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Ken Arnold has started and operated four software companies over a thirty year career. Three were enterprise software in ERP or related spaces and the fourth was an internet poker and backgammon software company. All four led to profitable exits. Ken has a long time interest in investing including a short stint floor trading options on Wall Street. His educational background includes studies at M.I.T. and an M.B.A. in finance from Pace University. He is married to Jeanne Amster and has two college age children.
Members A-C | Members D-G | Members H-K | Members L-O | Members P-S | Members T-Z
Jim Ashford
Jim Ashford is an operating executive, director, investor, CEO coach, and board advisor. A former CEO of public and private companies, he recently launched a consulting, investment and development company (WOWdevelopment) to bring his passions to life. He is particularly interested in working with young people as they imagine, develop and deliver solutions to solve society's problems. Jim spent over 30 years building a small tightly held public company, Scientific Technologies Inc., with three other principal owners into the US market leader for Automation Safety. Customers included fortune 50 and 100 companies in the automotive, technology, semiconductor, aerospace, power management, food processing, and pharmaceutical sectors to name a few. Safety is most always on the agenda of these large global companies board meetings. Leveraging his entrepreneurial and operating skills he successfully expanded the capability and market reach of the company by forging strategic alliances with leading global automation companies. His experience also includes founding manufacturing companies in Singapore and China, founding a global machine safety service company and building sales companies in China and Germany. Further, Jim has extensive knowledge in product development, design, engineering management, manufacturing systems and management. He holds 13 patents. In 2006 the company was successfully sold to the OMRON Company of Japan. Jim continued as the President/COO of the combined global safety business and in 2012 assumed the role of CEO. Jim retired from OMRON in 2014 to pursue other passions.
Val Babajov
Val Babajov is an entrepreneur and angel investor with thirty five years of software development, business management and investment experience. Val is currently Founder and General Partner of VoiVoda Ventures, an early stage investment fund focused on B2B, mobile, cloud, VoIP software technology startups. VoiVoda has provided initial and follow-on funding for 20 companies since 2009. Many of the investments are syndications with other angel groups or early stage VCs. During the last six years VoiVoda Ventures and Val personally sold five software companies, all of them were cash transactions. Four of the five buyers were publicly traded companies. The fund's geographical focus includes both companies based in USA and outside of the United States. VoiVoda leverages the growing network of international technology accelerators to identify top companies from around the world and assist them with moving to Silicon Valley for fundraising. In the beginning of 2014 VoiVoda Ventures engaged in a new more aggressive form of incubation of its own projects. Based on Val's experience, pool of ideas, large number of potential CEO candidates and existing senior engineers in Val's network, VoiVoda Ventures incubated four very early stage projects. One of them InstaCollab Floortime, where VoiVoda is lead investor is progressing rapidly. It is a platform for real estate agent/ brokerage lead optimization. Prior to founding VoiVoda ventures, Val spent 33 years in the software development industry. He founded his first company, WebMessenger in 1993 in his garage. During the dot com boom, Webmessenger with engineering offices in six countries developed IP in medical software, digital media, mobile software and communications for a wide range of clients including large corporations and startups. After the bubble burst, Val pivoted the business to enterprise level unified mobile instant messaging, which resulted in a 2007 acquisition byApptix (OSE: APP). After several months, it became evident that Apptix did not have the right vision for the Webmessenger product line. In 2008, Val orchestrated a buyout of the technology from Apptix and subsequently sold it to CallWave (Nasdaq: CALL) which continues to develop and promote the platform, and has ported it to the iPhone and Google Android operating systems. After this second exit Babajov established engineering development team in Partners 1993, Inc. Partners 1993 developed a variety of technologies ranging from mobile applications for startups to core mobile technology for large corporations such as Juniper Networks and Verizon wireless. Partners1993 engineering team was acquired by BroadSoft (Nasdaq: BSFT) in May 2012. Since then Val has focused his full attention on investing through VoiVoda Ventures and the incubation projects. Val enjoys working with entrepreneurs who have a strong value system and personal drive. Val believes in the importance of people's word, and still conducts business based on a handshake. Having immigrated to the United States from communist Bulgaria before of the collapse of the system in February 1989 with only $100 in his pocket, Val knows first-hand the struggles that early entrepreneurs face in trying to build their business. His goal with VoiVoda Ventures is to help entrepreneurs avoid many of the common mistakes and accelerate the growth of their businesses. Val believes that entrepreneurs can accomplish anything when they put their mind to it, and enjoys watching young companies.
