Global Entrepreneurship Institute

World famous in their respective fields, each expert and advisor focuses on one area to best utilize their professional experience and knowledge. In addition, our Academic Advisory Board is active in our formal educational endeavors editing and reviewing our publications, textbooks, and assisting us in the development of curricula for entrepreneurs around the world.

We are grateful for the following people who have helped us along the way!

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Fernando Alvarez: Columbia University
Fernando is currently an Adjunct Associate Professor of Finance and Economics at the Columbia University Graduate Business School, where he teaches entrepreneurship finance. From 2003 until 2008, he was associate professor in the Finance and Economics Department and director of entrepreneurship programs at Rutgers Business School, Newark and New Brunswick. Alvarez has taught at New York University’s Stern School of Business where he was associate professor on innovation and entrepreneurship, and Babson College where he was assistant professor of finance. He has also taught a seminar in financial engineering at ITESM Graduate School of Management in Mexico City. Fernando’s primary research areas include the growth of entrepreneurial firms, financing for start-up and growth, and the interaction of Strategy, Financial Statement Analysis and Valuation models in business decisions. His research has been funded by the McArthur Foundation, the Kaufman Foundation, U.S. Trust, Bank of Boston, and Wells Fargo Bank.

Raymond Bagby: Baylor University
Dr. Ray Bagby, professor in Baylor University’s Hankamer School of Business, Management and Entrepreneurship Department, was awarded the Max S. Wortman, Jr. Award for Lifetime Achievement in Entrepreneurship. He is the Executive Editor at “Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice.” This is a leading scholarly journal in the field of Entrepreneurship studies and the official journal of the United States Association for Small Business and Entrepreneurship (USASBE). The journal’s mission is to publish original conceptual and empirical papers that contribute to the advancement of the field of entrepreneurship. Topics include, but are not limited to: National and International Studies of Enterprise Creation; Small Business Management; Family-owned Businesses; Minority Issues in Small Business and Entrepreneurship; Research Methodologies; Venture Financing; Corporate and Non-profit Entrepreneurship.

Dave Berkus: Professional Angel Investor and Serial Entrepreneur
Dave Berkus is a founding partner of the Tech Coast Angels, the leading angel investor network in the United States. He has made 65 early stage venture investments yielding an IRR of 97%, which includes capital contributions from (Berkus Technology Ventures, LLC and Kodiak Ventures, L.P) where Dave serves as managing partner. Dave was named “Director of the Year” by the Forum for Corporate Directors of Orange County, California. Dave has formed, managed and sold successful businesses in the entertainment and software arenas and has obtained healthy returns from liquidity events in over a dozen early stage investments.

Stephen A. Block: Angel Investor, Strategic Advisor
Mr. Block has more than 40 years of broad, legal, management and executive experience at Fortune 500 corporations and a major New York law firm. He has had extensive experience in domestic and international mergers and acquisitions and joint ventures. He serves on the Boards of Directors of both private and public companies including the Board of Directors of Senomyx, Inc. (NASDAQ:SNMX) and ChromaDex Corporation (OTC:CDXC.OB), Chairman of the Board of Blue Pacific Flavors and Fragrances, Inc., and a director of Allylix, Inc., XSCapacity, Inc., Vigilistics, Inc. and Masher Media, Inc. (of which he is co-founder). Steve holds a Juris Doctor degree from Harvard Law School and a Bachelor of Arts degree cum laude from Yale University.

Zenas Block: Early Founder of Teaching Entrepreneurship
The late Professor Zenas Block was an early proponent of teaching entrepreneurship. At the Stern Business Program, New York University (NYU) he was one of the first to teach a course in corporate venturing. In 1981 he organized and led the faculty task group that, with an initial $500,000 grant from the Price Foundation, established the foundation for today’s Berkley Center at NYU. He started a competition for the best academic paper in which students presented business plans. And he developed and taught two elective courses: Patterns of Entrepreneurship, and Entrepreneurship and Venturing in Corporations. “The goal we set was to become a significant center for research in the area, because entrepreneurship was not regarded as academically respectable,” Block recalled some years later.

Martin S. Bressler: Professor of Marketing & Management, Southeastern Oklahoma State University

Nic Brisbourne: Partner, DFJ Esprit
Nic has been in Venture Capital since 2000. In that time he has worked in London, Europe and Silicon Valley. His main areas of focus have been software and media. Nic’s investment experience includes Zeus Technology (acquired by Riverbed for $140m), and buy.at (acquired by AOL for $125m). He currently sits on the boards of Conversocial, Lyst, StrikeAd and Tribold. Prior to joining DFJ Esprit Nic was with Reuters Venture Capital, a software and services start-up called Operis, and Cap Gemini. DFJ Esprit is a member of the Draper Fisher Jurvetson Global Network, the largest venture capital network in the world with 140 investment professionals and over 600 portfolio companies. Nic is a popular blogger commenting on the European technology and venture capital markets.

Duke K. Bristow: USC Marshall School of Business
Duke is widely known for his research on corporate finance and corporate governance, particularly in the areas of private equity and director education. His received his PhD in Financial Economics in 1998 from the University of California, Los Angeles. He has published papers in economics, engineering and law journals. He has advised Corporate Board Member Magazine and other publications on matters involving corporate governance and director education since 2000. His diverse research has received support from, the NIH, the NASDAQ, the four largest international audit firms and a dozen national law firms. Duke is a director of Landec Corp., BizWorld Educational Foundation and Chairman of the National Corporate Governance Conference. He has advised a wide variety of organizations from CancerVax to Pacific Capital Bancorp to the Tech Coast Angels.

Marta Bulaich: Network Associate, Draper Fisher Jurvetson
Prior to joining DFJ, Marta managed marketing and customer service at Capella Photonics, a telecommunications subsystems manufacturer, where she was responsible for rebranding the company and establishing customer service programs. She also worked at Senvid (NYSE: WDC), where she helped launch MioNet, the company’s award winning remote access and file sharing service, and assisted in business development efforts globally. Before Senvid, Marta worked at Vanguard Ventures supporting all sectors of Vanguard’s investing with a focus on software and life science investments. Marta also worked at MedTech Ventures, a Vanguard sponsored medical technology incubator, where she assisted seed stage companies with strategic planning, due diligence, operations, and fund raising. Marta graduated Phi Beta Kappa and Sigma Delta Pi with a Bachelor of Arts degree from Scripps College with a major in Classics and minor studies in Chemistry and Latin American Studies. She also has a certificate in Information Management Systems from UCSC Extension.

Tom Byers: Stanford Technology Ventures Program
Tom is a professor at Stanford University where he focuses on high-technology entrepreneurship education. He is founder and a faculty director of the Stanford Technology Ventures Program (STVP), which serves as the entrepreneurship center for the engineering school. Tom is co-author of the textbook called “Technology Ventures: From Idea to Enterprise” (McGraw-Hill, 2005). He is a recipient of three recent national teaching awards: the 2005 ASEE Kauffman Award for excellence in engineering and technology entrepreneurship education; the 2005 USASBE Entrepreneurship Educator of the Year Award; and the 2003 Leavey Award for excellence in private enterprise education. In 2004, STVP was named the NASDAQ Entrepreneurship Center of the Year. Tom was also named Entrepreneur of the Year (EOY) in Ernst & Young’s competition.

