerging Business Team, the Local Software Economy (LSE) and the Strategic Relations Group, whose common goal is to support software startups and established companies working on the Microsoft platform while helping develop and grow local software economies worldwide. Through the Microsoft Startup Accelerator Program, Microsoft BizSpark Program, and the LSE's Microsoft Innovation Center Program, Lewin's groups help accelerate startup success in more than 60 countries.
Lewin has spent more than 30 years as a Silicon Valley-based executive leading sales and marketing divisions for companies including Apple Computer Inc., NeXT Inc. and GO Corp. Before joining Microsoft, he was CEO of Aurigin Systems Inc., a startup that pioneered intellectual property asset management, and he has consulted for emerging companies, venture capital firms and corporate joint ventures.
Lewin serves on the boards of the Churchill Club; Software Development Forum; American Electronics Association; Santa Clara University Center for Science, Technology and Society; and the Tech Museum of Innovation, where he serves as chairman of the Tech Museum Awards program. He is also on the Corporate Advisory Board of the National Venture Capital Association. He holds an AB in politics from Princeton University.
Mr. Logue has over twelve years of experience in the clean energy and high technology sectors.
Prior to joining Wellford Energy, Mr. Logue was an attorney at Latham & Watkins Silicon Valley and Washington, DC offices where he focused primarily on clean technology companies.
He worked on the initial public offering of Codexis, a major biofuels company, and provided investor-side representation for Goldman Sachs in connection with the late-stage private placement for a major thin-film solar company.
He drafted power purchase agreements for solar companies, was closely involved in an early stage project of the Hawaiian Electric Company developing carbon offsets from reforestation, and worked on analyzing electric utility mergers under the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
Prior to law school, Mr. Logue was a Senior Consultant at Bevilacqua-Knight, Inc., where he managed the commercialization activities of a $5.2 million California Energy Commission project that funded the development of energy efficiency products both at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and at private firms. He served as the primary liaison between entrepreneurs, engineers, utility companies, and government agencies.
Before joining Bevilacqua-Knight, he provided business development and strategy consulting to clean technology start-ups, worked with the Solar Economy Institute on developing a broad strategy for driving the adoption of technological solutions to the climate crisis, held dialogues with the California state legislature during the California energy crisis, and consulted with the City of Oakland to analyze the potential of solar energy and wind energy projects with the city limits.
He also authored a number of papers on market obstacles to the adoption of innovative energy technologies.
Before getting involved in clean energy, Mr. Logue founded an Internet company that developed online procurement software for more than one hundred clients, including Charles Schwab, Banc of America Securities, and The Los Angeles Times.
For the past ten years, he has also served on the board of the Center for Community Benefit Organizations, which provides management assistance to nonprofits in the East Bay area of Northern California.
He graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Stanford University and received his Juris Doctorate from Stanford Law School where he served as President of the Law Students Association.
Kelsey B. Lynn is a principal at Firelake Capital Management, where she focuses on private investments in the cleantech sector. Kelsey leads Firelake’s efforts in the energy storage, smart grid and carbon mitigation sectors, among others. She serves on the board of EOS Climate and is a board observer with EnerG2, Simbol, Zeachem, and Thin Silicon. As part of her investment strategy, she looks for game-changing technologies backed by smart, savvy entrepreneurs dedicated to improving the status quo.
Kelsey has worked in the energy sector since 2003, when she joined the Global Climate and Energy Project (GCEP) at Stanford University. As a technical researcher at GCEP, Kelsey focused on large-scale energy storage technologies and their potential to mitigate carbon emissions. She also worked at the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) and in Google’s green energy strategy group. She has served on the judging committee for the National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s venture competition and is the co-president for the Bay Area chapter of Young Professionals in Energy (YPE). Kelsey graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Stanford University with her bachelor’s in mechanical engineering. She also played women’s rugby while at Stanford, leading her team to the national championship as MVP. She returned to Stanford for a master’s degree in engineering focused on energy systems analysis. Kelsey holds an MBA from Stanford, where she was president of the GSB Energy Club and she currently serves as an external career advisor for Stanford MBA students.
Originally from Colorado, Kelsey’s favorite activities include hiking in the mountains, playing pickup basketball, trying to outrun her dog (always unsuccessful), funny costume parties, and anything else that makes her laugh.
Susan Mac Cormac is a partner in the Corporate Group of Morrison & Foerster’s San Francisco office. She currently serves as a co-chair of the Venture Capital/ Emerging Companies Group and the Cleantech Group for the firm worldwide.
Ms. Mac Cormac has extensive experience representing start-up to late-stage private companies primarily in the Cleantech or Sustainable space. She provides corporate and finance advice in connection with mergers, acquisitions, asset purchases and sales, reorganizations, joint ventures, and equity and debt financings. She regularly advises boards of private and public companies, special committees, and CEOs on corporate governance and Corporate Social Responsibility (“CSR”) issues and has joined the faculty (teaching on issues of sustainability and corporate governance) at both the Stanford Director’s College and the Northwestern Corporate Counsel Institute. Ms. Mac Cormac also represents nonprofit corporations involved with Sustainability and CSR, providing advice to their boards on fiduciary issues, conflicts of interest, and other corporate matters.
Ms. Mac Cormac’s representative Cleantech clients include Advanced Refining Concepts, Altra Biofuels, Agile Waves, Arcadia, Biosignal, Biomimicry Technologies, Bulk Handling Systems, Carbonetworks, ClimateEarth, driptech, ElectraTherm, Photon Energy Systems, MicroMidas, Veranda Solar, and Veristeel. Her representative sustainable and social enterprise company clients include Divinely D’lish/18 Rabbits, MicroEnergy Credit Corporation, Resdida, Revolution Foods, and SourceTrace. Her nonprofit clients include the Biomimicry Institute, Business for Social Responsibility, Goodwill, Pacific Forest and Watershed Lands Stewardship Council and RSF Social Finance. Her venture fund clients include Darwin Venture Fund-of-Funds, Pacific Community Ventures and RSF Social Finance.
After working in New York for three years, Ms. Mac Cormac joined the firm as an associate in 1997 and became a partner in 2001. Ms. Mac Cormac was born in Davidson, North Carolina, and graduated in 1988 from Williams College with a degree in Political Economy. She received her J.D. and LL.M. degrees from Duke University School of Law in 1993. Ms. Mac Cormac lives in the Presidio National Park with her husband and two young boys (Eddie and Alex).
Ms. Mac Cormac was recognized by clients in Legal 500 United States 2009® for her expertise working with venture capitalists and emerging companies. Clients say “you cannot get a better corporate counsel,” Ms. Mac Cormac “‘understands the big picture, could not be more responsive, and understands the business.” Ms. Mac Cormac is a co-chair of the Clean Technology & Climate Change Committee for the ABA Section of Science & Technology Law. She is on the Board of Directors of the Biomimicry Institute. She is admitted to practice in both California and New York.
Heidi Mason is the co-founder and Managing Partner of The Bell Mason Group which provides venture development strategy, methodologies, tools, curriculum and specialized consulting to the independent venturing community and to corporations adopting and adapting venturing techniques for emerging business development. She also plays the role of Senior Advisor to a number of Global 1000 corporations who are accessing innovation, new markets and new businesses through various venturing activities, having served corporations across a spectrum of industries and technologies, such as Philips, Chevron, Citigroup, Hewlett-Packard, Takeda Pharmaceuticals.
Heidi, a 25-year veteran of Silicon Valley, has spent the last decade building on her unique 'bilingual' experience with both large companies and independent startups, working to build mutually beneficial bridges between these two worlds. Heidi has developed initiatives to drive the practical cooperation of large companies with the venture community to the next level, co-creating the February 2003 'Building Bridges: A Summit for Key Corporate and Venture Leaders', co-sponsored by Stanford University and the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA); co- designing the Corporate Venture Group, the corporate chapter of the NVCA, launched January 2004; and co-developing Strategic Venturing for Corporations, curriculum created with Stanford's School of Engineering and NVCA, which was offered in June 2004.