Jim Barnett
Jim Barnett was the co-founder, VP Marketing and Sales, VP Strategic Planning and Administration of Xilinx, Inc.
Greg Baszucki
Greg Baszucki has over 20 years of experience as a serial entrepreneur and private investor focused on the software, internet/digital media and mobile sectors. Greg is currently the Founder and CEO of Wheelhouse (www.wheelhouse.com), a marketplace for buyers and sellers of business products and services. Prior to Wheelhouse, Greg co-founded Dealix Corporation, a market leader in online automotive sales leads which he grew to $80 million in revenues and sold to The Cobalt Group in 2004. He also co-founded Knowledge Revolution, a maker of award winning educational and professional software simulation tools, which was sold to MacNeil-Schwendler Corporation. Greg has co-founded and/or invested 9 private companies. Of that group, 3 exited and 6 are independent. Some of his current private investments include AdMovate (sold to Yahoo), Roblox (Board Member), Mixbook (Board Member), TrialPay, GTxcel and TheRealReal Japan. He is also an LP in Infinity Venture Partners, a Japan-China mobile Internet fund. Greg holds a B.S. in electrical engineering from the University Of Minnesota Institute Of Technology. Mr. Baszucki is married, has 3 children, and lives in Portola Valley, CA. He enjoys bicycling, military history, and spending time with his family.
Michael Bates
Mike Bates is Co-Head of the Life Science Screening Committee at the Band of Angels and an active member of the Life Science Angels. He has invested in over 30 startups, about two-thirds of which are medical technology related. His portfolio includes companies such as Practice Fusion, HealthCrowd, CogENT Therapeutics, Aerin Medical and Mixbook.com. He formerly served as Director and Audit Committee Chairman of BÂRRX Medical, Emphasys Medical, and Satiety. He also served as a Director of Catheter Connections, Inc., a company seed funded by Life Science Angels. Prior to becoming an angel investor, Mr. Bates served as Chief Financial Officer of four successful life science companies, all of which were sold at premium valuations generating high rates of return for their investors, including St. Francis Medical Technologies, Inc. (sold to Kyphon in January 2007), Silicon Genetics (sold to Agilent Technologies in 2004), Collagen Aesthetics, Inc. (sold to Inamed in 1999) and Penederm Incorporated (sold to Mylan Laboratories in 1998). Mr. Bates is a certified public accountant (non-practicing), having begun his career at Deloitte LLP and has also held positions at Tandem Computers Inc. He is a graduate of California State University, East Bay and received an MBA in Finance from the University of California at Berkeley.
Mark Belinsky
Mark Belinsky has over 30 years of experience as an entrepreneur and operating executive at privately held and publicly traded software, services, and embedded technology companies. He's founded, co-founded, or had C-level roles at companies with products and services in e-commerce, educational services, digital rights management, supply chain traceability, and operating systems. He's been an active angel investor for the past 3 years, including investments in Band companies Tenacity Health, Kiana Analytics, and Detection Group. He serves on the selection committee for Harvard Business School Angels of Northern California. Mark has served as SVP and GM at video encryption and software e-commerce company Macrovision (Nasdaq: TIVO) and at haptics leader Immersion Corporation (Nasdaq: IMMR) in business unit GM, corporate development and business development roles. He current consults to emerging software, services, and IoT companies in areas related to strategic relationships, pricing, channels, partnering, financing, and international. Mark joined Macrovision as GM of the video products division, and over an 8-year period led Macrovision's digital watermarking technology launch, its music DRM launch, its DVD copy protection technology launch, and its acquisition of software e-commerce company Globetrotter Software (now called Flexera) for $800M. Mark drove the diversification of Macrovision from a single-product video encryption/copy protection company to a diversified software and services company, growing revenue from $10M to $150M over his time with the company. The company went public at a $70M market cap and grew to a $5B market cap within four years. Today trading under the symbol TIVO, Macrovision has a market cap of $2.4B. At Immersion, Mark ran the mobile products division and built the business that today is a $50M haptics platform and technology/IP licensing business. He led a product, marketing and sales team of 25, split between San Jose, Oxford (UK), Montreal, Seoul, and Helsinki. Mark also refined Immersion's approach to monetizing its IP and participated in the negotiations with Sony Electronics that resulted in cash payments to Immersion of $147M over a five-year period. Today trading under the symbol IMMR, Immersion has a market cap of $250M. Earlier, Mark ran sales and marketing at UNIX OS company UniSoft, and served as SVP/GM at internet training and technology demonstrations company Interop, where he grew the company from $1M to $20M revenue over a four-year period, drove a $23M exit, and launched the company's European operation in Paris. Mark holds a B.A. in Accounting and Finance from Wayne State University and an MBA from Harvard Business School. In his free time, he enjoys playing competitive tennis and pick-up ice hockey, as well as biking, and sailing on SF bay and in the BVI.
