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Mark Coopersmith has spent more than 20 years launching, building and restructuring high-growth global businesses in technology, consumer brands and media, and especially where they converge. Mark led the $300mm Global Technology Brands group at Newell Rubbermaid; served as President of Strategy for brand consultancy Addis Creson; and co-founded a $150mm consumer products and e-commerce division at Sony. He was the founding CEO of pioneer online payments company WebOrder (now part of Motorola); and earlier in his career was a strategy and M&A consultant with Ernst & Young. A board member and advisor to companies ranging from start-ups to corporations such as Intel and DirecTV, Mark teaches Entrepreneurship in the Haas MBA program. Mark recently launched The Argonauts Group, bringing together executives, advisors and investors to identify opportunities, restructure and transform businesses, and drive revenues and value. Mark is an alum of UC Berkeley, where he earned his MBA degree and his B.A. in Political Economies of Industrial Societies.
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Nat Goldhaber is Managing Director of Claremont Creek Ventures. Nat is the resident expert on energy conservation with a broad interest in areas such as mobile payments and social networking. His focus on this investment field is built on twenty years of experience in IT as: CEO of Cybergold; founder of Centram Systems West; founding CEO of Kaleida Labs and Vice President of Sun Microsystems. Prior to his business career, Nat served as Special Assistant to Pennsylvania's Lt. Governor, William Scranton, III. He ran the state's Energy Agency as its Interim Director. Some past investments include: Ask Jeeves, Shiva and Macromedia. Nat holds a master's degree in Education and is an emeritus member of the Executive Board of the College of Letters and Science at UC Berkeley. He serves on the Advisory Board for the Silicon Valley Association of Startup Entrepreneurs, as a member of the US Secret Service Electronics Crime Taskforce, and is a Board Member of the Federation of American Scientists. Nat lives in Berkeley, California with his wife of 30 years, Marilyn. Their three boys are in college.
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Timothy J. Harris is a partner in the Palo Alto office of the international law firm Morrison & Foerster LLP where he specializes in representing entrepreneurs, startups and the venture capital investors that finance them. Mr. Harris advises on issues involving corporate formation; equity incentive compensation; angel, seed and venture capital investment; and technology development and licensing. In addition to his law degree, Mr. Harris holds a degree in computer science from Princeton University and was a software designer and programmer before becoming a lawyer. His computer science and software background provide him with a detailed understanding of his Internet- and software-based clients' products and services and the technology issues they face.
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Randy Hawks is a Managing Director at Claremont Creek Ventures, bringing more than 25 years of technology industry experience as a senior general manager and venture investor to the group. Randy invests in Information Technology and has a special interest in Security and Sensor Networks. In the years prior to co-founding Claremont Creek Ventures, Randy was a General Partner at Novus Ventures and a Venture Partner at Horizon Ventures. Before his venture capital career, Randy had startup experience as CEO at Captiva Software and as COO at Identix (from its founding through IPO and life on NASDAQ). He served as Sr. VP at AT&T Paradyne and as a VP of Marketing & Division GM at ITT Information Systems (Qume). Early in his career, Randy served in a variety of roles in the minicomputer business at Texas Instruments and began work as a computer research engineer at Cornell Aeronautical Lab. Randy holds a BSEE from University of Arkansas and has completed the Stanford University Executive Management Program. He serves as a Committee Chair for Keiretsu Forum and is a member of the US Secret Service Electronics Crime Taskforce.
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Russ Holdstein is an angel investor and adviser who helps young technology companies develop their management teams and maintain strategic focus as they grow. Founder and past CEO of Payday, one of the largest payroll software service bureaus in the U.S., Russ grew his company onto Inc. Magazine's list of the 500 fastest growing private companies in America and was named one to the Top Ten Entrepreneurs in San Francisco by the Chamber of Commerce.
Russ became the Chief Financial Officer of Rolling Stone Magazine after a stint as a CPA with Ernst and Young. A former Adjunct Associate Professor at the University of San Francisco School of Business, Russ holds an MBA degree from Indiana University.
He is the author of “The Operation Manual for Business Growth,” has been quoted in USA Today and the Wall Street Journal, published in Inc. magazine and featured in Entrepreneur magazine. He has written a column on business growth for an online magazine. |
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Martin Kan is currently a Director in the Entrepreneur Services Group at SVB Capital. He is focused in collaborating with both pre-Series A and venture backed software companies in their need for venture capital by leveraging the bank's resources and network into the venture capital community. In addition, he was a Relationship Manager in the Emerging Technologies Practice at Silicon Valley Bank where his responsibilities were to provide banking services to early stage companies. Also, he previously managed a portfolio of venture-backed companies and has extensively underwritten credit facilities to these companies. Prior to Silicon Valley Bank, Martin held several project management and engineering positions at TRW (now Northrop Grumman). While at TRW, he worked on such strategic missile projects such as MX/Peacekeeper and Minuteman III weapon systems and on various Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) programs. Martin is a graduate of California State Polytechnic University, Pomona in aerospace engineering and earned his MBA from New York University's Stern School of Business. |
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Jed Katz, one of the pioneers of Internet commerce, has spent his 17-year career developing, advising and investing in early stage technology ventures. Recently, Jed also served on the Technology, Telecom & Media advisory group for President Barack Obama's campaign. Prior to joining Javelin Venture Partners, Jed was a Managing Director of DFJ Gotham Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm based in New York, where he was selected in the "Silicon Alley 100", an annual list of the most influential people in New York digital business, by the website Silicon Alley Insider. Prior to DFJ Gotham, Jed was the COO of Yamcon, the developer of the highly acclaimed "SkyScout", one of the best selling astronomy products of all time. Prior to Yamcon, Jed was the COO and Founder of Rent Net, the Internet's first rental and relocation guide. Rent Net achieved 95% market penetration and became one of the first profitable Internet companies. It was acquired by Cendant, and three years later, Jed used its infrastructure as the starting point for the formation of Move.com, one of the Internet's largest real estate sites. Move.com grew to 360 employees and was acquired by Homestore (NASDAQ: MOVE) for over $900 million. Jed holds a B.A. in Business Economics from UCLA and an M.B.A. from The Haas School of Business at the University of California – Berkeley, where he was awarded the Price Fellowship from the Lester Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, of which he is currently on the advisory board. |
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Matt Kirmayer is a Member in the Corporate Practice at Mintz Levin Cohn Ferris Glovsky and Popeo PC. 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.