Heidi has been immersed in new ventures in Silicon Valley for 25 years, helping to build startup teams with vital business and marketing strategy and execution, as well as diagnosing and providing triage for those veering off course. Earlier, Heidi was co-founder and CEO of Acuity, a Silicon Valley technology marketing and communications consultancy; prior to that, she co-led Regis McKenna's entry into technology marketing services. She also co-founded the successful publishing arm of Digital Equipment Corporation, where her collaboration began with computer pioneer Gordon Bell.
Ms. Mason is co-author with Tim Rohner of The Venture Imperative: A New Model for Corporate Innovation (May 2002, Harvard Business School Press). She holds a B. A., Phi Beta Kappa, from the University of Pennsylvania.
Jason co-founded LaunchSquad in 1999 with a mission of helping new and emerging companies make a name for themselves and become market leaders. The company has grown to become a 40 person agency with offices in San Francisco and New York, and was honored as the 2009 Boutique PR Agency of the Year by PR Week.
Jason's motivation at LaunchSquad stems from playing a vital role in helping growth stage technology companies build meaningful business momentum through strategic PR initiatives. Jason also helps guide the ship at LaunchSquad and is responsible for much of the financial and operational functions at the firm. He has driven feature coverage in media as varied as The Wall Street Journal, the Associated Press, InformationWeek, C/Net, MSNBC, Investor's Business Daily, Reuters, TechCrunch, The San Francisco Chronicle and The Hollywood Reporter.
Prior to LaunchSquad, Jason spent close to five years at Schwartz Communications, one of the nation's leading high-tech PR firms for emerging companies. At Schwartz, he worked with nearly 20 technology and healthcare companies and managed several high profile accounts, including Lycos, Flycast Communications and Digital Impact. Jason previously worked with Cunningham Communications, now part of Incepta Group, where he supported Motorola's early PowerPC marketing efforts.
Before entering the PR profession, Jason interned for Senator Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut. He has a B.A. in Communications from Boston College.
Linda McAllister, M.D., Ph.D
Linda earned MD and PhD degrees from Stanford and has held a variety of positions spanning research and business in Bay Area biotech, including Affymetrix, Celera, and Roche. Most recently Linda served as Chief Medical Officer and Executive VP of Diagnostics for Arbor Vita, a small privately held biopharma, where she led a team through Product development cycle resulting in FDA approval.
Jennifer McFarlane is CFO of CleanSource Power which owns and operates commercial solar systems in the US. She is an internationally experienced finance executive who has raised over $500 million utilizing a diverse range of structures including project finance, convertible debt, public and private equity, and venture capital. Ms. McFarlane also has significant management and board experience, including at a publicly quoted energy technology company.
Prior to joining CleanSource Power, Ms. McFarlane was CEO of Astia, a San Francisco based non-profit that provides programs to early stage women-led companies.
Prior to Astia, Ms. McFarlane was an Executive and Board Member of Southern Pacific Petroleum, an energy technology company quoted on NASDAQ and headquartered in Australia. In this role she raised over $250 million globally and developed the company’s sustainability strategy to reduce its environmental footprint.
Prior to SPP, Ms. McFarlane spent 14 years in investment banking, principally at Salomon Brothers in New York and Dean Witter (now Morgan Stanley) in San Francisco. During this time, she worked extensively in emerging markets in Central Europe and Asia.
Ms. McFarlane was awarded Australia’s Centenary Medal by the Prime Minister of Australia. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and on the Advisory Boards of Astia and Water Partners International. Ms. McFarlane earned an MBA from Stanford Business School, a BSc. in Biochemistry and a Law Degree from the University of New South Wales, Australia.
Margi McLoughlin, Pfizer
Margi McLoughlin, Ph.D., is a Senior Director in Worldwide Business Development (WWBD) at Pfizer based in South San Francisco, CA. Margi works within Pfizer’s Biotherapeutics Bioinnovation Center (BBC) to develop and execute on external investment strategies and alliances that maximally contribute to the BBC’s internal activities.
Margi received a Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of California at Santa Barbara and completed postdoctoral work at Washington University in St. Louis. She then took a position in Discovery Research at Mallinckrodt Medical, developing diagnostic pharmaceuticals for nuclear medicine, MR and X-ray imaging. After five years in the laboratory, Margi spent two years in Technology Planning at Mallinckrodt Medical, where she supported internal R&D through outside alliances. In 1999, she moved to Yale University where she worked as Associate Director in the Office of Cooperative Research. Her responsibilities, at Yale, included patenting, and licensing technologies developed in the School of Medicine.
Since joining the Pfizer in 2001, she has had roles of increasing responsibility in WWBD and has played a significant role in Pfizer transactions with Abgenix, Medarex, Incyte, Coley, Scil and FivePrime.
Coming soon
Michael Melnick has sailed rough waters, literally and figuratively. A skipper who races yachts, Michael has negotiated the choppy seas off New England and San Francisco. Those experiences fed the leadership skills and competitive drive he needs to succeed in the bumpy waters of venture capital.
Succeed, Michael has. Prior to joining CMEA, he co-founded Cell Signaling Technology, a spinout of New England Biolabs that develops drugs and tools to fight cancer. At Cell Signaling, Mike was responsible for sales, marketing and business development, during which time the company grew to 200 people and $50 million in annual sales.
Mike has left an indelible mark during his brief tenure at CMEA. He helped manage the deal with Draths Corporation, a pioneer in producing chemicals from renewable feedstocks. Chemicals currently made from petroleum represent far more valuable products than transportation fuel, and with oil prices likely to rise again the opportunity to make these chemicals instead from renewable feedstocks like sugar or amino acids is compelling for economic, environmental, and energy security reasons.
As Community and Marketing Manager at Eventbrite, Tamara is responsible for creating and implementing the company’s social media strategy and other community-focused marketing initiatives. She is the voice of Eventbrite on the company blog as well as on external properties like Facebook and Twitter, engaging with event-holders around the world to help them make their events more successful.
Prior to Eventbrite, Tamara was a senior analyst with Forrester Research, an independent technology research and consulting firm. As a leading expert on eCommerce technology, multichannel retail, and trends in how consumers integrate technology into shopping, Tamara authored research reports and worked with both retailers and technology vendors to help them shape their strategies. She spoke regularly at industry events, sat on the advisory boards of several industry associations, and has been quoted in top newspapers and journals.
Tamara is a graduate of MIT Sloan School of Management and received her bachelor’s degree in comparative literature and economics from Wellesley College.
Marten Mickos builds global disruptive businesses. As CEO of MySQL AB for seven years, Marten grew that company from a garage start-up to the second largest open source company in the world. After the acquisition by Sun Microsystems of MySQL AB for $1bn, he served as Senior Vice President of Sun's Database Group until the end of March 2009.
Previously, Marten held multi-national CEO and senior executive positions in his native Finland. He is a member of the board of RightScale and Mozilla Messaging. Marten holds a M.Sc. in technical physics from Helsinki University of Technology. In 2006 he received the Audemars Piguet "Changing Times Award: European Entrepreneur of the Year 2006" and the Nokia Foundation Award. As of September 2009, he serves as Entrepreneur in Residence at Benchmark Capital.
Prior to joining Milk Street Ventures, Jo Anne was a Principal at Nokia Innovent, a seed-stage investing team within the Nokia strategy organization. In this role, Ms. Miller was responsible for management of the portfolio and the Nokia business relationships. Prior to Nokia, Jo Anne was the President and CEO of Gluon Networks, a start-up providing next-generation converged voice and data switching and management systems for local telephone service providers. Jo Anne has more than 29 years of telecommunications and computer industry experience, including senior executive, engineering management, and research roles at JetCell, an indoor wireless/VoIP company (acquired by Cisco Systems), AirNet Communications, a wireless infrastructure company, Tellabs, and AT&T Bell Laboratories.
Ms. Miller holds a BS in Mathematics from the University of Michigan, an MS in Computer Science from the University of Colorado, and an MBA from the University of Chicago.
Nancy Mize
Nancy Mize, Ph.D., is the Pharmacogenomics & Personalized Medicine expert at Pacific BioDevelopment. Dr. Mize has over fifteen years experience in biotechnology, and holds more than 11 issued patents. Her expertise includes early stage drug and device development planning and implementation, including identification of biomarkers to accelerate clinical trials. She works with early stage entrepreneurs, to bring products to market that address large unmet clinical needs and to successfully navigate the world of potential investors.