Cathy Benko
Cathy Benko, Vice Chairman and Managing Principal at Deloitte, is a U.S. patent-holder, best-selling author and renowned authority on the changing world of work. Her signature corporate lattice™ framework is internationally recognized as a model for how careers are built, work gets done, and organizational collaboration is fostered in the digital economy. Cathy serves dual roles as Deloitte Consulting's talent game-changer and lead advisory partner for several top-tier clients, and recently stepped down as leader of Deloitte's corporate citizenship agenda. These roles tap into skills honed in prior positions including chief talent officer (CHRO), global e-Business leader, high technology industry sector leader, managing principal of brand, communications and digital, and national managing director of Deloitte's award-winning Women's Initiative. Her work includes three books: The Corporate Lattice, Mass Career Customization and Connecting the Dots (HBR Press). Distinctions for her professional achievements include Consulting Magazine's "25 Most Influential Consultants" and "Frontline Leader" recognitions, and its inaugural "Leadership Achievement Award" for Women Leaders in Consulting. She has also been honored by Harvard Business School Alumni Association, Women in Technology International (WITI), and the San Francisco Business Times, which inducted her into its Forever Influential Honor Roll for exceptional women leaders.
Josh de Bever
Joshua de Bever is currently at the Stanford School of Medicine investigating new ways to treat brain cancer without invasive surgery, radiation, or chemotherapy. He holds a BS in Computer Science and Physics, an MS in Physics, and a PhD in Robotics. He is an expert in Magnetic Resonance Imaging and image guided cancer therapies such as focused ultrasound, which selectively kills cancer cells while sparing healthy tissue. The medical device he helped design and build at the University of Utah to treat breast cancer is heading toward clinical trials in Europe. Joshua is passionate about turning great ideas into useful products made by profitable companies. At the University of Utah, routinely #1 in the USA for commercializing research, he helped generate invention disclosures, patents, and critical research funding. His scientific expertise has been retained for technical due diligence, and he was introduced to the Band after becoming an increasingly active Angel investor. He recently completed the Stanford Graduate School of Business entrepreneurship program, Stanford IGNITE, where his team rapidly developed a Smart Farming business.
Alan Biller
Alan Biller and Associates was founded by Mr. Biller in 1982 to provide strategy and investment consulting services to institutional clients. Prior to that he was the Director of Investment Industries at Stanford Research Institute International, where he began a long term relationship as strategy consultant to the New York Stock Exchange and Metropolitan Life. Mr. Biller has been consulting to major employee benefit plans since 1975, and for more than 26 years he has been the fiduciary adviser to (and since 2013 the discretionary CIO for) the largest multi-employer pension plan in the country. He regularly serves as expert witness on fiduciary responsibility, investment policy and portfolio management, and has served as a court appointed trustee. He earned a B.A. as Scholar of the House with distinction, magna cum laude at Yale University, an M.Phil. in the History and Philosophy of Religion at the University of London, a Ph.D. in Philosophy at Columbia University and a MBA in Finance at Harvard Business School where he was a Baker Scholar. Mr. Biller helped found the Peninsula International School and has served as a board member and treasurer for Child Family Health International, a non-profit NGO which sends medical students to work in local health clinics in underserved communities overseas.