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Rebecca Lynn joined Morgenthaler’s Menlo Park office in 2007, and she focuses on early-stage investments in mobile, internet services, digital media and financial services. Rebecca began her career at Procter and Gamble where she worked in international new product market entry. She then spent four years at NextCard where she led product development efforts and later served as the Vice President of Marketing where she managed one of the top five largest online marketing efforts. After NextCard, she ran her own consulting business focusing on online marketing for financial services and affiliate marketing. During law school, she was a Summer Associate at Heller Ehrman/Venture Law Group and at Quinn Emanuel where she focused on intellectual property litigation. Rebecca is also an inventor on several issued patents. She was published in the Berkeley Law and Technology Journal, and she is a registered Patent Agent. During business school, Rebecca chaired the Berkeley Business Plan Competition and was a member of New Venture Fellows. Rebecca earned a JD/MBA degree from the Haas School of Business and Boalt Hall School of Law at the University of California at Berkeley, and a B.S. in chemical engineering from the University of Missouri. |
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SB Master founded Master-McNeil (www.naming.com) as one of the first firms focused exclusively on naming. The company is known both for its hundreds of new names and brand architectures, and for its thought leadership, articles, speeches, and teaching. Master-McNeil has completed multiple projects for AMD, Disney, Schwab, Sun, Nestle, Apple, Levi-Strauss, VW, Dell, and Cisco. Additional clients include Motorola, PayPal, Compaq, Chevrolet, MicroSoft, Adobe, Acer, Clorox, Cadence, HP, Walmart, Wells Fargo, Ariba, Delta, and AT&T, as well as many new ventures and mid-sized companies. Companies incubated by Master-McNeil include BAsys, for which SB and a co-inventor were awarded a patent, and a current social enterprise startup. SB’s post-MBA job was at Landor, where she became Associate Group Director, Corporate Identity, and founding director of their naming practice. She led the creation of numerous corporate identities including Westin, Touchstone, Pacific Telesis Group/ Pacific Bell, Fleet Financial Group, and Asiana. Prior to business school SB was a Fellow at the National Endowment for the Arts; and authored the first study of the economic impact of the arts on the Bay Area, while at the San Francisco Foundation. SB received her MBA from the Harvard Business School, and a triple-major honors BA from the UCSC. She serves on several boards, both corporate and non-profit.
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Christina Pearson practices in Pillsbury's Corporate & Securities group and the Emerging Growth & Technology group, where she negotiates private equity financings for companies and venture capitalists, counsels companies on mergers and acquisitions, and advises her clients on licensing, contract and general corporate matters. Ms. Pearson also represents public clients and assists them with securities offerings, securities filings and regulatory matters. Ms. Pearson holds a J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law.
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Prashant Shah is Managing Director at Hummer Winblad venture partners, joining the firm in December 2000. He has been instrumental in many investments including Baynote, Bridgestream, Cenzic, 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.
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John Steuart has spent the last 20 years managing, building and investing in technology and life science companies. John focuses on the intersection of the information technology and life sciences markets including bioinformatics, molecular diagnostics, genomics, proteomics, software and instrumentation for med-tech industries.
John serves on the board of directors of Arcxis, Tibion, Fluxion, Gene Security Network & Wired Benefits. He is an Industry Fellow at the Center for Entrepreneurship and Technology at the College of Engineering as well as a member of the Advisory Council to the Lester Center's Berkeley Entrepreneurs’ Forum at UC Berkeley.
Early in his career, he joined Alafi Capital, an Emeryville-based venture firm specializing in early-stage biomedical companies, where he served as an officer of the General Partner. At Alafi, John lead investments in more than a dozen successful start-ups, and served as the senior executive and board member of various firms such as Tanox, Software Ventures, Lipomatrix, and Megan Health.
In the mid-90s, together with colleague Nat Goldhaber, John helped start Cybergold, an Internet marketing and payments company, serving as the early COO and CFO through its IPO, merger with Mypoints and sale to United Airlines. John continued with the Mypoints unit of United serving as the Senior Vice President of Strategic Partnerships.
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Kevin Warnock
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George Willman is a technology attorney at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich and Rosati. He represents clients in the areas of technology transactions, intellectual property counseling, and patent prosecution. George works with both startups and mature companies in a variety of industries including software, hardware, semiconductors, communications, Internet, and clean technology. Representative transactions include licensing, development, service, distribution, manufacturing, long term purchase/supply, electronic commerce, joint venture, merger, acquisition, and spin-off agreements. Prior to his legal career, he worked as a telecommunications software engineer for IBM and Siemens. He holds a J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center, a B.S., Computer Systems Engineering, from Stanford University, and an M.B.A. from the University of California, Berkeley, Haas School of Business. George has returned to Haas as a guest lecturer in addition to serving as a mentor at the Lester Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation. He is a member of the Keiretsu Forum angel investor network.
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