Dr. Mize has held various positions at Alza Corporation, Hyseq (Nuvelo), and Genentech. She received her PhD from UCSF, BS from UC Berkeley, and postdoctoral studies at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg, and at Genentech.
Helen Moore, Vice Consul, Software, UKTI
Helen Moore is based in the British Consulate General San Francisco and provides free, practical guidance and service to US companies expanding in the UK. In her time at UKTI, Helen has worked with over 60 Bay Area companies supporting their initial set up or growth in the UK. Helen also supports UK companies helping them access Silicon Valley and often introduces Silicon Valley B2B software companies to the UK’s most innovative software start ups for partnering opportunities.
Prior to moving to the US in ’99, Helen spent most of her career in London, including working with NCR in marketing, strategic planning, partner recruitment and sales.
Helen received her BSc. in International Business and Modern Languages (French) from Aston University, Birmingham, spent a year in Ecole Superieure de Commerce, Rouen, France and has travelled and worked overseas widely.
Dr. Lee Ng, Director of Venture Technology, Siemens
Lee Ng is a Director of Venture Technology at Siemens at Siemens Technology-to-Business Center, based in Berkeley, California.
Dr. Ng joined Siemens Technology-to-Business Center in 2009 to fund innovative technology ideas and early stage startups. She leverages her past experience in manufacturing, business development, consulting, and venture capital to develop new technologies and launch new business ventures for TTB. Her current focus lies in industrial automation, drive technologies, water and energy.
Prior to her current position, Lee worked at Agilent Central Research Laboratories as the Business Director of New Business Creation and Manufacturing Development Engineer/Scientist at Hewlett Packard. She has also held consulting positions at Fortune 500 companies and was involved with Ampersand Ventures, assessing the viability of new business ventures and corporate spin-offs. Lee holds a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin as well as Masters and Ph.D. degrees in Materials Engineering from M.I.T, with minors in economics, finance, and strategy.
Gabie Noack
Ms. Noack has ten years experience in research and development in both academic and biotechnology settings. Proficient in a range of cell biology, microbiology, virology and protein chemistry technologies, Ms. Noack has worked as an Associate Grant Writer under Dr. Boggs and Dr. Farr-Jones for the past year. Prior to that, Ms. Noack’s worked at Medimmune, IntraBiotics Pharmaceuticals, and at the VA campus of UCSF in Gary Jarvis’ lab. Ms. Noack began her career at Genentech. Ms. Noack received a Bachelor of Science degree in Microbiology with a minor in Chemistry from the University of Texas at Arlington. Her research focused on EIAV, a Lentivirus relative of HIV. Studies focused on analysis of virulent molecular clones and the characterization of the genetic elements involved in disease production.
Eghosa Omoigui, Esq. Director, Strategic Investments, Consumer Internet; Semantic Technologies, Intel Capital: Eghosa Omoigui has been with Intel for nearly 9 years and is currently Director, Strategic Investments, Consumer Internet & Semantic Technologies. In this Santa Clara, CA-based role, he acts as a senior investment professional in the world's largest stage-agnostic technology venture capital organization, focused on platform-agnostic web services and digital media-based investment opportunities in the consumer internet. Due to a 10+ year passion for all things semweb/semtech, Eghosa also drives Intel Capital's investment focus on next generation semantic technologies. Current representative investments include Sense Networks, Voxify, Yatra, BuzzInTown, Cerebra and TextDigger. Prior to joining Intel, Omoigui worked in several start-ups in senior management positions and has variegated experience as a corporate and securities law firm lawyer, in-house counsel and turnarounds/restructuring advisor. Eghosa attended the University of Pennsylvania Law School and Olin Graduate School of Business at Babson College and has been admitted to the Bar in Nigeria, New York and Oregon. Eghosa lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his 3 kids, a miniature poodle and a supersized german shepherd.
Karran has over 15 years of public accounting experience providing various tax services. Prior to joining Moss Adams, she worked 14 years at Ernst & Young. She has extensive experience with tax planning and tax return preparation for corporate entities ranging from early stage starts-ups to multi-national, multi-state private and public companies.
Karran is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, California Society of Certified Public Accountants, and is on the Astia Technology Committee.
Ms. Padnos is the founding Managing Partner of Illuminate Ventures, a newly launched high tech venture capital firm and continues to serve as a Director of Outlook Ventures where, since 2004, she has participated in committing the firm’s $140M fund to investments in early and mid-stage high-tech companies. Cindy's experience and focus encompasses Internet/Web 2.0, SaaS, digital media, technology-enabled services, mobile communications and software sectors. Before entering the venture capital community Ms. Padnos gained almost 20 years of operational experience holding progressively responsible executive positions: as founder and CEO of on-demand software company Vivant Corporation, acquired by Evolve (EVLV); as President and CEO of Acumen where a financial turn-around effort resulted in a favorable M&A transition; as the founding vice president of marketing at Scopus Technology helping position the company for its successful IPO; at privately held companies IDE and at Ingres and in sales and marketing management roles at AT&T during the critical divestiture period. Cindy also served as a management consultant in the information technology sector while at Arthur D. Little and Booz Allen & Hamilton.
Ms. Padnos earned her undergraduate degree, magna cum laude, at the University of Michigan, which included a year of study at the Universite Aix-Marseille III and received her MBA/MSIA with honors from Carnegie Mellon University's Tepper School of Business. She serves on the Board of Advisors for the Tepper School and for Astia and on the Board of Directors of several privately held companies including Xactly Corporation, Wild Pockets, BrightEdge, Calm Sea and LPI&M. Cindy has served as an advisor to numerous start-up technology companies, as a judge for the annual UC Berkeley Haas School and Women 2.0 business plan competitions and is a frequent speaker at industry events.
Bhairavi Parikh, CTO, Apieron
Bhairavi has deep domain expertise in the development of medical biosensors with numerous published articles and several issued patents. She has over 10 years of experience in the field of medical devices and diagnostics. She designed and developed a sensor for the measurement of therapeutic inhaled nitric oxide and led the instrumentation team for medical device clinical studies while at the University of Massachusetts Division of Cardiothoracic Surgery. Bhairavi was also involved in new product development at Natus Medical.
Bhairavi has a PhD in Biomedical Engineering from a joint program with the Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) and University of Massachusetts Medical Center. She also earned an MS in Biological Engineering from the University of Connecticut and a BS in Biochemistry from the University of New Hampshire.
Susan Petty, President and Founder, AltaRock Energy
Susan Petty is the president and founder of AltaRock Energy, Inc., a developer of geothermal heat and power projects using Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS) technology. She has over 30 years experience in the geothermal industry in electrical and direct use project economics, optimizing of power plants to meet resource conditions, reservoir evaluation, reservoir modeling, well, plant and wellfield performance data analysis, well testing and test data analysis. She has also assisted in negotiation of geothermal lease agreements, power sales agreements, geothermal project financing agreements and geothermal property sales and purchases, and policy studies for state and federal agencies.
Ms. Petty has done work on geothermal electrical generation projects in Nevada at Steamboat, Dixie Valley, Rye Patch, Soda Lake, Fallon, Desert Peak, Brady Hot springs and direct use projects at Brady, Elko and Moana. In California she has worked on the Coso, Salton Sea, East Mesa, Heber, Brawley, Wendell-Amedee, Mt. Lassen and Medicine Lake resources. She has worked on geothermal projects overseas in Indonesia, the Philippines and Central America. For a number of years, Ms. Petty assisted the Department of Energy in performing policy studies for geothermal energy research including economic modeling of geothermal pricing and the impact of technology improvement on the cost of geothermal power. Ms. Petty was a panel member on and significant contributor to the recently published study “The Future of Geothermal Energy in the US” published by MIT and led by Dr. Jeff Tester.