Heinz Blennemann
Heinz Blennemann, as principal at his family office, is a global investor with a passion for networking with others. He is an active member of the Advisory Faculty at the Institute for Private Investors (a network of ~300 family offices), the Advisory Board of Institutional Investor's San Francisco AlphaHedge Conference, the Band of Angels, the Greenwich Roundtable, and supports the Stanford Institute of Economic Policy Research. He has been invited to speak at such events as the Institutional Investor Conferences (2009 & 2012), the HFI AsiaHedge Conference (2010), the Terrapinn Brasil Investment Summit (2011), Terrapinn's Quant Invest Conferences (2011 & 2012), and the HFI EuroHedge Conference (2012). Prior to investing in technology, Heinz worked in the field of technology itself. He successfully built and then managed Juniper Network's first signal-integrity/technology team. Concurrently, he taught electrical engineering at Stanford University as consulting professor. He received a Bachelor's Degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (Highest Honors) from Princeton University, a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University, and an M.B.A from the Wharton School of Business. In 2012, he was awarded IPI's annual mentoring award for helping and sharing investment ideas with family offices.
Jim Bochnowski
Jim Bochnowski founded Delphi Ventures in 1988. His focus is on medical devices and biotechnology. Jim began investing in medical companies in 1981 after co-founding Technology VENTURE Investors, a private venture capital partnership. Since 1984, he has focused exclusively on healthcare investments. From 1976 to 1980, Jim was with Shugart Associates, a venture-backed disk drive company. As President and CEO, he led Shugart to increasing profitability, with annual revenues growing from $13 million to $200 million. Shugart was acquired by Xerox in 1979. From 1972 to 1976, Jim was a general partner with Donaldson Lufkin & Jenrette's (DLJ) venture capital arm, the Sprout Capital Group. Prior to that, he served as a securities analyst with DLJ. Trained as an aerospace engineer at MIT, Jim served as an Army officer and a missile systems engineer with the U.S. Army Missile Intelligence Directorate, serves on the Board of Overseers of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and was a member of the Harvard School of Public Health's Health Policy and Management Executive Council. Jim was a director of the Western Association of Venture Capital. Jim received his MBA with Distinction from Harvard University Graduate School of Business and his BS from MIT.
Aron Bohlig
Aron Bohlig has worked in the fields of finance and technology for approximately nineteen years. As an investment banker at Credit Suisse, Savvian and Investec Aron has completed billions of dollars of financing and M&A transactions with sponsor-backed, private and public companies. Transactions have included IPOs, cross-border mergers, divestitures and acquisitions as well as a wide variety of public and private debt and equity financings. In addition to working in investment banking Aron has served as President of a European division of a Texas Pacific Group portfolio company and has held director-level business development and product management positions within the Clarify software division of Nortel Networks where his responsibilities included strategy, new product introductions and business development in the US, Europe and Asia. Aron is co-author of a book on selling business to business technology products. Aron is active on the advisory boards of private internet companies and non-profits. Aron holds an MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and a BS from the University of Puget Sound.
Jean-Louis Bories
Jean-Louis Bories is currently a management consultant and angel investor. A 35 year veteran in the semiconductor industry, Jean-Louis has a strong international business background and a proven history of creating and growing new businesses. From 2007 to 2011 Jean-Louis was the President and CEO of Xceive Corporation. Prior to joining Xceive, Jean-Louis was with National Semiconductor Corporation in a variety of roles including: Executive Vice President, Information Appliance and Wireless Group, Senior Vice President & General Manager, Wireless & Displays Group; and Senior Vice President, Core Technology Group. He has also held executive positions at LSI-Logic Corporation in France, England and the US. He started his career as an engineer at Thomson CSF in France designing Programmable Digital Signal Processors systems for embedded Radar and Missile applications. Jean-Louis Bories has an engineering degree from Ecole Superieure d'Electricite (ESE) in France and currently serve on the Board of The International School of the Peninsula in Palo Alto.