Gary M. Cadenhead: President of the MOOT CORP Foundation
As a Senior Lecturer in Entrepreneurship at The University of Texas at Austin, Gary served as Director of the world renowned MOOT CORP Competition from 1992 until 2005. Under his leadership the Competition grew from eleven universities to forty, became truly global, became a launch pad for new ventures, and offered the winners $100,000 in investment capital. In 1995, the Kauffman Foundation and the Entrepreneur of the Year Institute recognized him as one of the Top Ten Entrepreneurship Educators of the Year. In 1999, he received the Entrepreneurship Education Pedagogy Innovation of the Year Award from USASBE. In a 2003 survey of entrepreneurship directors commissioned by Entrepreneur magazine, Gary was recognized as one of the three top directors of entrepreneurship programs in the United States. Currently, he serves on the boards of several start-up ventures, including Halsa Pharmaceuticals, Signal One, and EADevices. During 2004, he served as Chairman of the Board of Schlotzsky’s Inc. He is on the advisory board of The Journal of Private Equity.

James C. Chapman: Partner, Foley & Lardner LLP
Jim focuses on securities law, venture capital, mergers and acquisitions, and international business transactions. He has more than 20 years experience in corporate and securities law and has been involved in over 200 mergers, acquisitions, and financing transactions. These transactions have included public offerings, private placements, debt financings, venture capital transactions, stock sales, asset sales, mergers, reorganizations, and recapitalizations. He is a member of the firm’s Private Equity & Venture Capital and Transactional & Securities Practices, as well as the Emerging Technologies Industry Team. He also has a significant background in international transactions, particularly dealing with China and Chinese-related companies. These transactions include both assisting Chinese companies invest and raise capital in the U.S. and helping U.S. firms make investments and operate in China. From the media industry to the pharmaceutical industry, Jim has been engaged in working with clients on numerous China-U.S. transactions and matters. Prior to joining Foley, Jim established the Nixon Peabody LLP Silicon Valley office and served as its managing partner for two and a half years. He also had a major role in the development of Nixon Peabody’s China practice.

Joyce Chung: Managing Director, Garage Technology Ventures
Joyce has over 10 years of operating experience in technology companies and 10 years of venture capital investing experience. 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. 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 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.

Nicola Corzine: Deal Manager, Band of Angels
Nicola has been the deal manager since 2003 and is a Partner in their newest fund. Prior to Band of Angels, she was the founder and executive director of Financing Partners, an organization offering specific programs designed to help entrepreneurs and investors reach their mutual objectives. Nicola has a broad background in investor relations and marketing at both startup companies, such as Digital Integrity, and financial institutions, including Credit Suisse First Boston and Fundraising Forum. Nicola is an advisor to ASTIA, formerly the Women s Technology Cluster, and a member of the Santa Clara University s Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE) eCouncil program. She is currently a Board observer to Infoaxe, a unique search engine Web Memory, founded by two graduate students at Stanford University.

Scott Crist: Crist Ventures and Serial Entrepreneur
Scott is managing partner of Crist Ventures and a general partner at Texas Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm. He has an extensive background as an entrepreneur and venture capitalist, having founded and profitable grown two technology companies to revenues of over $100 million each during the last decade. Scott was formerly founder and CEO of Telscape International, an integrated communications company for emerging markets, and prior to that, was President and CEO for Matrix, a telecommunications company that Inc. Magazine ranked 7th on its list of the 500 fastest growing private companies in the U.S. in 1995. Scott has an MBA from the Kellogg School at Northwestern University and a BS in Electrical Engineering from NC State University. He is a former Entrepreneur of the Year by Ernst & Young. He also sits on the boards of several public and private companies. He is on the Alumni Advisory boards for the Kellogg Graduate School at Northwestern University and teaches venture capital and business plan development at Rice University’s Jones Graduate School of Business.

William H. Crookston: USC Marshall School of Business
Bill combines a career in sales, sales management and entrepreneurship with teaching, consulting and coaching emergent companies. His interest is in social entrepreneurship and he serves on various NFP boards. Professor Crookston received Marshall s Golden Apple Award in 2004. In 2003 he received the Community Service Award from the National Conference for Community and Justice. Professor Crookston is the former owner and president of Western Badge and Trophy Company. He has consulted for a variety of programs and continues to consult in managing and marketing at WHC Associates. He earned his PhD, Claremont Graduate School; MS, MBA, University of Southern California; and his at BA, Stanford University.

Walter W. Cruttenden III: Cruttenden Partners
Founder of Cruttenden Partners and CEO of E*Offering, Walter is truly a financial market innovator. His first venture was Capital Data Bank, the computerized system to match private companies with private investors. He then formed Cruttenden Roth which became the largest securities firm in the nation financing micro cap companies (under $100 mil). After selling the majority of his interest to Fidelity National, he founded E*Offering, the first fully integrated online investment banking firm focusing on streamlining and reducing the cost of the equity underwriting process. The E*Offering partners include Sandy Robertson (formerly of Robertson Stephens) and E*TRADE. In its first year E*Offering has participated in over 50 IPOs and in the latest month was the #1 distributor of IPO shares online. WitCapital Soundview acquired E*OFFERING for over $360 million in the fall of 2000. Mr. Cruttenden has been involved in over 200 private and public offerings and merger-acquisition transactions. He is an active investor in private companies particularly in the Internet, communications and web-enabling industries. Mr. Cruttenden is always looking at new deals, strategizing, and hooking companies up with the right partners as well as sits on several boards for private and public companies.

George Dalton: Serial Entrepreneur, Founder, NOVO 1
George Dalton has been an entrepreneur in the information technology and financial industry for more than 35 years. As Chairman and CEO of Fiserv, Inc., Mr. Dalton grew the company form its foundation as a regional provider with $14 million in revenues into a worldwide organization by identifying, acquiring and assimilating over 90 companies during his 16-year tenure. Today, Fiserv is a $4.5 billion enterprise with nearly 22,000 employees and 17,000 clients in more than 60 countries. In March 2000, George formed NOVO 1, an innovative direct marketing services firm that has grown from start-up through 15 acquisitions to employ over 2,000 people and generate annualized revenues of approximately $70 million. In 2007 George was appointed to the judging panel for Ernst & Young’s prestigious World Entrepreneur Of The Year (EOY) Awards program. George was a winner of the EOY Award in 1988. He was also a U.S. National Entrepreneur Of The Year award finalist in 1996. Mr. Dalton has been serving as a judge for the U.S. National Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year Awards since 1998.