Nancy E. Pfund is a Managing Partner of DBL Investors, an investment firm focused on delivering strong financial returns together with positive social, environmental, and economic impact. Ms. Pfund currently sponsors or sits on the board of directors of several private companies, including; Tesla Motors, Pandora, BrightSource Energy, SolarCity and eMeter. Originally a regional venture capital group within JPMorgan, DBL Investors spun out as an independent firm in January 2008. Ms. Pfund joined JPMorgan (then Hambrecht & Quist) in 1984 as a securities analyst and later, Managing Director in 1989; is also a member of the board of directors of the California Clean Energy Fund (CalCEF), and Advisor to the CalCEF Angel Fund; member of the Advisory Board of the UC Davis Center for Energy Efficiency, and is a founding officer and director of ABC2, a foundation aimed at accelerating a cure for brain cancer; a member of the Task Force on California’s Energy and Environmental Challenges, an initiative of the Pacific Council on International Policy. Ms. Pfund received her BA and MA in anthropology from Stanford University, and her MBA from the Yale School of Management.
As CEO of SpikeSource, Kim Polese is responsible for guiding the company’s business vision: enabling businesses to harness the power of open source as a flexible, reliable and cost-effective solution for business-critical needs. Prior to SpikeSource, Kim cofounded Marimba in 1996, and as President and CEO she led the company to profitability and a successful public offering. She then served as Chairman until Marimba’s acquisition by BMC Software in April 2004. Before cofounding Marimba, Kim worked at Sun Microsystems and was the original product manager for Java, leading its launch in March 1995. Prior to Java, Kim worked in Sun’s software division on object-oriented development environments. Previously, she worked at Intellicorp, Inc., helping Fortune 500 firms implement expert systems.
Kim earned a Bachelor’s degree in Biophysics from U.C. Berkeley and studied Computer Science at the University of Washington, Seattle. Kim serves on the board of the Silicon Valley Leadership Group, a coalition of executives working to improve the economy, health and quality of life for all citizens of the region through advocacy on major public policy issues. Kim also serves on the board of the Global Security Institute and the University of California President’s Board on Science and Innovation. She is a Fellow at Carnegie Mellon University’s Center for Engineered Innovation.
The CalCEF Angel Fund will be led and managed by Susan Preston, an angel investor and world-recognized expert in angel financing. Ms. Preston is an author of numerous articles, white papers and books on angel financing.
Her most recent book, Angel Financing for Entrepreneurs, Early-stage Funding for Long-Term Success was released by Wiley Publishing in March 2007, and her first book, Angel Investment Groups, Networks and Funds: A Guidebook to Developing the Right Angel Organization for Your Community, a comprehensive guidebook on the establishment and operation of angel investment groups, for which she has received numerous accolades, was published by the Kauffman Foundation in 2004. She was also a contributing author to State of the Art: An Executive Briefing on the Cutting-Edge Practices in American Angel Investing.
She has been and continues to be a national and international speaker on economic development, angel and venture financing. Ms. Preston is one of the founders of the Angel Capital Association, the North American industry association for angel organizations. She was an Entrepreneur-in-Residence with the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation for 6 years and continues to serve as a consultant, specifically focusing on initiatives related to angel investing and angel organizations.
Ms. Preston has held several board positions with public and privately held corporations, and has served on non-profit boards. Ms. Preston has been profiled in Red Herring, Inc. magazine, Smart Money, Worth and other local and national publications; and has contributed to numerous nationally published articles on angel investing. Ms. Preston is the founder and past-president of Seraph Capital Forum, the first all-women's angel investment organization.
She is the architect of the Access to Capital for Entrepreneurs Act, a bi-partisan federal income tax credit bill for private equity investing, which was introduced in the House and Senate in 2006 and has been reintroduced in the current Congressional session.
Ms. Preston received her JD, cum laude, from Seattle University School of Law and her BS, magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, in Microbiology and Public Health from Washington State University.
Prakash is a finance professional with over 20 years experience in USA and Asia. Prakash is currently Chief Financial Officer of Nordic Windpower, a company that provides two bladed utility scale turbines to the wind energy industry. Nordic is funded by Goldman Sachs, Impax Asset Management, I2BF Venture Capital and Pulsar Capital Partners. The Company is based in Berkeley, CA with offices in UK, Sweden and manufacturing operations in Pocatello, Idaho. Prakash is responsible for all financial matters of the company including corporate financing as well as project financing.
Prior to Nordic, Prakash spent 5 years as CFO at Novariant that supplied GPS based machine control products to industrial markets like agriculture and mining. During his tenure at Novariant, the company grew its revenues from $4 million to over $40 million and raised over $40 million in venture equity & debt and closed two key strategic acquisitions. During this period, the company’s employee base grew from 15 to 150 employees worldwide.
Prior to Novariant, Prakash was Head of Finance for 2 years at Sonicity, a software company with multi casting technology for internet streaming and funded by Sony Corp. Previously, Prakash spent 10 years in Hong Kong in various financial roles including 5.5 years as CFO of Sonex Group, where the revenues grew from $100 million to $300 million during his tenure by expanding into a number of new countries including China, India, Japan, Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, Chile, Panama, Brazil etc.
Prakash has a masters degree in Management from Stanford Business School (Sloan Fellows Program). He is a Chartered Accountant from India (where he scored 13th rank among 10,000 candidates all over India) and is also a Chartered Management Accountant of U.K.
Dr. Geetha Rao serves on the Life Sciences Committee for Astia. She is an experienced entrepreneur and strategic advisor to numerous early-stage life sciences ventures and philanthropic organizations. Her focus is on emerging business challenges and operational excellence that meets best-in-class, international standards. She brings broad industry knowledge of medical technologies, health care practices, and market trends and a successful track record of having worked internationally with physicians, engineers and regulators to meet business milestones. She is an internationally recognized expert in risk management and liability for high-risk technologies and has served on several international policy making bodies, and as an invited expert to regulatory agencies, including the FDA, and standards organizations. She has helped author virtually all recent international standards and guidance documents for medical device quality systems and risk management.
Currently, Dr. Rao is the founding CEO of Springborne Life Sciences, providing interim management and advisory services to medical device and life sciences technology firms. She also serves as Chief Corporate Development Officer at Molecular Image, Inc., a personalized medicine diagnostics firm; VP of Strategy & Risk Management at Triple Ring Technologies, a contract medical device development firm, and VP Quality and Clinical at SI-BONE, Inc., an orthopedic implant company. Previously, as President and CEO of Norgren Systems, a biotechnology/drug discovery automation company, Dr. Rao successfully oversaw stabilization of operations following sudden demise of principal and founder, repositioned the firm for growth and completed sale of its assets to AEI, Inc.
Dr. Rao chairs the MIT/Stanford Venture Lab’s Emerging Business Track for Life Sciences, and has been a guest faculty on Stanford University’s Biodesign Innovation Program, and the UC Santa Cruz Extension course on Regulation of Medical Devices and Diagnostics. She chairs ASQ’s Northern California Biomedical Discussion Group. Dr. Rao is a graduate of the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, holds a doctorate from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a master’s degree from Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business, where she was a Sloan Fellow.
Amanda opened Palomar's Palo Alto office in 2001 after building a successful career as a senior executive in sales, marketing, and business development in early-stage companies.
Prior to joining Palomar, Amanda was a member of the founding team or early employee of four start-up companies, including Senior Vice President of Strategy and Development for LogicTier, an internet operations services provider, and Connect, Inc., an early pioneer in Internet based e-commerce software and services. Prior to Connect, Inc. she was Director of Marketing for a privately held manufacturing company (sales to 42 countries worldwide), where her duties included launching the company's European sales and customer service operations. Amanda began her tech career in major account sales, sales management, channel development, and IT outsourcing consulting while at Businessland, Inc. Amanda joined Businessland at the earliest stage of the company with fewer than 30 employees and supported its growth to more than $3B in sales.
With the operating experience of two IPOs and company acquisitions in excess of $100M, Amanda brings extensive early-stage operations talent and insight to the Palomar investment team. Amanda serves on the boards of BubbleMotion, Edgewater Networks, MyBuys, Silver Creek Systems, Voxify, and Virtela.
Amanda holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics from Dartmouth College. She is a member of the Executive Council for Astia, and is also a Business Advisor to Pacific Community Ventures.