David Warriner-Brown
David Warriner-Brown is CEO and co-founder of Pan Albion Group, a private real estate investment and development company which has been active for 29 years. Pan Albion has transacted about 75 real estate developments in the U.K. In 2003, David became a partner in the Enterprise Accelerator in Cambridge and in 2009 established Firecrest Estates through which he has invested in a variety of U.S. based medical and tech companies, including Lyft, Procept Bio Robotics, Curemetrix and many others. He is a founding investor in IECX a Crypto currency exchange based in Malta and Copperstate Farms the largest medical cannabis grower in Arizona. Previously, he was an Investment Consultant with Knight Frank in London. David holds a Bachelor's Degree in Estate Management from Oxford Brookes University. He is a member of the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors in the U.K.
Michael Buckley is co-founder and Board Member of Ocean's Halo, a food company specializing in commercializing products using seaweed. Mike invests in and advises early stage companies on product, fundraising, scaling, board recruitment, customer intros, exit strategies, and PR/marketing. Prior to Ocean's Halo, he was VP of Global Business Communications at Facebook where he led a 70-person team with responsibilities including oversight of all corporate, policy, internal, international, and advertising/monetization communications, as well as the Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp products. Before Facebook, he spent twelve years at Brunswick Group, a communications consultancy, where he was US Managing Partner. Managing a team of more than 150 people, he helped create a half-dozen new practice areas and open three new offices, growing revenue 80x over a decade. At Brunswick, he worked on more than $400 billion in M&A assignments and over $40 billion in IPO mandates for a diverse client base. Mike holds BA in Communications and Political Science from Marist College.
David Buller
David Buller is an angel investor and startup advisor working in London, UK and the Bay Area. He has an interest in tech and health-tech businesses but invests across a broad ranges of sectors. Previously, David was the Founder and CEO of Avantec, a company that provides robotic drug dispensing systems and supply chain management systems for hospitals. Avantec was acquired by Omnicell Inc. (based Mountain View, CA) in 2015. David has an MBA in Finance from the University of Nottingham, UK and has completed the Venture Capital Program at Berkeley Haas and the 500 Startups VC Deal Camp at Berkeley Law as well as the Blockchain Strategy Programme at the University of Oxford, UK.
Ron Burns
Sales Leader: Software, Semiconductor, EDA, Global Services & Embedded Systems
Energetic global leader with a successful track record of exceeding objectives and leading cross functional sales teams, from startups ($0-$60M) to working with Fortune global 20 multi-nationals.
Sales leadership enhanced by experience leading both Sales and Marketing teams and strategic account development.
Specialties: Sales Leadership | Sales Management | Product Development Services | Technology Evangelism | Consultative Sales | New Ventures-Upstarts | Corporate Entrepreneur Models | Solutions Oriented Alliances | Multi-level Complex Exec Suite Sales | Domestic/International Growth | M&A | Sales and Marketing Strategy
Driven by a love of technology and its role as a change agent in global markets. Experienced in EDA, Global Development Services, Embedded Systems/Network protocol, Multi-core Processing, and Fabless System-on-Chip (SoC).
David Burwen
Since joining the Band in 1998, David Burwen has divided his time between angel investing, as a Managing Director of Venture Development Group (VDG), educating economically disadvantaged students, as co- founder of the Burwen Education Foundation (BEF), and adventure travel. Since 1998 he has invested in more than 30 early stage companies and several side funds of major VC companies including Sequoia and Horizon. He has led investment syndicates and provided financial, strategic, operational, marketing, and sales consulting. David's adventure travels include trekking and/or skiing in mountains around the world including Europe, Nepal, Alaska, Patagonia, Canada and the USA. Prior to VDG David served as the initial sales, marketing and business development executive for start-up Aspect Development. He was a key contributor to Aspects growth from its start in 1992 to 1997 sales of $50M, and an IPO in 1996. Prior to Aspect he was CEO of Echelon Management Systems (consulting firm in supply chain management and business development), CEO of Adaptive Intelligence (robotic assembly work cells,) and a director of Computer Integrated Manufacturing at Integrated Automation (a Teknekron Company). He started his career as a sales rep for Olivetti, Digital Equipment and Data General. David has served on the board of directors of several private high tech companies. Through the founding of the Burwen Education Foundation in 2001, David and his wife, Dr. Susan Jo Burwen, provide enabling college scholarships to high potential high school students from economically disadvantage families (www.befmountainview.wordpress.com) . The BEF provides substantial funding and mentoring for a few select students. As of 2013 the BEF has provided 14 full funding scholarships and more that 60 smaller grants. It has a 92+% graduation success rate within a cohort where only 11% graduate from college. The BEF is also providing bottom up development for a village in rural Himalayan Nepal, where it has funded the villagers building a school complex, now educating 140 students, and a hydroelectric power plant providing village electricity. David and Susan are currently creating their next home, the Mountain View Cohousing Community (www.mountainviewcohousing.org). It will facilitate friendship and social interaction among neighbors with shared activities such as meals, exercise, parties, or just getting together. David has a BS in physics from WPI and a MA in physics from Brandeis University.
