Mentor
Profiles

logo   Russs Holdstein

Since 1996 the Lester Center has recruited successful Bay Area entrepreneurs as student mentors. They act as leaders, mentors and educators and hold scheduled office hours for students who need advice or help with their business ideas and career goals. Our mentors are successful Bay Area entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, and lawyers who provide wisdom and guidance to UC Berkeley’s emerging entrepreneurs.

Availability of appointments with mentors is announced by e-mail ONLY. We will send out each announcement 3-4 days prior to the mentoring hours. If you'd like to sign up for e-mail announcements, you can do so on our Contact page. Click here for information on the Mentoring Schedule and Signups.
  Mario Rosati Naeem Zafar

 

Mark Coopersmith Managing Director, The Argonauts Group
Stacy Feld Director, Physic Ventures
Phil Giesler Director of Innovation, Unilever Corporate Ventures
Nat Goldhaber Managing Director, Claremont Creek Ventures
Tim Harris Partner, Morrison & Foerster LLP
Randy Hawks Managing Director, Claremont Creek Ventures
Russ Holdstein Angel Investor and Adviser
Martin Kan Director, Entrepreneur Services Group, SVB Capital

Jed Katz

Managing Director, Javelin Venture Partners

Matt Kirmayer

Member, Lowenstein Sandler
Christina LaMontagne Associate, Physic Ventures

Rebecca Lynn

Partner, Morgenthaler Ventures
Dion Madsen Managing Director, Physic Ventures

SB Master

Founder, Master-McNeil, Inc.

Christina Pearson

Associate, Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP

Prashant Shah

Steering Committee, TiE Angels

John Steuart

Managing Director, Claremont Creek Ventures

Kevin Warnock

 
Andrew Williamson Director, Physic Ventures

George Willman

Associate, Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati



Mark Coopersmith

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 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 lectures on Entrepreneurship and Innovation in the Berkeley MBA program. As Managing Director of The Argonauts Group, Mark brings 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.




Stacey Feld

Stacy Feld is a Director at Physic Ventures. Stacy focuses on personalized health solutions to improve and transform care for the health consumer. Specifically, Stacy is interested in life science opportunities offering more precise prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of chronic disease. She is on the board of T2 Biosystems and an observer on the On-Q-ity board. Stacy brings to Physic over ten years of transactional experience in the life science and healthcare industries. Prior to joining Physic, Stacy was Associate Director of Business Development at Genentech, Inc., where she focused on sourcing and accessing novel therapies and predictive diagnostics in the areas of Oncology, Immunology, Ophthalmology, Vascular Biology and Metabolic Diseases. While at Genentech, she worked to establish multiple disease area strategies for the company and led collaboration teams for the evaluation and execution of strategic partnerships and licensing arrangements. Stacy received a B.A. in Sociology, graduating magna cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania and earned her J.D. from Vanderbilt Law School.


Phil Giesler

Phil Giesler is the Director of Innovation for Unilever Corporate Ventures. He is based in San Francisco as a full-time member of the Physic operating team. Phil is responsible for leveraging Unilever’s technical and marketing resources to the full advantage of the Physic team and its portfolio companies, including access to more than 5,000 scientists and engineers involved in new product development, access to deal flow, market research, scientific data, marketing and distribution expertise, due diligence capabilities and a broad network of contacts. Phil is Chair of the National Venture Capital Association's (NVCA) Corporate Venture Advisory Group. Formerly, Phil led Unilever's Global Technology Center for Household Care in Milan, responsible for global research and development for all elements of Unilever's $1.5 billion Household Care business. Phil has gained extensive experience at Unilever, mainly focused on its Home & Personal Care business in R&D, Innovation, Category Management, and its Supply Chain. He has a degree in Industrial Chemistry from York University and an MBA from Bradford University.


Nat Goldhaber

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.


Timothy J. Harris

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.


 

Randy hawks

 

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.


Russ Holdstein

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.


Martin Kan

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.


Jed Katz

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.


Matt Kirmeyer

Matt Kirmayer is a Member of the firm at Lowenstein Sandler and a member of its Tech Group. Based in the firm's Palo Alto office, he focuses his practice on the representation of emerging technology companies, venture capital and private equity funds, and institutional investors. Matt represents clients in many industries, including multimedia, wireless technologies, networking, Internet infrastructure and security, nanotechnology, life sciences, and medical devices.

Prior to joining the firm, Matt was a partner in the Palo Alto office of Mintz Levin. He began his career in New York City, handling securities offerings and merger and acquisition transactions.

Matt earned an LL.M from New York University School of Law, a J.D., from Rutgers University School of Law, and a B.A., from the State University of New York at Albany.



Christina LaMontagne

Christina LaMontagne is an Associate at Physic Ventures and works across the firm's interests in personal and planetary health. She is currently focused on the areas of women's health, technology for the aging, and healthy food. She is also interested in online businesses promoting environmental sustainability. Christina's professional experience spans marketing, strategy, operations and public policy. Prior to joining Physic Ventures, Christina worked in consumer marketing at Pfizer. In that capacity, she developed direct-to-consumer strategies across media categories for a $700M brand. She also led business development initiatives, identifying target clients for an online disease support program. Christina holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and a BA with high honors from Dartmouth College.


Rebecca Lynn

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.


Dion Madsen

Dion Madsen is co-founder and Managing Director of Physic Ventures. Dion focuses on life science opportunities that address the increasing consumer involvement in prevention and care of chronic disease. He is a Board Director for Elixir Pharmaceuticals, HaloSource, On-Q-ity, and SurfaceLogix. Prior to co-founding Physic Ventures, Dion served as Managing Director and leader of the investment practice of Unilever Technology Ventures. From 1998 to 2003, he served as a Partner of RBC Capital Partners, the private equity arm of the Royal Bank of Canada, where he was responsible for opening an office covering the Western Canadian market and, in 2002, for opening the RBC Life Sciences Fund's first U.S.office in San Francisco, California. Dion holds the Chartered Financial Analyst designation and holds a Bachelor's degree in Commerce specializing in Finance from the University of Saskatchewan.


 

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.


Christina Pearson

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.


Randy Haykin

Prashant Shah is on the Steering Committee of TiE Angels, an angel investment group comprised of Silicon Valley TiE charter members. As a part of the initial steering committee, I helped launch this group that successfully began investing from its onset.Previously, he was 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. 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.


John Steuart

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.

 


 

Kevin Warnock

 


Andrew Williamson

Andrew Williamson is a Director at Physic Ventures. Since joining early in 2007, Andrew has focused on working with companies that are developing technologies, products and services 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, Gazelle, Halosource, Impinj and Novomer. 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.

 


George Willman

George Willman (MBA 93) 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. He is active in the Silicon Valley angel community. 

 

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 recipient of the Lester Center’s Richard H. Holton Teaching Fellow Award.

 



 

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