Don has extensive experience as a corporate lawyer in the areas of venture capital finance, public securities offerings, mergers and acquisitions, and other general corporate representation of technology start-up and emerging growth companies, as well as venture funds and investment banks. Before joining Crosby Heafey, which combined with Reed Smith in 2003, in late 2001 to chair its Corporate Department, Don was a co-founder and the managing partner of Bay Venture Counsel, LLP. Don is currently a Deputy Chair of Reed Smith's Global Emerging Company/Venture Capital Practice. Don has also previously been selected as a Northern California "Super Lawyer" by Law & Politics magazine and the publishers of San Francisco Magazine.
Cynthia is a Managing Partner of DBL Investors, an investment firm focused on delivering strong financial returns together with positive social, environmental, and economic impact, which she joined in April 2008. She was formerly a Managing Director of VantagePoint Venture Partners from 2002 to 2008 where she was Group Leader of the Communications, Systems Internet and Media Practice.
Prior to VantagePoint, Cynthia served as the CEO of Coppercom, a next-generation network switching company. Cynthia served on the board of the Forum for Women Entrepreneurs from 2000 to 2004, and as Chair of the Board for 2001 through 2003.
Cynthia received a B.S. in Legal Systems from Georgia State University and a JD from Emory University School of Law.
Coming soon
Ms. Rowinski is Principal of the Sue Rowinski Group LLC, a reimbursement and marketing consulting firm located in the San Francisco bay area. The firm is retained by private and public medical device companies and investors for proprietary reimbursement and marketing projects that can cover the entire company/product life cycle. Projects can include reimbursement due diligence and risk analysis, design and the implementation of Medicare and private payer plans and integration of these plans into a client’s clinical and marketing efforts and interim onsite management services for marketing and reimbursement.
In addition to her consulting work, Ms. Rowinski has over 15 years of operating experience in the medical device and imaging industries, including management responsibility for reimbursement, marketing and sales. Her experience spans the company life cycle and includes advancing companies through the fundraising, product development, and product launch phases. She has raised private equity and managed strategic corporate partners. Ms. Rowinski has secured Medicare reimbursement approvals and has been responsible for three market introductions that included the U.S., Euro-zone and Japan.
She was Vice President, Marketing (PharmaSonics, Sunnyvale, CA.) where she was responsible for global reimbursement and marketing. Previously, she has held several management positions with increasing responsibility; Director of Marketing (Cardiometrics, Mountain View, CA.), Global Marketing Manager (Medtronic, San Diego, CA), Product Manager (Quinton Instrument Company, Seattle, WA.). Ms. Rowinski began her life sciences career as a Cardiology Ultrasound Sales Representative for Advanced Technology Labs (ATL, Seattle, WA).
Ms. Rowinski holds a M. S. in Engineering/Bioengineering from the University of Washington and a B.S. in Health Physics from Purdue University.
Dan Sapp has been a thought leader in the business communications field for 20+ years. In 1997 he founded Dan Sapp Inc., and quickly gained a reputation for helping business leaders brand their leadership through strategic communication. With a Masters in Clinical and Sport Psychology, Dan brings a unique perspective on what is required to move people to action and drive business results. His clients include senior executives in industries ranging from AEC to financial services to technology, including Hellman & Friedman, JMI Equity, Mellon Capital Management, Anshen & Allen, Gensler, WRT, Nokia, The Graduate School of Business at Stanford University, UC Berkeley, and many others.
Ms. Schwartz is a partner in the Technology Transactions Group, and based in the firm’s San Francisco Office. She currently serves as a co-chair of the Cleantech Group for the firm worldwide.
Her practice centers on counseling companies regarding intellectual property and information technology issues as well as negotiating intellectual property and commercial agreements.
Ms. Schwartz represents a wide array of public and private companies, from large established institutional clients to start-ups. Her clients have included telecommunications, wireless, software, hardware, consumer electronics, semiconductor equipment, consumer product, food and beverage, medical and scientific research product, hospitality and entertainment, medical diagnostic and device, health care, biotechnology, internet, logistics, and financial services companies.
Ms. Schwartz’s litigation background includes representing clients in arbitration, and state and federal courts in such areas as antitrust, false advertising, unfair competition, breach of contract, securities, trademark, copyright, and trade secret law. Her litigation experience includes complex, multidistrict, and class action litigation, as well as appellate advocacy.
Building on her litigation and transactional experience, Ms. Schwartz’s current practice has an active counseling element. She counsels clients with respect to a wide variety of matters, including joint development projects, reverse engineering, use of clean rooms, technology licensing, protection of trade secrets, development and distribution of open source software, Internet law, technology standards, and intellectual property management and audits. Ms. Schwartz also provides clients pre-litigation and litigation counseling to negotiate the settlement of disputes. She frequently advises executives and senior management on strategic business, legal, and commercial issues, including structuring of transactions, risk management, and contract compliance.
Ms. Schwartz’s pro bono efforts have included work for The Biomimicry Institute, Goodwill, Common Sense Media, Business for Social Responsibility, intellectual property advice to a variety of cultural, media, and arts organizations, asylum cases for El Salvadorian refugees, landlord-tenant disputes, and other assistance for not-for-profits.
Ms. Schwartz received her B.A., magna cum laude, from Harvard College in 1991. In 1996, she earned her J.D. from the University of California at Los Angeles, where she was elected to the Order of the Coif. Ms. Schwartz joined Morrison & Foerster in 1996.
Mike Selfridge is the Northern California region manager for Silicon Valley Bank. He is responsible for the leadership, management and financial performance of all lending activities and client relationships for the company’s core constituency of venture-backed companies as well as the venture capital and private equity firms throughout the region. Selfridge has deep expertise in business development, finance, risk management, leadership and specializes in global diversified financial products and services for the technology, venture capital and private equity industries worldwide.
Selfridge joined SVB Financial Group in 1997 and has held a number of leadership positions in sales, credit, international expansion, product development and financing solutions. Prior to his current role, Selfridge was the Head of Europe and Israel regions for SVB in addition to managing the company’s Global Products
Division which included SVB Asset Management, investments, international credit products, foreign exchange trading, trade finance, global treasury management and online banking.
During his tenure with Silicon Valley Bank, Selfridge has also served as the division manager for the commercial bank’s activities in the Northeast, was a senior credit officer for the entire Southeast region and senior vice president of Silicon Valley Bank’s International Group. Prior to joining Silicon Valley Bank, Selfridge worked
in corporate banking for HSBC and loan audit group for Wells Fargo Bank.
Selfridge currently serves on the advisory board of the Export-Import Bank of the United States, the official export credit agency of the U.S. government, which was responsible for authorizing $12.6 billion in financing to support an estimated $16 billion of U.S. exports in 2007. He also serves on the board of directors of the
Housing Trust of Santa Clara and the advisory boards for both the Bay Area chapter of the National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship and Santa Clara University’s business school. Selfridge holds a bachelor of science degree from Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo, California, and a master’s of business administration from
the University of San Francisco.
Prashant Shah, Managing Director, joined Hummer Winblad in December 2000. He has been instrumental in many investments including Baynote, Bridgestream, Cenzic, EvoStor, InMage, Jareva Technologies, Krillion, Scalent, SyncVoice, Tizor and Voltage Security. He also observes a number of these boards. In addition, Prashant is an active Charter Member of TiE Silicon Valley (www.tiesv.org), where he is Chair of the Software SIG; and a member of the Board of Trustees for Astia (www.astia.org).
Prior to Hummer Winblad, Prashant spent many years defining and launching high tech products. His background spans all seven layers of the OSI stack with product management roles at enCommerce (acquired by Entrust), Cypress Semiconductor and AT&T. Prashant received a BS in Electrical Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and an MBA from the University of Chicago.
Prashant currently sits on the Board of EvoStor.