Ken Deemer: Professional Angel Investor and Social Entrepreneur
He is a co-founder and former Chairman and President of the Tech Coast Angels, one of the largest and most active angel investor groups in the country. Mr. Deemer is an active private investor and has over twenty years of venture capital experience as a General Partner of InterVen Partners, a firm that he co-founded in 1985. He has invested in and served on the boards of numerous early-stage companies in technology, manufacturing and specialty retailing. He also served for fourteen years on the board of Cymer, Inc. (Nasdaq CYMI). He was a founder of the Caltech/MIT Enterprise Forum, and has served on the faculty of the Venture Capital Institute in the U.S., Singapore, and China. Ken is currently working as a founding partner and Chairman of Los Angeles Social Venture Partners.

Alex F. DeNoble: San Diego State University
His primary areas of expertise include entrepreneurship and corporate innovation, technology commercialization and strategic management. He has conducted research in these areas and has taught related classes in the University’s undergraduate, graduate and executive MBA programs. His other professional activities encompass both executive training and strategic consulting. Recent assignments have included business plan development consulting for new and existing entrepreneurial firms, market research and analysis for technology-based companies and entrepreneurship training for Taiwanese, German, Russian, Japanese, Mexican, Middle-Eastern and U.S. executives. Alex is the recipient of several awards including the 2001 Gloria and Edwin Appel Award from the Price-Babson Fellows program for excellence in entrepreneurship education, and the 2000 Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award.

Lynne Pierson Doti: Chapman University
Lynne is the David and Sandra Stone Professor of Economics at Chapman University. She is the author of Banking in an Unregulated Environment: California 1878-1905 and co-author of California Bankers and Banking in the American West. She has also written about 25 articles on banking, using history as a laboratory to test theories of branching, structure and regulation. Current research is focused on financing sources for real estate development. In April, 2006 Lynne became the Editor of Essays in Economic and Business History. She has served on a number of corporate, civic, and charitable boards. Chapman’s undergraduate entrepreneurship program is now ranked #6 in the USA and their graduate entrepreneurship program is ranked #8 in the USA by Entrepreneur magazine. Chapman Entrepreneurship Program was recently selected by the United States Association for Small Business and Entrepreneurship (USASBE) as the first-place winner of the Innovative Pedagogy Award.

William Draper III: General Partner, Draper Richards LP
Bill is general partner of Draper Richards LP and Draper International. He founded Sutter Hill Ventures, which organized and financed hundreds of high-tech manufacturing companies. Draper served as head of the U.N. Development Program and president of the Export-Import Bank of the United States under President Reagan. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the President’s Council on International Activities at Yale University. One of America’s first venture capitalists, he was inducted into the Dow Jones Venture Capital Hall of Fame and has been honored by the Commonwealth Club of California, the International Business Forum, the National Venture Capital Association, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and the Institute of International Education. He has served on the boards of the Draper Richards Foundation, the Hoover Institution and Yale University, among many others. Draper received a B.A. from Yale University and a master’s degree from the Harvard Graduate School of Business.

Robert F. Dyer: George Washington University School of Business
As a professor of marketing Robert’s area of expertise is in electronic commerce and marketing, customer relationship management, marketing strategy and marketing decision support, and health services marketing. His current research includes marketing and public policy, marketing decision support systems, and customer relationship management. In 2006, Dyer received a year-long grant from the Society for Marketing Professional Services to study client relationship management systems in the U.S. architecture, engineering, and building industries. Robert recently helped design and deliver a new executive training seminar at the World Bank Headquarters on the topic of Internal Marketing of Information Systems products and services. Previously, he has done executive development for organizations such as IBM, Lockheed-Martin,Electrolux, U.S.Postal Service Management Academy, Volvo Penta, and the U.S. General Accounting Office.

Sean Ellis: Founder, CEO CatchFree
CatchFree is a VC backed startup focused on helping technology products leverage valuable insights about their “must have” users to accelerate growth. See our latest project at MustHaveScore.com. CatchFree has raised $5.5m in venture capital and publicly launched it’s first consumer facing website in May 2011. Before founding CatchFree, Sean ran marketing at LogMeIn and Uproar from launch to NASDAQ IPO filings & helped bring Dropbox, Lookout, and Xobni to market in interim marketing leadership roles. He also helped accelerate growth at Eventbrite, Socialcast, Webs, World Golf Tour, WordPress.com and Songkick.

Wybrand Ganzevoort: Managing Director of Collective Value Creation

Bart Greenberg: Partner, Venture Capital & Technology, Haynes and Boone
Bart is a partner in the business and transactions group in the Orange County office of Haynes and Boone, where he also leads the firm’s venture capital & technology practice group for Orange County. Bart practices general corporate law with an emphasis on mergers and acquisitions and debt and equity financings. Bart’s practice includes a broad range of corporate finance transactions with an emphasis on private securities offerings for technology companies and private equity investors, including venture capital, angel and friends & family offerings. He has represented both issuers and private equity investors in numerous private placements, and has substantial experience in the licensing and distribution of software and other products and technologies. Bart has also had significant involvement with the cost-effective representation of entrepreneurs, start-ups and emerging growth companies.

Doug Hamilton: Managing Director, Venture Capital Relationship Management
Doug is a managing director with SVB Capital. Hamilton oversees the company’s relationships with many top-tier venture capital and private equity firms. In his role, Hamilton leverages the entire SVB platform and its member divisions. In addition, Hamilton is a managing director of the SVB Strategic Investors Fund, as well as an investment manager for Silicon Valley BancVentures. Hamilton is well known by more than 400 general partners of venture capital firms and often speaks at venture capital firm events and moderates panels at venture capital industry conferences. Prior to this role, he served as senior lender for Silicon Valley Bank’s Palo Alto office, focusing on lending to venture capital backed startup companies. Before joining SVB, Hamilton was a commercial lender with Union Bank, where he was responsible for growing and maintaining the largest portfolio in their Mid-Peninsula Regional office. Hamilton earned a bachelor’s degree in finance from the University of Arizona and a master’s in business administration with a concentration in corporate finance from Golden Gate University in San Francisco, California.

Kevin Hartz: Co-Founder, Eventbrite
Kevin was previously Co-Founder and CEO of Xoom Corporation, an international money transfer company, servicing more than 40 countries worldwide. Xoom is backed by Sequoia Capital, NEA, Fidelity Ventures, Stanford University, and Peter Thiel. Kevin began his career as a product manager and later co-founded ConnectGroup, a start-up providing high-speed Internet access to the hotel industry. ConnectGroup was acquired by Lodgenet (NASDAQ: LNET). Kevin holds a BA and BS from Stanford University, as well as an MA from Oxford University (University College). He has been an active early stage investor and advisor to start-ups including PayPal, Geni, Friendster, TripIt, Flixster, Adnectar, Yammer, TokBox, iControl, Boku, Lookout, Anonymizer, Palantir and Trulia, and currently serves on the Board of Directors of Xoom, Lookout, TownHog, and TokBox (observer).

Charles O. Heller: University of Maryland
Charles is a professor of entrepreneur at the Dingman Center. He specializes in new venture creation, strategic planning for high-tech companies, venture capital and private equity. As a native of native of Czech Republic, he has developed and taught workshops for managers of newly-privatized companies in Central Europe. He has developed and taught workshops for entrepreneurs in The Bahamas. He once was president of venture capital fund in The Bahamas, a co-founder of European software company, and was founder and CEO of two US software firms with overseas offices and customers.