Jeff Byron
Jeff Byron is a Fellow in the inaugural cohort at the Stanford Distinguish Career Institute. He has nearly 40 years of experience in emerging energy technologies, customer requirements, and energy policy. His recent focus has been on the technical, regulatory, and financial implications of clean energy and smart grid technologies. He has also served on non-profit boards providing local services for the developmentally disabled and the world's largest clean technology business accelerator. He consults with a number of startup companies developing unique generation and control technologies, energy management, and consumer- oriented smart grid devices. He is a member of the National Board of the Cleantech Open and past President of the Board of Abilities United. He is a member of the Band of Angels; Silicon Valley's oldest seed funding organization. He recently served for five years on the California Energy Commission presiding over numerous power plant siting cases, public interest research and development, and state energy policy. He began his career at GE's Nuclear Energy Division and has been involved in all aspects of electric power generation and has held executive positions at NRG Energy and Calpine. He managed research at the Electric Power Research Institute in both fossil and nuclear power generation and commercialization roles culminating in the formation of the Hillview Group, a for-profit subsidiary. He co-founded BrightLine Energy, a distributed energy provider, and was Energy Director at Oracle Corporation. Mr. Byron is an expert on energy policy and clean-energy technologies who has developed strong relationships with energy providers, legislative, regulatory, academic and community leaders. He received a BS and MS from Stanford University.
Juan-Antonio Carballo
Dr. Juan-Antonio Carballo is currently a Sales Executive at Broadcom Corporation, where he arrived via the acquisition of NetLogic Microsystems, where he was Global Director of Major Accounts, responsible for the largest wireless infrastructure and Cloud accounts worldwide. Prior to this assignment, he was IBM's Semiconductor Venture Capital partner and worldwide Head for IBM's Microelectronics Services team, responsible for its 9-digit revenue, profit, and signings target. As IBM's VC partner, Juan-Antonio had been top ranked in his team and led the development of its hardware practice in the US and China. Juan-Antonio has had a number of other industry leadership roles, including IBM Research, Digital Equipment, and LSI Logic. Prior to his current role, he also gained independent venture experience, as Partner at Argon Ventures, the first VC firm focused on cross-border US-Canada venture; and start-up executive experience, being the first head of marketing at Schooner IT, a Venture-backed appliance company. Dr. Carballo has authored more than 50 scientific and business articles, and a widely available book "Chip Design for Non-Designers, An Introduction". He holds over 35 patents worldwide in semiconductors, systems, and software, and is the recipient of several IBM awards. He sits in numerous chip industry committees (e.g. Chair of the Industry's design roadmap, ITRS), and is a frequent keynote speaker at top technical and business conferences. He holds a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Michigan (joint with Carnegie Mellon University), an M.B.A. from the College des Ingenieurs (Paris), and an Ms.C. in Telecommunications Engineering from the UPM (Madrid). He is fluent in 5 languages. Dr. Carballo has had 8 investments with the Band of Angels, most of them in the Clean Tech / Energy space, among which so far one ended in a successful exit.
Jack Carsten
Jack Carsten is a Managing Director of Horizon Ventures, a Los Altos based VC fund managing $150M in invested capital and also a personal investor and director of several local technology companies. He is a founder of the Band of Angels. Previously he was a General Partner with US Venture Partners and Technology Investments. Earlier at Intel he was Vice President of Sales and Marketing, Senior Vice President and General Manager of the Microprocessor Group, and finally, General Manager for Semiconductors. He also served as General Manager of the MOS Division at Texas Instruments. He holds a BS in physics from Duke University.