Lori Sherer, Senior Vice President, RMS
Lori A. Sherer, Senior Vice President, Risk Assessment Initiatives, joined RMS in 2006 after having served as an officer of, and the Vice President and General Manager of the Enterprise Decision Management Business Unit at Fair Isaac (2000-2006). In that capacity, Ms. Sherer had P&L responsibility for the software and analytic assets of the company, and was successful bringing new decision science applications to market for the financial services & consumer credit industries. At RMS, Ms. Sherer brings her experience to the insurance arena and currently serves as our Senior Vice President of Risk Assessment Initiatives. In this role she is responsible for the commercial success of RMS's investments in new models and analytic applications for Property and Casualty risk management. Prior to that, Ms. Sherer served as our head of Corporate Strategy and was the chief architect of the RMS growth plan covering the 5-10 year horizon. Her previous work experience also includes 10 years in general management consulting. She was a Partner with Mitchell Madison Group, LLC, and with Mercer Management Consulting (1990-2000). She holds and B.A. summa cum laude from New England College, Henniker NH, and an MBA from Babson Graduate School of Business, Wellesley, MA.
Carl Showalter is a founding partner of Opus Capital investing in Internet and data communications startups. Previously, Carl was a General Partner with Lightspeed Venture Partners.
Carl brings more than 12 years of operating experience to Opus. Most recently, he served as Vice President of Marketing at Juniper Networks, where he built and led a global marketing and product management organization. Prior to Juniper, Carl was Vice President of Dial and Broadband Services for UUNET, overseeing the 300-person, $1B revenue division.
He also held various sales and management positions at ANS, an AOL company, where he helped build AOL's modem access network and then helped launch hardware-based firewalls and IP VPNs in the mid 1990's. Carl began his career at Bellcore, focusing on network security and data service delivery. At Bellcore, Carl performed logical and physical attacks on phone company infrastructure, helping them fix these vulnerabilities.
Carl holds a BS degree in Systems Engineering from the University of Virginia and an MS degree in Engineering-Economic Systems from Stanford University.
JC Simbana is a Director with SVB Capital's Entrepreneur Services Group, which serves as a platform to provide quality investment referrals to venture firms and assists emerging companies in raising capital through strategic introductions to the right investors for their business. Simbana focuses on working with life science companies and venture capital. He has more than ten years of experience in financial services, with extensive experience in venture banking and equity research.
Prior to joining SVB Capital in 2008, Simbana led Square 1 Bank's life science practice in Northern California, where he focused on strengthening relationships with select venture capital firms and providing venture-backed companies with banking and debt financing solutions.
He began his venture banking career with Comerica's Technology & Life Science Division, and prior to commercial banking, he spent five years working as an equity analyst and worked for Moors & Cabot, Inc.'s Technology Research Group. The combination of his experience as a venture banker and institutional equity analyst provide him with an understanding of a client's needs from seed-stage to IPO.
Simbana holds a bachelor's degree in business administration from Colorado State University, and is active in several life science organizations, including the Astia's Life Science Committee, American Heart Association, and the American Diabetes Association Leaders Forum.
Rich joined Asset Management Company in 2002. He combines a deep technical background with extensive operational business experience. Over the past 20 years he has been involved with numerous start-up companies, in both management and consulting roles. Prior to joining the firm, he co-founded Talkway Communications, a provider of internet video services such as video email to major providers including AT&T and British Telecom.
Two of his academic publications were chosen for inclusion in the 25-year retrospective of the International Symposium on Computer Architecture, the premier conference in the computer architecture field. He is an expert in distributed computing, performance measurement and optimization, scalable computing, internet protocols and architectures, digital audio and video, and wireless computing.
Rich has a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University, where he held a Fellowship from the National Science Foundation. Rich also has master's and bachelor's degrees in Electrical Engineering from Stanford and Rice University.
William Sloan is Of Counsel with the global law firm Morrison & Foerster LLP in its San Francisco office, serves on the firm’s Cleantech Steering Committee, and chairs the Environmental Group’s carbon team. Mr. Sloan represents domestic and international clients on matters involving natural resource and emission management, regulation, and litigation, with a particular focus on climate change, energy, and water resources. He has advised clients on carbon offset generation projects and emission reduction purchase agreements, both under the Clean Development Mechanism of the Kyoto Protocol and in the voluntary offset marketplace. With respect to water, he has counseled clients on water rights and water supply assessments, and has handled contested cases involving groundwater basin adjudications and water quality compliance. His work has spanned North America, Europe, Asia, and Africa.
Before entering private practice, Mr. Sloan served in externships with the United States Department of Justice, the United States EPA, and the California Attorney General’s Office. During his career, he has developed extensive compliance, permitting, and litigation experience involving the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the Porter-Cologne Water Quality Control Act, the California Environmental Quality Act, the California Coastal Act, the Endangered Species Act, the California Forest Practice Act, and other environmental statutes.
For nearly a decade, Mr. Sloan has worked on matters before regulatory agencies, as well as in state, federal, and international courts, successfully litigating cases for both the public and private sector that have been resolved in the California and United States Supreme Courts. His matters have also included representation of sovereign entities such as the Government of Guam and the Republic of Ethiopia. A list of clients is available upon request.
Mr. Sloan received his B.A. degree from Princeton University in 1994 and his J.D. degree from Hastings College of the Law, University of California, in 1999. In 2006, he was awarded a diploma as a Rhodes Ocean Scholar from the Rhodes Academy of Oceans Law and Policy in Greece. He is a frequent speaker and author on climate change and carbon markets.
Currently, Mr. Sloan sits on the Climate Change Advisory Committee for the California Manufacturers and Technology Association, and participates in the Association’s environmental and government affairs committees. Mr. Sloan is also a member of the Energy Bar Association’s emission trading committee, the Environmental Law Institute, and the Environment, Energy, and Resources Section of the American Bar Association.
Laura Smoliar works with Astia as Entrepreneur in Residence, focusing on client evangelism. She interviews executive teams to capture their stories for case studies, white papers, articles and other information sources. She also works with Peppertree Engineering, providing strategic and business development counsel for high-technology companies, and serves as an advisor to Signal Lake, a venture capital firm.
Dr. Smoliar is well equipped for her role at Astia. She became acquainted with the organization in 2005 when she was forming her own company. While participating in Astia’s programs and presenting at venture conferences , she launched Mobius Photonics, a company that produces commercial fiber lasers.
As Chairman and CEO of Mobius Photonics, Laura Smoliar built a corporate team, established key customer relationships in Europe and Asia, successfully raised angel and strategic financing from the U.S. and Japan, and established a strong intellectual property (IP) position based on the company’s unique breakthrough light technology. In July 2009, she resigned from Mobius Photonics to pursue other interests, including her new role at Astia.
Laura Smoliar’s expertise covers diverse hardware-technology companies. Beginning her career in data storage at Seagate Technology, she later worked on MEMS-based laser displays at Silicon Light Machines (acquired by Cypress Semiconductor), and then migrated to solid-state lasers at Lightwave Electronics (acquired by JDSU). She has extensive experience partnering with Japanese companies such as Sony, Hitachi, Disco, and Panasonic, and she has lived and worked in both Taiwan and Germany.
Laura holds a Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley, where she worked with Yuan T. Lee (1986 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry) and an A.B. Summa Cum Laude from Columbia University, both in Chemistry. She is a past member of the Council and Executive Board of the American Physical Society (http://www.aps.org). Since 1997, she has served as a mentor with the Association of Women in Science (http://www.awis.org) Palo Alto Chapter.
Judith Stant served as a member of the board of directors of Alveolus, Inc., a Charlotte N.C. start-up company and leader in the development of non-vascular interventional stent technology, having also served as the temporary CEO for 10 months until February 2008. The company was sold to Merit Medical in 2009.
Prior to Alveolus, Judith was President and CEO of Artemis Medical, Inc., an East Bay area start-up company focused in breast cancer diagnosis and treatment. Artemis was acquired by Johnson & Johnson in June 2004.
Judith has twenty years’ experience working for the United States Surgical Corporation (USSC). Judith was President of Surgical Dynamics, a division of USSC, for nearly four years, a company specializing in spine and sports medicine implants. Judith spent over 16 years in the divisions of USSC at Auto Suture USA (14 years) and Auto Suture Australia and New Zealand (2 years), working in various high-level sales/management positions prior to her position as Vice President & General Manager of both organizations for a total of 6 and a half years.
Judith currently sits on Astia’s Council of Advisors, lending her expertise to Astia and guiding its expansion.
Judith received her Liberal Arts degree from Immaculata College, Washington, DC.