Mark G. Hessen: President, National Venture Capital Association
As President of the National Venture Capital Association, Mark is responsible for setting the strategic direction for all Association activities, including public policy efforts, research initiatives, educational programs, and member services. In this capacity, Mark works closely with the NVCA professional staff and Board of Directors to demonstrate the positive impact of venture capital investment on the United States economy. Under his direction, the NVCA has created numerous value-added sub-groups including the CFO Task Force, Strategic Communications Group, Corporate Venture Capital Group, Medical Industry Group and Human Capital forum, all of which are dedicated to supporting NVCA membership in uniquely critical areas. Mark is a frequent presenter at industry conferences, appears regularly on CNBC, and is consistently quoted in the press in stories concerning venture capital trends.

Robert D. Hisrich: Thunderbird School of Global Management
Prior to joining Thunderbird Charles was the Chaired Professor of Entrepreneurial Studies at Case Western Reserve University. He was a named a Fulbright Professor in Budapest at the Foundation for Small Enterprise Economic Development, where he also held the Alexander Hamilton Chair in Entrepreneurship. He has authored or co-authored fourteen books and has written over 300 articles on entrepreneurship, international business management, and venture capital. He has served on the editorial boards of The Journal of Business Venturing, Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, Journal of Small Business Management, and Journal of International Business and Entrepreneurship.

Charles W. Hofer: Kennesaw State University
Ranked by Fortune Small Business Magazine as one of the nation’s best professors for entrepreneurship, Charles is known for his dedication to students and especially his work with those in business plan competitions. He is revered for his skills in prepping students for these contests with a combination of brilliant strategic thinking and drill sergeant-style practice sessions. The professor has earned numerous honors, including the Coleman Entrepreneurship Mentor Award and The United States Association of Small Business and Entrepreneurship (USASBE) Distinguished Entrepreneurship Educator of the Year Award.

Mohanjit Jolly: Partner at Iron Pillar

Larry Jordan: Professional Angel Investor, Executive Coach, Board Member
Larry Jordan is a founding member of the Tech Coast Angels Los Angeles and sits on the Executive Committee. He has personally invested in over 20 angel-funded startups in the past 8 years. Larry sits on a variety of Boards of Directors and Corporate advisory boards and provides consulting services to business enterprises, primarily in technology, relating to business management and revenue acceleration practices. Larry has been involved in technology for over 30 years. He once served as International Vice President with this Fortune 500 Company. Larry joined FileNet (NASDAQ-FILE) as a founding member of the Senior Management team for sales and led this pioneering software’s company’s strategic sales efforts in content management for 12 years during its growth from $0 to $200 million in sales.

Jill R. Kickul: Director of the Stewart Satter Program in Social Entrepreneurship
She teaches courses in entrepreneurship and social entrepreneurship and is the Director of the Stewart Satter Program in Social Entrepreneurship in New York University Stern’s Berkley Center for Entrepreneurial Studies. Professor Kickul’s primary research areas of interest include innovation and strategic processes within new ventures, micro-financing practices and wealth creation in transitioning economies, and social entrepreneurship. She is the author of Entrepreneurship Strategy: Changing Patterns in New Venture Creation, Growth, and Reinvention, and has published more than 50 publications in entrepreneurship and management journals.

Richard Koffler: Koffler Ventures and Serial Entrepreneur
Richard has been a C-level executive for 25 years, successfully launching and nurturing technology ventures. His most recent positions were as CEO of the Smart Action Company and Alelo Inc. Richard is on the executive committee of the Los Angeles network of the Tech Coast Angels, and was president of both the Los Angeles Venture Association and the Technology Council of Southern California. He is on the board of directors of el Centro Latino for Literacy, a non-profit that teaches Latino immigrants to read and write. He on the advisory boards of the California Emerging Technology Fund, the Center for Technology Commercialization at the University of Southern California, and the Wells Fargo Center for Small Business and Entrepreneurship at California State University, Northridge. Richard holds computer science degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of California, Berkeley.

Thomas J. Kosnik: Stanford Technology Ventures Program
Tom is a Fenwick and West Consulting Professor, Stanford Technology Ventures Program (STVP), at Stanford School of Engineering. Tom helps leaders and teams in start-ups, global companies, and other organizations to apply best-of-class tools to overcome real-world challenges. He is an International Advisor for National University of Singapore Entrepreneurship Centre, and a cofounder of Gear Up Ventures, a global partnership that helps entrepreneurs in organizations large and small to create new markets and disrupt existing markets. His current courses include Global Entrepreneurial Marketing, Technology Entrepreneurship, New Venture Creation, and Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders Program. He taught Marketing at Harvard Business School from 1985-89, and launched HBS’s Entrepreneurial Marketing course in1995-97.

Sandra Kramer: INSEAD (CALT)
The Centre for Advanced Learning Technologies (CALT) is a research center of The European Institute of Business Administration (INSEAD). Its mission is to identify, invent, and explore new tendencies in the field of technology that are likely to transform radically the way people carry out management and business activities. Sandra was Manager of Research Projects in the field of change management and E-Commerce, which was sponsored from the EU Commission. CALT is increasingly regarded as Europe’s leading R&D initiative in the domain of advanced learning technologies for management education and knowledge management. Based in Germany she is now a Management Consultant for the high tech industry.

Edward Kwok: Partner, Intellectual Property Practice Group, Haynes and Boone
Edward focuses on patent prosecution, patent and trade secret litigations, and licensing. Since 1993, he has participated in several patent infringement trials before the International Trade Commission, examining and cross-examining technical expert witnesses. Edward has prosecuted patents for analog and digital electronic circuits, computer architecture, network systems, software, semiconductor equipment, semiconductor materials and processing, mass storage media, optical and laser instrumentation, controllers, telecommunication systems, digital signal processing, image processing, wireless communication systems, global positioning system applications, and Internet applications. Before becoming a lawyer, Edward spent nine years in the semiconductor industry, holding various engineering and engineering management positions in developing integrated circuit design tools.

Wing Lam: Co-Founder Wahoo’s Restaurants
The Wahoo’s story begins in 1988, when the three Wahoo’s brothers, Wing, Ed and Mingo, combined their love of surf and food to create a restaurant with an eclectic Mexican/Brazilian/Asian menu and a Hawaiian north-shore vibe. Wing, Ed and Mingo were born with the love of restaurants in their blood. Growing up in San Paolo, Brazil, they actually spent their early years above their parents’ Chinese restaurant. After school, you could find the brothers in the restaurant peeling shrimp or washing dishes. In 1975, the family moved to Orange County, California, where their dad opened the famous Shanghai Pine Garden Chinese restaurant on Balboa Island. People such as John Wayne would frequently eat there. The brothers grew up both in the restaurant and on the beaches. Addicted to surfing, they would travel south to Mexico to surf and there got introduced to the fish taco. Years of surfing trips to Mexico created a craving for the specialty of charbroiled fish, salsa and tortillas.