Hector Casab
Hector Casab is a finance executive with expertise in managing companies for growth and value creation. Hector is now a consulting CFO to biotech and health tech companies in the Bay Area. He is Board Member of the NorCal chapter Association of Bioscience Financial Officers, which provides a forum for the senior financial executives of more than 100 Bay Area life science companies to discuss business and financial issues related to the industry. He is Founder, Director and CEO of the Benjamin Links Foundation, a non-profit that provide services to children with autism, their families and their communities. Previously, he was CFO / VP of Finance at ForSight VISION5 (private, acquired by Allergan); Vice President of Finance & Administration at Icon Bioscience; Head of Financial Planning at Onyx Pharmaceuticals (public, acquired by Amgen). During his five-plus year tenure at Genentech (public, acquired by Roche), his multiple roles included Director, Corporate Planning, Director, Global Supply Chain Finance, and Associate Director, Manufacturing Collaborations Finance. He was previously with Applied Biosystems (public, acquired by Invitrogen to form Life Technologies), serving in various roles in operations and finance. He holds an MBA from Santa Clara University with a concentration in Marketing and Finance, and a B.S. from Oakland University in Accounting and Management Information Systems.
Jerry Casillli
Jerry Casilli's entrepreneurial and managerial expertise allows him to serve as both an investor and mentor to portfolio companies. Prior to founding Rembrandt in 2004, Jerry served as Chairman of the board of directors of IKOS Systems, Inc. and served as its CEO from 1989 to 1995 taking the company public in 1991. Jerry was a founding member and General Partner of Trinity Ventures; a highly successful venture capital firm focused on investments in early stage high technology companies. Before founding Trinity, Jerry was a founder and General Partner of Genesis Capital. Jerry's entrepreneurial and managerial expertise allows him to serve as both an investor and mentor to portfolio companies. Jerry also founded Millennium Systems, a manufacturer of microprocessor development systems, and served as its President and CEO. He guided the company to a successful acquisition by American Micro Systems. Jerry is also a founding member of the Band of Angels, an organization that actively invests in early stage companies. The Band constitutes over 160 members comprised of Silicon Valley-based technology executives. Jerry is currently a member of the World Presidents Organization (WPO) and a former member of the Young Presidents Organization (YPO). Jerry has served on the boards of directors of over 20 companies, both public and private, including NASDAQ companies Evans & Sutherland, Cepheid Systems, Ikos Systems, Identix Corporation and Keynote Systems. Currently, Jerry sits on the boards of InsideView, Xactly, and CityTeam. Jerry holds a bachelor of science in electrical engineering from the University of Pittsburgh.
Rock Clapper
Rock Clapper left his professorship at Brown Univ. and came to Silicon Valley in 1994. Basically, this coincided with his first look at an Internet application called a 'browser'. He knew that his doctorate in applied social psychology was a perfect background for creating web-based consumer and business environments. At the time, Rock had done years of research and published many papers on persuasive communication, and was a sought after speaker in the U.S. and internationally. Rock holds a BS in Psychology from Arizona State Univ., a Masters and Doctorate in Applied Social Psychology from the Univ. of Houston, as well as an alumnus of Stanford University's Graduate School of Business Executive Education Program. Rock has been the CEO of several successful Internet and software companies in Silicon Valley. He is a veteran of company acquisitions, having negotiated such for each company he led, as well as having led a company to the position of a public offering.
Todd Collart
Todd Collart has over 20 years' experience as a leader, business builder, fund raiser, and entrepreneur in the software, technology, and entertainment industries. The products and technologies of the businesses he has founded and/or led power some of the world's largest digital entertainment properties across millions of connected devices worldwide by market leaders such as Amazon, AT&T, Apple, Charter/Time Warner, Comcast, Disney, NBCU, Netflix, Redbox, Starz, Twentieth Century Fox, and Viacom/Paramount. He was most recently President of Global Delivery at Deluxe Entertainment Services Group ($1.2B revenue) where he was responsible for all digital services and technology solutions for content creation and delivery with operations in 25 key media markets worldwide. Prior to that he was SVP corporate and technology strategy with Sonic Solutions (now Tivo) following the sale of InterActual to Sonic, which he founded in 1995. Todd has prior experience at NEC Technologies, Synopsys, and Andersen Consulting (now Accenture). Todd holds a BS in electrical engineering and computer science from UCSD, is a named inventor on 29 issued patents, and lives with his wife and two daughters in Los Altos.