Mark C. Stevens is a partner in the Corporate and Intellectual Property Groups of Fenwick & West LLP, a law firm specializing in technology and life sciences matters.
Mr. Stevens represents companies, ranging from newly formed startup teams to mature public companies, venture capitalists and investment banks involved in the information technology and new media industries, with particular focus on complex transactions. As a lawyer and a business principal, Mr. Stevens has led teams handling merger, acquisition and divestiture transactions with total announced value well in excess of $25 billion. He has directed dozens of initial public offerings and hundreds of strategic alliance transactions, ranging from technology and distribution partnerships to multinational joint venture transactions. Mr. Stevens' varied background includes work from the legal, business and venture capital sides of the table. In addition to 20 years of legal practice at Fenwick & West, he was Executive Vice President of Business and Corporate Development at Excite@Home and a venture partner at GGV Capital. Mr. Stevens has also served on Boards of Directors of several public and private companies.
Barbara Tallent is currently a co-founder at LiveBinders. She has spent over 30 years in the computer industry and was the President/CEO of BoldFish (email marketing software) which she sold to Siebel Systems (now Oracle). Previously she held several executive positions at a number of Internet startup companies including Vice President of Marketing at Netmosphere, and Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Intervista. She spent six years with NCD, and was the General Manager and Director of Messaging Products at the Z-Mail division which she sold to NetManage.
She is passionate about customer-centered products and has held product marketing jobs at other well-known companies including SGI, Pyramid Technologies, Altos Computers, and Fortune Systems. In addition to mentoring at Asita, she also mentors product managers through her website www.infrasystems.com.
Shanna Tellerman is the Founder and CEO of Sim Ops Studios, Inc., a spin-off company from Carnegie Mellon University. Sim Ops is developing the comprehensive independent game development solution, Wild Pockets; a free web-based 3D game engine with a built-in transaction system and distribution network. Shanna has overseen operations, development, fund raising, and strategic relationships since the formation of Sim Ops. She has over seven years of experience working in the video game and emerging serious games industry with a focus on breaking down the barriers for creative development in 3D environments. Graduating with a Masters degree in Entertainment Technology from Carnegie Mellon University in May 2005, she was hired by the University to continue development and to investigate commercialization opportunities for the technology that formed the foundation of Sim Ops Studios. Shanna has experience in a variety of roles including her initial involvement as visionary, product manager and designer, focused on user-centered design and research in game development, through to her current role as CEO focused on all levels execution in the company from the product roadmap to business development. In 2004, Ms. Tellerman had the opportunity to work for Electronic Arts on The Sims 2, the sequel to the best-selling PC game ever. She has also researched and co-authored the paper titled “Emergent Stories in Massively Multiplayer Online Games: Using Improvisational Techniques to Design for Emotional Impact,” (International Conference on Entertainment Computing, 2004). She received her Bachelor’s in Fine Arts and a Minor in Multi-Media Production from Carnegie Mellon University in 2003.
Rob Theis invests in technology infrastructure and applications companies at ScaleVP. He sits on the Board of Hubspot. Prior to joining ScaleVP in May 2008, Rob was with venture capital fund DCM - Doll Capital Management, where he was a General Partner for 8 years, and invested in leading companies, including JasperSoft, NeoPath Networks (acquired by Cisco), PGP Corporation, Roamware, VanceInfo (NYSE: VIT) and Wikinvest.
Rob's investing career builds on his global experience driving technology startups' sales, marketing and partnership success. As executive vice president for New Era of Networks (NEON), Rob grew the company to $200 million in revenues and was instrumental in leading NEON through a successful IPO. Prior to NEON, Rob spent 10 years in varied executive roles at Sun Microsystems, where he drove growth in a series of new strategic initiatives, including Sun's success in the Financial Services Industry sector. Rob's previous experience includes launching Silicon Graphics' initial workstations and selling timesharing services for McDonnell Douglas (now Boeing).
Theis was awarded the Honors Scholarship at the University of Pittsburgh, where he earned a B.A. degree in economics.
Kathleen Toland
Kathleen Toland is a seasoned sales and business development consultant with over fourteen years of experience working with companies ranging from the Fortune 2000 to startup organizations where she served as a founding member. She understands the specific challenges entrepreneurs face in terms of building a market, the importance of creating a winning sales strategy and building barriers to entry. Throughout her years as a sales professional Kathleen has learned the most effective methods to build a customer base while validating a market. Kathleen has been part of the Astia community since 1999 when she formed one of the first business development relationships to benefit the organization. This Doing IT Right Conference will be her forth, serving as a Lead Advisor. Kathleen is a Global Account Manager with Parametric Technology Corporation in San Jose, CA, charged with selling product development solutions to the Fortune 2000.
Rob Trice brings a variety of domestic and international investing and business experience to SK telecom ventures. Prior to joining SK telecom ventures, he was a co-founding Partner of Nokia Growth Partners, the global growth-stage venture capital arm of Nokia with US$350m under management for direct and fund-to-fund investing. From late 2000 until the end of 2004, he worked at Nokia Venture Partners (now BlueRun Ventures) on early-stage venture investments in the US and overseas. Previously, he worked at DIRECTV in Los Angeles and Tokyo in a variety of operational and business planning roles.
Rob also worked as an international policy analyst at a Washington, D.C. based think tank, the Center for Strategic & International Studies. He holds a Master of Arts from George Mason University and a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Virginia. Rob is based in Menlo Park, California.
Lynda Twomey is a corporate partner at Fenwick & West. Ms. Twomey represents private and public companies in the networking, internet, software, semiconductor and computer hardware industries and her practice is primarily focused on startup counseling, venture capital, private equity transactions and mergers and acquisitions.
Ms. Twomey advises private companies in matters ranging from startup counseling, equity incentive arrangements, securities law compliance to structuring and negotiation of venture capital financing transactions. Ms. Twomey also represents venture capital firms, private equity funds and corporate investors in their investments in portfolio companies.
In the mergers and acquisitions area, Ms. Twomey has represented buyers and sellers in numerous public and private acquisitions and divestitures, spin-offs and other strategic transactions, including cross-border M&A transactions. She has represented Cisco Systems, Inc. in numerous acquisition transactions, including its $7 billion acquisition of Scientific-Atlanta, Inc. and its acquisitions of KiSS Technology A/S, NetSolve, Inc. and Protego Networks, Inc. Ms. Twomey recently advised Opsware, Inc. on its $1.6 billion acquisition by Hewlett-Packard, and is currently representing Covad Communications Group in its pending acquisition by Platinum Equity Capital.
Ms. Twomey has also represented Flextronics International Ltd in many strategic transactions, including Flextronics' acquisition of Microcell Oy and Peripheral Imaging Corporation, its acquisition of a majority stake in Hughes Software Systems, a division of DirecTV, and the sale of its semiconductor division to AMIS Semiconductor, Inc. Ms. Twomey also advised Ocular Sciences, Inc. in its $650 million merger with The Coopers Companies, Inc. and Handspring, Inc. in its merger with Palm, Inc.
She graduated from Trinity College, Dublin, LL.B., with honors, 1989
Sharon Vosmek, Astia
Sharon Vosmek has been CEO of Astia since June 2007 having served as its COO since August 2004 and community member since 2002. Her life and career are best described as a series of serendipitous events that have led to great opportunity and adventure.
Her diverse experience lends itself to the many constituents of Astia. Sharon has been instrumental in building the community that is Astia – the advisors, the sponsors, the thought-leaders, and the entrepreneurs we serve.
Sharon has a Masters in International Public Affairs from the University of Wisconsin - Madison and a Bachelors in Political Science from Arizona State University.
Prior to Astia, Sharon’s career included SJ Vosmek & Associates, a consulting firm focused on organizational change and growth that included PG&E and PacBell as clients. Prior to consulting, Sharon worked in management at American Express and in the office of United States Senator Dennis Deconcini.
Sharon currently serves on the Board of Directors for the YMCA of San Francisco, on the Advisory Board of the Forum for Women Entrepreneurs & Executives, and as co-chair of the Entrepreneurial Alliance for the National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT). In the recent past she has served on the boards of the Level Playing Field Institute, Food First: The Institute for Food & Development Policy, and Global Exchange.