Randy Lunn: General Partner, Catalina Ventures
As a founding partner of Catalina Ventures Randy helps set fund strategy and works closely with portfolio companies. He began his venture capital career in 1979 as a founder of Harrison Capital, the venture arm of Texaco. At Harrison Capital, he was responsible for investments in such companies as RF Monolithics, Iomega, Amgen, Compression Labs, MCC, Summa Four, and Synercom. Randy has sat on numerous boards of both US and European companies, helped establish US subsidiaries (SCM Microsystems, Sequenom, ATecoM, Dalim), took interim management positions, and helped advise companies as they navigated the IPO process both in the US and Europe. In 2010 The Forum for Corporate Directors honored Randy as Director of the Year for advising early-stage ventures. He currently sits on the board of seven investments: Akonix, Continuous Computing Corporation, Incuity, Inovys, Datallegro, Newport Imaging Corporation and Network Physics.

Patricia P. McDougall: Indiana University
Patricia helped pioneer the growing field of international entrepreneurship. Her major research interests include accelerated internationalization and new venture strategies. She is a 21st Century Entrepreneurship Research Fellow, the former Chair of the Academy of Management’s Entrepreneurship Division and is a current or former member of nine editorial boards. In a survey published in the Journal of Management she was identified as the third most published author in entrepreneurship. Formerly, she served as the co-principal investigator of two major National Science Foundation grants with the Electrical and Computer Engineering School and the Engineering Research Center. She received her Ph.D. in strategic management from the University of South Carolina.

Deborah Magid: Director Software Strategy, IBM Venture Capital Group
Deborah represents IBM’s $22 billion software business in IBM’s Venture Capital Group. Her expertise spans several industries. She is responsible for sharing insights about emerging markets, technologies, and business models with venture firms and entrepreneurs around the world. She scouts for emerging business opportunities, and shares views on innovation and growth areas of the market. As a director of strategy in IBM Software Group, she also brings insight from the venture community to the development of IBM’s growth strategies. Deborah is responsible for fueling the ecosystem pipeline in strategic areas; and contributes to filling out the IBM product portfolio through M&A. Deborah’s relationships are global, and extend into emerging geographies. Deborah is a frequent spokesperson on topics of relevance to entrepreneurs and investors. She is on the board of SDForum, the Silicon Valley emerging technology network, and on the Steering Committee of the California Sustainability Alliance.

Tamara Mendelsohn: Director of Marketing, Eventbrite
Prior to Eventbrite, Tamara was a senior analyst with Forrester Research, an independent technology research and consulting firm. As an 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.

Thomas Mierzwa: Robert H. Smith School of Business, University of Maryland
Tom has taught courses in Innovation, Entrepreneurship, Growth Strategies for Emerging Companies, Corporate Venturing, and a Capstone Strategy Course. He served as a team mentor for the University’s Gemstone Innovation Honors program, is a business mentor with the Dingman Center for Entrepreneurship, and was a mentor for the American Women for Economic Development business assistance program. He is an advisor and business plan reviewer for the University of Maryland ‘s MIPS Program and its TAP Incubator Program. At the University of Maryland University College, Graduate School of Management and Technology, he has taught courses in Strategy, Technology Innovation and Creativity, Technology Management, New Venture Formation, Marketing High-Technology Products & Services, and Innovation & Sustainable Development.

Brandon Mills: SocialVibe.com, Co-Founder and VP, Product Management
Brandon played an active role in the planning, strategy, management and development of SocialVibe’s suite of products, including core platform, partnerships and integrations, and advertising solutions. Prior to SocialVibe, Brandon worked in management consulting across several market verticals, including Internet and new media. He earned a B.S. in Structural Engineering with a minor in Management Science from the University of California at San Diego. SocialVibe, a Los Angeles-based social media monetization platform, recently raised another $11.65 million in third-round funding. The company previously raised just over $12 million from Redpoint Ventures and JAFCO Ventures.

Barry Moltz: Speaker, Author, Consultant
Barry has founded and run small businesses with a great deal of success and failure for more than 15 years. After successfully selling his last operating business, Barry has branched out into a number of entrepreneurship-related activities. He founded an angel investor group, an angel fund, and is a former advisory member of the board of the Angel Capital Education Foundation. His first book, “You Need to Be A Little Crazy: The Truth about Starting and Growing Your Business” describes the ups and downs and emotional trials of running a business. It is in its fourth reprint and has been translated into Chinese, Russian, Korean and Thai. His second book, “Bounce! Failure, Resiliency and the Confidence to Achieve Your Next Great Success”, published by Wiley, was released in early 2008. Barry is a nationally recognized expert on entrepreneurship who has given over 100 speeches to audiences ranging from 20 to 20,000. He was appointed by the Illinois Governor in 2005 to serve on the board of the Institute for Entrepreneurship Education (IIEE). As a member of the Entrepreneurship Hall of Fame, he also has taught entrepreneurship as an adjunct professor at the Illinois Institute of Technology.

John Morris: Managing Director GKM Ventures
John Morris is a Managing Director of GKM Ventures, a venture capital firm focused on information technology companies in the Western states. He is also the immediate past Chairman of the Tech Coast Angels, the largest angel organization in the country, and continues as an active member of the board of governors. TCA members mentor, coach and invest in startups and early-stage companies based on southern California. John is a frequent speaker on venture capital and angel investing. During his career in venture capital, John has been a director in several private and public companies. John is currently serves on the board of directors for Syntricity, Inc. in San Diego and Accordent, Inc. in El Segundo and BrightQube in Carlsbad. He serves on the board of Entretech and Los Angeles Venture Association (LAVA). John is co-founder and past president of the Forum for Corporate Directors.

William Naumes: University of New Hampshire
Associate Professor of Strategic Management at University of New Hampshire. He has written 10 books and numerous articles, cases and papers in strategy, entrepreneurship, and social responsibility. He is former editor of the Case Research Journal and past president of NACRA and Northeast Decision Sciences Institute. He earned his Ph.D., Management of the Total Enterprise, Graduate School of Business, Stanford University, M.B.A., Finance and Economics, Graduate School of Management, Cornell University, and his B.S., School of Industrial and Labor Relations, Cornell University.

Warren Packard: Venture Partner,Draper Fisher Jurveston
Warren currently serves on the Boards of Anagran, EoPlex, Microfabrica, Primet Precision Materials, and SeaMicro. Warren also leads the firm’s investments in BinOptics, Hola!, and YeePay. Prior to joining the firm, Warren co-founded Angara Database Systems, a main memory relational database company, which was acquired by Personify. Prior to co-founding Angara, he was an Associate at Institutional Venture Partners, investing in early-stage technology companies. Before IVP, Warren was a Senior Principal Engineer in the Advanced Product Development Group at Baxter International. Warren is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Stanford University and holds a BS and MS in Mechanical Engineering: Smart Product Design. He received his MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business where he was an Arjay Miller Scholar.