Ron Collett
Ron Collett has been involved in the high-tech industry for nearly 40 years, started three companies, hold Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering (BSEE), Law Degree (JD), member of the California Bar.
1978 – 1983: Held various engineering positions involving design, test and reliability engineering at companies/organizations including GTE (gov't defense/aerospace), SPS Technologies (robotics), and the Federal Aviation Administration (airport bomb detection).
1983 – 1989: Wrote professionally for high-tech magazine (Electronic System Design), responsible for covering technology and industry trends in semiconductor IC design and electronic design automation (EDA); early user of EDA tools while working as an engineer at GTE.
1989 – 1992: Director and Sr. Industry Analyst, Gartner Group (Dataquest), overseeing all research and analysis for the firm's EDA and semiconductor ASIC practices.
1992 – 2000: CEO/founder Collett International, Inc., consulting firm specializing in EDA, semiconductor IC design, and electronic product development benchmarking (IC's, computer design, telecomm design).
2000 – 2013: CEO/co-founder Numetrics, predictive analytics software company providing semiconductor companies with software-as-a-service (SaaS) solution for predicting chip design schedules and engineering staffing/resource requirements; funded by Band of Angels, July 2000; acquired by McKinsey & Co. in 2013 (http://www.mckinseysolutions.com/solutions/numetrics.aspx).
(1992 – 2011: Monthly columnist, Electronic Engineering Times (subscribership 155,000); focus: chip design, EDA, product development metrics, schedule predictability.)
2013: Associate Partner / Senior Expert, McKinsey & Company, Semiconductor Group. Oversaw transition/integration of Numetrics into McKinsey & Co. organization.
2014 – current: CEO/founder of NMX Global Software, Inc., an offshore software development services firm, providing software development engineering services to US companies (www.nmxglobalsoftware.com). NMX is spin-out of Numetrics – software engineering organization of Numetrics established itself as separate, independent company (NMX).
BSEE Drexel University, 1982
Law Degree (Juris Doctor), Santa Clara University, 1990
Gregory Corona
Greg Corona is the Chief Executive Officer of Malibu IQ and Chairman of its Investment Committee. In his role, Greg oversees the day-to- implementation of Malibu IQ's commercialization strategy and deployment of investment capital to implement the firm's investment objectives. Greg has over 30 years of operating and financial experience as a Chief Executive Officer, Chief Operating Officer or a Managing Director in the areas of manufacturing, technology, financial services and private equity. He was an original partner of a leading private equity firm with over $950 million of capital under management, is the Founder and Chairman of Lakewood Capital, LLC, a private investment firm and held a variety of financial positions with Finance Staff of the Ford Motor Company. He has been the lead principal or a participant in more than 40 institutional investments and transactions in various industries in the United States, Europe and China. He has previously served as the Chairman or Member of several public and private company Boards and Audit Committees in the financial services, technology and industrial sectors. He is a member of the National Association of Corporate Directors and has mentored boardroom governance in several emerging growth and technology companies. Greg received a Bachelors Degree in Finance from Michigan State University,a Masters Degree in Business Administration from the University of Detroit, has completed Executive Education Programs at the Harvard Business School and the National Association of Corporate Directors where he received the Certificate of Director Education.
Rob Currin
Rob Currin is currently the CMO for Neural Edge with Band Member Dave Krauthamer, a startup in the AI space fundamentally changing the path of AI technology by bringing a more human quality to AI.
Rob is also in the process of negotiating the sale of Colorado Code Craft and Blue Aspen Technologies, where he was co-founder and business development lead for the secure collaboration hardware and software solutions developed over the last 3 years. Colorado Code Craft was a participant in the Band Mentor Program.
Rob is the founder of Pacific Development Institute which focuses on CEO exclusive coaching and senior leadership development and Organizational design and development.
Rob has previously held significant leadership position in IBM and Price-Waterhouse. Rob has been a speaker at Wharton Executive speakers club and has run career transition and transformation programs at Wharton.
Scott Curry