Ted Wang is a partner in the Corporate Group and Intellectual Property Group of Fenwick & West LLP, a law firm specializing in technology and life sciences matters.
Mr. Wang represents emerging companies, venture capitalists and investment banks involved in the information technology, Internet and clean technology industries.
Mr. Wang’s practice ranges from the formation of new start-up companies through venture capital financings to public offering work with a particular emphasis of mergers and acquisitions.
Mr. Wang received his J.D. from the University of Virginia Law School and his A.B., cum laude, from Duke University. He is a former law clerk for the Honorable Samuel Conti, United States District Judge for the Northern District of California. Mr. Wang is a member of the State Bar of California.
Joy Weiss, President & CEO, Dust Networks
In the past 25 years, Joy Weiss has provided leadership for a broad range of technology companies. Joy was steeped in networking technologies early in her career in a variety of R&D, sales and general management roles at Nortel Networks, including her role as President and GM of Nortel’s Network Management division where she presided over record-breaking growth. As President and CEO of Esker, Joy led the enterprise software company through its IPO and subsequent merger with Teubner, Inc. Prior to joining Dust Networks, Joy served as President and CEO of Inviso, an award-winning microdisplay company. Joy has served on the boards of Saraide.com (acquired by Infospace) and GlimmerGlass Networks, and she holds a BS in electrical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Kimberly Weisul is the founding editor of BusinessWeek SmallBiz, the bi-monthly small business publication launched in June 2004. In addition, she is also a Senior Editor for BusinessWeek.
Under Ms. Weisul’s leadership, BusinessWeek SmallBiz won the 2005 Jesse H. Neal Award for Best Startup Publication and received a Silver Award from the American Society of Business Publication Editors in the same category. In 2006 and 2007, SmallBiz won Jesse H. Neal Awards for Best Single Issue. In 2006, the magazine was named one of the top ten business magazines of the year by the ASBPE.
Before joining BusinessWeek, Ms. Weisul was the business editor at Interactive Week, where she focused on finance in her “Wall Street Watch” column. Before that, she was a staff writer at Investment Dealer’s Digest, where she covered new technology. She was also the founding editor of the Digest’s Web Finance newsletter.
Ms. Weisul has freelanced for Forbes.com, is a frequent public speaker, and has become a regular guest on MSNBC’s Your Business. She has also appeared on ABC World News This Morning, CNNfn, Dow Jones News Radio, and AP News Radio. She received an award for her finance coverage from the New York Society of CPAs and won the Computer Press Award for Best Print News Story in 2000.
She graduated from Brown University with honors.
Andrew Williamson is a Director at Physic Ventures. Since joining early in 2007, Andrew has focused on working with companies that are developing products and technologies to enable consumers to adopt more sustainable lifestyles. Among the portfolio company investments managed by Physic Ventures, Andrew is on the boards of Chromatin, EnergyHub, Halosource, Impinj and Novomer.
Prior to joining Physic Ventures, Andrew spent 10 years leading materials science research and development projects at the Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. At NREL, Andrew developed computational models for predicting the opto-electronic properties of next generation photovoltaic materials. At LLNL, Andrew was the project leader for computational nanomaterials research. His group's research activities included nanomaterials, hydrogen storage, thermoelectric materials and battery technology.
Andrew also helped LLNL develop strategies for identifying and commercializing new technologies. He represented LLNL as an Executive Management Fellow in the University of California Industry-University Cooperative Research Program to establish industrial alliance programs for new University of California research centers in nanotechnology, micro-fluidics, foods for health, and stem cell research.
Andrew has published over 50 peer reviewed academic articles and 2 patents. He holds a BA and a Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Cambridge and a MBA from the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley.
Steve Wilson is a UK-qualified corporate lawyer and head's Osborne Clarke's US practice from its office in Silicon Valley. He has wide experience in representing US clients and his practice covers a broad range of counselling global businesses in all aspects of their European legal needs including their overseas expansion strategies, whether by way of inward investment, acquisition or joint venture. He specialises in corporate transactional and venture capital work with an industry focus on digital business (technology, telecoms, internet & interactive entertainment) and cleantech.
Steve is central to Osborne Clarke's European Alliance and Best Friend network and has extensive experience in leading and project managing multi-jurisdictional transactions. He has spoken both across the US and internationally on numerous topics pertinent to global business and is an active member of the British American Business Council and German American Business Association.
Steve graduated from King's College, University of London and completed his studies at London's College of Law. He is a member of the Law Society of England & Wales, associate member of the American Bar Association (Business & International Sections) and a registered Foreign Legal Consultant with the State Bar of California.
Marianne Wu is a Partner at MDV where she focuses on Cleantech investments. These typically involve significant technology or business model breakthroughs applied to large, evolving markets such as solar, biofuels and chemicals, clean coal, energy efficiency, smart grid, and water treatment and management. She leverages over 15 years of technology development and business experience to help entrepreneurs build meaningful, successful businesses. At MDV, she is on the Board of Laurus Energy and works closely with Zeachem and Catilin.
Marianne has been named one of Top 10 Women in Cleantech and one of Silicon Valley's Women of Influence. She is on the Advisory Committees of the Cleantech Open, Western Governors' Association, SdForum and Astia. She is a member of the Hua Yuan Science and Technology Association (HYSTA) VC Group and Environmental Entrepreneurs.
Prior to joining MDV, Marianne was VP Marketing at ONI Systems where she was responsible for product strategy and market development. Earlier in her career, Marianne was a consultant at McKinsey and Company where she advised major technology clients on strategic and operational issues. Marianne has conducted state-of-the-art research in materials, devices, and systems at Stanford University and started her career as a design engineer at Nortel Networks where she developed high-speed networking technologies.
Marianne earned both her doctoral and master's degrees from the School of Engineering at Stanford University and her bachelor's in Applied Science at the University of British Columbia.
Jennifer Zeszut is the founder and CEO of Scout Labs, which delivers visibility into the voice of the customer online and actionable analysis for marketers. Zeszut is a 15-year marketing veteran, having worked in both software and consulting. Most recently, Zeszut was the Vice President of Marketing at Leverage Software, an on-demand community and social networking software company.
At Avenue A / Razorfish for 7 years, she held the position of Director of Marketing Strategy and Analytics for the west coast. In that role she and her team gleaned customer insights for the world’s top brands and advised senior executives on strategies for effective marketing and relationship building. She has also served as acting Director of Marketing at eBay, focused on product strategy and customer acquisition for the eBay Stores business.
Her early career was spent learning the fundamentals of brand management, marketing and merchandising at Procter & Gamble and Cost Plus World Market. Ms.
Zeszut holds a BA in Psychology from UC Berkeley and an MBA from the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan.
Teddy is a serial social entrepreneur with 15 years' experience in business formation and strategy, technology, product development, board directorship and teaching/learning sciences. He has co-founded 4 companies and non-profits/boards (so far!). His career encompasses work with Fortune 500 executive teams, startup management teams, corporate and non-profit boards of directors, regional and national leadership networks, and "authorized" and "emergent" communities of practice. (But he is still and always will be most a fan of upstarts and underdogs!) His corporate assignments include Strategy and Product Development for SmartForce, LLC, Consultant at Accenture and Deloitte Consulting, Financial Research Consultant for the U.S. Embassy in Madrid, Trainer and Consultant for Motorola Inc, Founder and Vice President of Product Development for Learning Productions LLC and Partner at Congruity, a boutique strategy and leading edge technology and social architecture consultancy in Silicon Valley. He is currently the Founder and Chief Operating Officer at B!, a health and wellness startup in Silicon Valley. Teddy also sits on the Board of Trustees for San Francisco based Fools Fury theatre, and the Advisory Board of Sound Goods, LLC a New York City based startup looking to 'green' the retail apparel supply chain. Originally from Chicago, Teddy earned a Masters in Learning Sciences from Northwestern and MBAs in Strategy and Organizational Behavior from Columbia and London Business Schools and was a Visiting Scholar in Social Entrepreneurship at Stanford. He has studied in the United States, Europe, Asia, and South America and lived in Chicago, New York, Madrid, London, and San Francisco.