Bryan Pearce: Ernst & Young Americas Director, Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneur Of The Year® and Venture Capital Advisory Group
Bryan leads Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneur Of The Year® and Venture Capital Advisory Group (VCAG) initiatives in the Americas. Launched in the U.S. in 1986, the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year® Award Program celebrates the achievements and contributions of the best high-growth entrepreneurs in the world. The program recognizes entrepreneurial vision, innovation, and leadership in growing successful businesses. Award events are held in more than 140 cities and in more than 50 countries worldwide. Annually the winners from each country meet in Monte Carlo for the global award. The Venture Capital Advisory Group, with a network of professionals in venture capital “hotbeds” throughout the Americas, delivers services and focused thought leadership to Priority VC Firms and their Portfolio Companies. Based in Boston, Bryan has nearly 30 years of experience assisting entrepreneurial companies with their growth plans and financing needs such as venture capital and private equity, joint ventures and strategic alliances. Bryan is a graduate of the Ivey School of Business at the University of Western Ontario, Canada and is a Canadian Chartered Accountant.

John A. Pearce II: Villanova University
John holds the Endowed Chair in Strategic Management and Entrepreneurship at Villanova University. In 2004, he was the Distinguished Visiting Professor at ITAM in Mexico City. Previously, Professor Pearce was the Eakin Endowed Chair in Strategic Management at George Mason University and a State of Virginia Eminent Scholar. He received the 1994 Fulbright U.S. Professional Award, which he served at INTAN in Malaysia. He has taught at Penn State University, West Virginia University, the University of Malta as the Fulbright Senior Professor in International Management, and at the University of South Carolina where he was Director of Ph.D. Programs in Strategic Management. He received a Ph.D. degree in Business Administration and Strategic Management from the Pennsylvania State University. He is co-author of 36 books and has authored more than 250 articles and refereed professional papers. He is the recipient of several awards in recognition of his accomplishments in teaching, research, scholarship, and professional service. A frequent leader of executive development programs and an active consultant to business and industry, his client list includes domestic and multinational firms engaged in manufacturing and service industries.

Michael P. Peters: Carroll School of Management, Boston College
He founded, and then was Department Chair and Director of the Small Business Institute at Boston College for more than 16 years. Recently retired from full time teaching he continues to write, lecture, serve on numerous boards, and assist in the management of a family business. He has consulted and conducted seminars and workshops worldwide related to entrepreneurship, international and domestic decision making for new product development, market planning, and market strategy. He has published over thirty articles in such journals as the Journal of Business Research, Journal of Marketing, Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of International Business Studies, Columbia Journal of World Business, Journal of Business Venturing, and the Sloan Management Review. He has co-authored three texts, Marketing A New Product: Its Planning, Development and Control, Marketing Decisions for New and Mature Products and Entrepreneurship now in its seventh edition.

Kenneth A. Pickar: California Institute of Technology
As a professor at Caltech he teaches product design. His class projects are making wheelchairs from bicycles, which can be built in Guatemala. The class combines students from Guatemala, the Pasadena Design School and his students at Caltech. He is a member of Tech Coast Angel and sits on private and public boards, like telecom NeuStar which went public in 2005. He sits on the board of the LA Regional Food Bank that feeds several hundred thousand people each week.

Gerhard R. Plaschka: DePaul University
Ranked by Fortune Small Business Magazine as one of the nation’s best professors for entrepreneurship, Gerhard enlivens the course materials with real cases, executive guest speakers and computer simulations in addition to lectures and articles. He likes to use different teaching techniques to keep students motivated. Students work in teams to define and solve business problems. Gerhard encourages competitiveness among the groups in the classroom, which he regards as a rehearsal for the real world. He is especially interested in making sure students know how to manage challenges at different stages in the life cycle of a new venture. One of his courses “Managing Fast Growing Firms” requires students to identify a growing company, then interview and analyze the entrepreneur or team behind it, looking at how challenges are handled at every phase of growth.

Robert W. Price: Executive Director, Global Entrepreneurship Institute
Robert enjoys world renown as an expert in the field of entrepreneurial capitalism. He has nearly 30 years of entrepreneurial experience. He is a strategist, innovative thought leader, public speaker, creative educator, and prolific author. As the Executive Director at the Global Entrepreneurship Institute he has written or edited more than a dozen books. His books are required reading at Harvard Business School, Stanford University, UCLA, USC, Wharton, Caltech, Indiana University, New York University and many more leading universities and colleges around the world. His work has been translated into more than 10 languages. He has been the intellectual architect for a number of exciting and innovative projects around the world.
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Russell Reeder: Serial Entrepreneur
Russell has extensive experience in information technology, in both sales and software development. Russell’s skill set embodies that of an engineer and a solution sales executive, allowing him to understand all aspects and functions of a company based in the ever-changing technology industry. As a business leader and entrepreneur, Russell offers a dynamic reputation in starting up and spearheading IT companies, leading turnaround events, capturing millions of dollars in venture capital funding, founding and directing offshore development teams in India and The Philippines, and presiding over global sales and marketing organizations. He has successfully navigated enterprises through start-up phases, the dot com crash, and post 9-11.

Bill Reichert: Managing Director, Garage Technology Ventures
Bill has over 20 years of experience as an entrepreneur and an operating executive. Since joining Garage in 1998, Bill has focused on early-stage information technology and materials science companies. He sits on the Boards of CaseStack, WhiteHat, ClearFuels, cFares, and ThermoCeramix. Prior to Garage, Bill was a co-founder or senior executive in several venture-backed technology startups, including Trademark Software, The Learning Company, and Academic Systems. Earlier in his career, he worked at McKinsey & Company, Brown Brothers Harriman & Co., and the World Bank. Bill earned a B.A. at Harvard College and an M.B.A. from Stanford University. He was a founding board member and a Chairman of the Churchill Club, and a Charter Member of the Silicon Valley Association of Startup Entrepreneurs. Currently he is the Chairman of the Small Fund Roundtable of the VC Taskforce and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.

Jeffrey A. Robinson: Rutgers Business School
Jeffrey co-leads the Rutgers Business School’s efforts in the areas of urban entrepreneurship and economic development. He is the recipient of the 2007 Faculty Pioneer Rising Star award from the Aspen Institute for his research, teaching and service activities at the intersection of business and society. His research projects cover the areas of high growth African American women entrepreneurs, early stage social entrepreneurship, inner city business development and economic development in western and southern Africa. His most recent papers explore the role of social entrepreneurship and social venture incubators in economic development and the intersection of wealth, race and new venture creation. He advises several social ventures and social entrepreneurship initiatives including the Louisiana Lt. Governor’s Office of Social Entrepreneurship. He is a sought after speaker, author and media commentator appearing on PBS, Dateline NBC, NBC Nightly News and in the New York Times.

Richard Robinson: University of South Carolina
Richard is the Business Partnership Foundation Fellow in Strategic Management and Entrepreneurship in the Moore School of Business, University of South Carolina. He also serves as Director of the Faber Entrepreneurship Center at USC and Assistant Director of the Center for Manufacturing and Technology in USC’s College of Engineering and Information Technology. He received his Ph.D. in Business Administration from the University of Georgia. He graduated from Georgia Tech in Industrial Management. He has co-authored over 30 books addressing strategic management and entrepreneurship issues that students and managers use worldwide. He has authored over 300 articles, professional papers, and case studies that have been published in major journals. Richard has previously held executive positions with companies in the pulp and paper, hazardous waste, building products, lodging, and restaurant industries. He currently serves as a director or adviser to entrepreneurial companies that are global leaders in niche markets in the log home, building products, animation, and computer-chip thermal management industries. He also supervises more than 50 student teams each year that undertake field consulting projects and internships with entrepreneurial companies worldwide.

Betsy Sanders: The Sanders Partnership
As a director, consultant, mentor, speaker, writer, and servant leader, Betsy partners with senior executives around the world who are committed to leading meaningful companies and meaningful live. Betsy began her experience leading winning-edge organizations when she joined Nordstrom as a sales apprentice. She moved quickly through the ranks, becoming Nordstrom’s first female store manager. Over a 12-year period Betsy and her team made retail history building the new southern California business to $1 billion in annual sales with more than 11,000 employees, quickly becoming Nordstrom’s largest and most profitable region. While developing Nordstrom into a business partnership with their customers, this team, under Betsy’s leadership is credited with having set the industry and international standards for service. Betsy has held director positions with such prominent corporations as: Wal-Mart, Wolverine World Wide (Hush Puppies), Washington Mutual, Advantica (Denny’s), and WellPoint (Blue Cross). In addition, she serves on advisory boards for several privately held companies and as a personal mentor to executives in various customer-focused businesses.

Hans Schollhammer: Professor, UCLA Anderson School of Management
Hans studies multinational business strategies, intra-organizational conflicts in multinational firms, management of innovation, and entrepreneurship. The Harold Price Center for Entrepreneurial Studies, a recognized leader in entrepreneurial education and research, oversees all teaching, research, extracurricular, and community activities related to entrepreneurship at UCLA. Since 2004, Business Week has ranked the faculty at the UCLA Anderson School of Management #1 in the world in intellectual capital (based on research) and the Ph.D. Finance Program is Ranked #1 in the world. Hans teaches courses in international and comparative management; international business economics, business policy, corporate entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial strategies and venture initiation, and business ethics. He has held faculty positions at the European Institute of Business Administration (INSEAD) in France, the Cranfield Institute of Technology in England, the Institute for International Studies and Training in Fujinomiya, Japan, and Columbia University. He is the author of several articles and books on entrepreneurship and international management issues.

Andy Sernovitz: Author, & CEO, GasPedal & The Blog Council
Andy is an expert with word of mouth marketing. He’s the author of “Word of Mouth Marketing: How Smart Companies Get People Talking” and teaches at Northwestern University. His company, GasPedal, teaches word of mouth techniques, and runs the Blog Council, a peer-to-peer support group for the pioneers of social media at very large organizations. He taught the first course on Internet Entrepreneurship at the Wharton School of Business, ran a business incubator, and started half a dozen companies. He created the Word of Mouth Marketing Association around the latest revolutions in blogs, buzz, and word of mouth, and in the dot com days ran the Association for Interactive Marketing.

Tarang Shah: Venture Capital Professional
At SoftBank Capital, a venture capital fund, Tarang helped with investments in mobile, digital media and enterprise software startups totaling $50 million. He has reviewed 1000+ startups and served as a board member and CEO advisor for dozen plus startups. Tarang is currently a technology innovation executive and mobile payment/commerce expert for one of the largest financial institutions in the US, where he has built and leads a startup risk assessment practice based on his venture model. Tarang was a co-founder of a VC consulting firm Ariants, lead product manager for Ericsson’s first 3G product line of $300 million in R&D, business responsible for Ericsson’s CDMA450 product line, and a marketing manager for Qualcomm’s CDMA technology. He passed CFA Level II in 2005 and holds MBA from Thunderbird, MBA and BSEE from Gujarat University (India). He has developed a venture model, Startup Analysis Model (SAM) for assessing success potential of the startups.

Pradip K. Shukla: Chapman University
PK is a professor of entrepreneurship at Chapman University. He earned his Ph.D. from University of California, Los Angeles. Shukla’s teaching focuses upon growing entrepreneurial ventures, business consulting, and operations management. In 2008 Dr. Shukla received the Acton National Award for Excellence in Entrepreneurship Education Teaching. In 2006 he received 1st Place Best Faculty Advisor Award Collegiate Entrepreneurs’ Organization out of all CEO chapters, domestic and globally. He has received professional C.P.I.M. Certification (Certified in Production and Operations Management) from APICS (the Association for Operations Management). His research interests focus upon the application of conjoint/tradeoff analysis to understanding and improving managerial decision-making. In addition to having served as a director and consultant to corporations, Dr. Shukla is a reviewer of professional journals.

Richard Shuttleworth: Senior Vice President, Silicon Valley Bank
Rick currently focuses on providing a variety of debt solutions for emerging and growth information technology and life science companies headquartered in Orange County. Rick has more than 29 years of banking experience in corporate, international, middle market, and technology lending. He was with First Interstate/Wells Fargo for 20 years, and has been with SVB for the past nine years. He is currently on the Board of Directors of the Orange Coast Venture Group and OCTANe, and is also on the Executive Committee of the AeA’s Orange County Council.

Diane Solinger: Executive Director of Entrepreneurs Foundation
Since joining Entrepreneurs Foundation in 1999 she has greatly expanded the Foundation’s regional and national presence as a leader in corporate philanthropy and corporate community involvement. Diane oversees all organizational strategy, operations, new business development, program delivery and affiliate relations. Diane has over 20 years of non-profit leadership experience. Prior to joining Entrepreneurs Foundation, Diane served as Executive Director of the American Heart Association, Silicon Valley. Diane received her bachelor’s degree in English from the University of Colorado at Boulder, spending one year at the University of Bordeaux in Bordeaux, France. She is also a graduate of Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business Executive Program for Non Profit Leaders and is a senior fellow of the American Leadership Forum, Silicon Valley. Diane is a 2010 recipient of a Jefferson Award for Public Service and has been a presenter and member of the Business Track Planning Committee for the National Conference on Volunteering and Service in 2009 and 2010.

Ryan Spoon: Polaris Venture Partners, Dogpatch Labs
Ryan is a Principal at Polaris Venture Partners and leads Dogpatch Labs California in Palo Alto, California. Either as lead investor or board observer, he works closely with Automattic, Formspring, Frid.ge (acquired by Google), KISSmetrics, LOLapps, Movity (acquired by Trulia), Offline Labs, Recurly, and ShoeDazzle. Prior to joining Polaris, Ryan worked at Widgetbox as Vice President of Marketing & Business Development. Ryan spent 2003-2007 at eBay Inc. As part of the internet marketing team, Ryan focused on user acquisition, search engine optimization and social content properties like eBay MyWorld and Reviews & Guides. In 2000, as a collegiate swimmer for Duke University, Ryan founded beRecruited, a sports recruiting platform for high school athletes and college coaches. beRecruited was acquired by RVS Ventures in 2007 and Ryan currently serves on the board of directors. He also is the founder and president of sfEntrepreneurs, an organization of Bay Area investors and operators, which first launched InGameNow.com.

Clark Stone: Partner, Intellectual Property Practice Group, Haynes and Boone
Clark specializes in litigation relating to patents, trademarks, Internet privacy, trade secrets, and business disputes, in federal and state courts and the International Trade Commission (“ITC”). He has handled cases involving semiconductor devices and processing, patent licenses, commercial contracts, online trademark issues, software copyrights, electronic mail, and attorney negligence. Prior to becoming an attorney, Clark worked in both technical and managerial positions for various semi-conductor manufacturing equipment companies, including Applied Materials, Inc., and Novellus Systems, Inc. He has an extensive knowledge of semiconductor devices and manufacturing techniques, plasma etching and deposition, and Internet-related technologies. Clark has served as a volunteer arbitrator for the Santa Clara County Bar Association’s Attorney-Client Fee Dispute Arbitration program since 2002.

Richard Sudek: Chapman University
Assistant Professor of Entrepreneurship, Ph.D. in Management from Claremont Graduate University (CGU). Richard’s primary research interests are in the area of entrepreneurial finance, entrepreneurial leadership, and team leadership. He has taught at INSEAD in France, the Rotterdam School of Management in Holland, and at the Peter F. Drucker and Masatoshi Ito Graduate School of Management of CGU. In 1982 he founded Nadek Computer Systems, a computer consulting firm, and in 1999, sold the company to SAIC. He has served on advisory committees for Microsoft, IBM, Novell, and Cisco. In addition, he currently consults extensively with startup companies on matters related to strategy, financing, operations, and executive coaching. Currently an active angel investor with over 20 investments in startup companies, Sudek sits on the Tech Coast Angels board of governors (the largest angel investment organization in the US). In addition, he is on the board of directors for the Angel Capital Association, a national angel trade association. Through Tech Coast Angels, he has screened in excess of four hundred start-up companies. In 2009 Richard was featured in an article on BusinessWeek.com about his classroom experiments on the effectiveness of business presentations in landing outside investment.

Julie Thompson: Vice President of Product, Eventbrite
As VP of Product, Julie is responsible for overall direction and design of Eventbrite. Julie has over eight years of experience managing a variety of software products from conception to release. She started her career as a software engineer and moved into product management to improve communications between customers, engineers and business teams. Julie made her leap to product management while working for Elemental Software, a startup which Macromedia acquired in 1999. At Macromedia she was a Senior Product Manager responsible for major product releases on both the Dreamweaver and Flash product lines. Later, Julie joined Apple as Product Manager of Shake in Apple’s Pro Apps Division. Julie holds a bachelor’s degree in computer science from University of California, San Diego and a master’s degree from Columbia University.

Julie Trell: Vice President, Salesforce.com Foundation
Julie joined the Salesforce.com Foundation in July of 2000 shortly after the launch of the company, salesforce.com. As head of global integrated philanthropy, Julie and her team are responsible for the global salesforce.com volunteer and grants program. They are engaged daily with enthusiastic employees who wish to be change makers, create social impact and volunteer with nonprofit organizations around the world. Additionally, the innovative grant program empowers and encourages employees to develop innovative projects. The grant program also focuses on nonprofits using the salesforce platform to use it to be most effective. Julie manages marketing and communication for the Foundation, as well as promoting and sharing the Salesforce.com Foundation’s 1/1/1/ model with interested companies. Julie has a BA in Psychology from Emory University, and an M.Ed from Georgia State in Early Childhood Education. She spent six years working in elementary and middle schools in underserved communities in Atlanta. In 1999 she was named Apple Distinguished Educator, recognizing her exemplary and innovative style working with educational technologies.

Karl H. Vesper: University of Washington
Karl is a professor of Business Administration at the University of Washington in Seattle. He is a nationally recognized chronicler of the growth of entrepreneurship education in U.S. higher education and a national expert on entrepreneurship programs. His books include New Venture Experience, Vector Books, 1996, New Venture Mechanics, Prentice-Hall, 1993; The Washington Entrepreneur’s Guide, University Press, 1993; and New Venture Strategies, Prentice-Hall, 1990. He has held endowed professorships as a visitor at Baylor University, Babson College and the University of Calgary. As the first Babson Professor for Entrepreneurship he helped to create the Babson Center for Entrepreneurial Studies and also started the Babson Entrepreneurship Research Conference. He edited the first ten volumes of Frontiers of Entrepreneurship Research, the proceedings of that conference.

Luis Villalobos: Pioneer of Angel Investing
Died October 01, 2009 in Orange County California. He was 72. In May 2010 the first, national Luis Villalobos Award, named after deceased Tech Coast Angels founder Luis Villalobos, was presented by the Angel Capital Association, to a startup based in Seattle. According to the ACA, it awarded Modumetal, a developer of nano-laminated materials used as a replacement for stainless steel, the Luis Villalobos Award as the “Most Innovative Idea” financed by one of its member angel investment groups. The award was established earlier this year to honor Villalobos, who was among the most active angel investors in Southern California, and spearheaded the creation for the Tech Coast Angels. Richard Sudek, current Chairman of the Tech Coast Angels, is also chair of the Luis Villalobos Award Committee.
Honoring Luis >

Ron Weissman: Committee Chairman, Band of Angels
Ron was vice president of strategy and corporate marketing for Verity, a global leader in corporate information retrieval and knowledge management. During his tenure at Verity, the executive team earned the large company “turnaround of the year” award (1999) from the Turnaround Management Association; Verity gained dominant market share and saw its market capitalization grow from $50 million to more than $1.5 billion. Prior to Verity, Ron spent more than five years at NeXT Computer, where he managed European and corporate marketing. In addition to his work in Silicon Valley, he ran academic computing at Brown University and at the University of Maryland, where he was Associate Professor of History. He is the author of two books on the history of Florence during the Renaissance.

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Other Academic Advisory Board Members
Joseph M. Bearson: Eckerd College
Joseph Bonnici: Bryant College
Monica Diochon: St. Francis Xavier University
David E. Douglas: University of Arkansas
Rex Dumdum: SUNY at Binghamton
David R. Eppright: American University
Badie Farah: Eastern Michigan University
Theresa Flaherty: Old Dominion University
Mikhail V. Gratchev: Case Western University
Peter H. Hackbert: California State at Monterey Bay
Paul R. Johnson: Bond University
William C. Johnson: Nova Southeastern University
Ceyhan Kilic: DePaul University
Rachna Kumar: Alliant International University
Roger D. Lee: Salt Lake Community College
William S. Lightfoot: North Carolina Wesleyan College
Ronald E. Milliman: Western Kentucky University
Pallab Paul: University of Denver
Thomas F. Pendergast: Pepperdine University
Frederick A. Ricci: Nova Southeastern University
Brian Satterlee: Liberty University
Jim Sethi: Western Montana College
Pamela K. Shay: Union College
Joseph R. Stasio: Merrimack College
Amita Suhrid: Keller Graduate School of Management
Wee-Liang Tan: Singapore Management University
Nancy Tans: Madison Area Technical College
Elisabeth J. Teal: North Georgia College & State University