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Vincent Perlas is President of the LifeBank Foundation. Trained in agribusiness and public health, Vincent chose to dedicate his time exclusively to microfinance in 2005. After years of working in banking and agriculture in nonprofit and for-profit capacities, he began to believe in the promise of microfinance as a serious solution to worldwide poverty. Although he admits that poverty is caused by a spectrum of factors, he firmly believes that the lack of financial services for the working poor, the majority, is one of the core sources of the problem.
Steve Perricone is President, CEO, and Co-founder of BioFuelBox Corporation. And he has over 20 years experience in the technology industry, with over half of those years in start-up environments. Perricone was Vice President of Worldwide Sales for SonicWALL, which he joined when it had less than 20 employees. Perricone was instrumental in the growth of the company, and expanded it to over 450 employees worldwide. He was directly responsible for building the worldwide channel for SonicWALL?s security products from the product line?s inception in 1998. That successful channel and sales organization contributed to near immediate company profitability and aggregate revenues of over $200 million in the first three years. Prior to SonicWALL, Perricone was a senior executive in two other technology start-ups - Network TeleSystems (acquired by Siemens) and Structured Internetworks. He is an alumnus of California State University, Chico.
William J. Perry, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, is the Michael and Barbara Berberian Professor at Stanford University, with a joint appointment in the School of Engineering and the Institute for International Studies, where he is codirector of the Preventive Defense Project, a research collaboration of Stanford and Harvard Universities. His previous academic experience includes professor (halftime) at Stanford from 1988 to 1993, when he was the codirector of the Center for International Security and Arms Control. He also served as a part-time lecturer in the Department of Mathematics at Santa Clara University from 1971 to 1977. Perry was the nineteenth United States secretary of defense, serving from February 1994 to January 1997. His previous government experience was as deputy secretary of defense (1993-94) and undersecretary of defense for research and engineering (1977-81). Perry's business experience includes serving as a laboratory director for General Telephone and Electronics (1954-64); founding and serving as the president of ESL (1964-77); executive vice-president of Hambrecht & Quist (1981-85); and founding and serving as the chairman of Technology Strategies and Alliances (1985-93). He serves on the board of directors of Anteon International Corporation and several emerging high-tech companies and is chairman of Global Technology Partners. Perry was born October 11, 1927, in Vandergrift, Pennsylvania. He attended grade school and high school in Butler, Pennsylvania. He received his B.S. and M.S. degrees from Stanford University and his Ph.D. from Pennsylvania State, all in mathematics. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. From 1946 to 1947, Perry was an enlisted man in the Army Corps of Engineers and served in the Army of Occupation in Japan. He joined the Reserve Officer Training Corps i
Ryan Phelan started DNA Direct in 2003 as a company that provides direct-to-consumer genetic testing and related consumer oriented genomic services. Phelan has been a strong consumer health advocate for the past 25 years, having started the first medical library for consumers in 1978. As Founding Director of Planetree, a nonprofit consumer health care organization, she helped create a national model for humanizing hospitals and a national model for providing health information to the public, the Planetree Resource Center. In 1995 she founded Direct Medical Knowledge (DMK). DMK was an extensive consumer health web site highly regarded for its unique content depth and innovative search interface. DMK developed proprietary software that enabled users to drill down through the most current medical literature and retrieve personalized health and medical information. As CEO of DMK, Ms. Phelan forged alliances with major medical institutions, national health care plans, publishers, and consumer groups. In 1999 Direct Medical Knowledge was acquired by WebMD, and DMK's content became the backbone of WebMD's consumer health site. Phelan is also a co-founder of the ALL Species Foundation, a global science initiative to discover all life on Earth in the next 25 years. In 2002, Phelan served as CEO for the ALL Species Foundation and continues her involvement today by serving on the Governing Board of Directors. She graduated from UC Berkeley. Courtesy of Strategic News Service, SF Chronicle
Diego Piacentini, Senior VP of International Retail for Amazon, discusses the company's growth-centered business model, its global presence, and the strides it takes to sustain a successful customer experience. Piacentini also describes Amazon's innovative approaches to operations, mergers and acquisitions, and labor practices.
As CEO of SpikeSource, Kim Polese is responsible for guiding the company's business vision: to make open source safe for the enterprise. Prior to SpikeSource, Kim co-founded Marimba in 1996, and as President and CEO she led the company through a successful public offering and to profitability. She then served as Chairman until Marimba's acquisition by BMC Software in April 2004. Before co-founding Marimba, Kim worked at Sun Microsystems and was the original product manager for Java, leading its launch in March 1995. Prior to Java, Kim worked in Sun's software division on object-oriented development environments. Previously, she worked at Intellicorp Inc., helping Fortune 500 firms implement expert systems. Kim earned a Bachelor's degree in Biophysics from U.C. Berkeley and studied Computer Science at the University of Washington, Seattle. Kim serves on the executive council of TechNet, a bipartisan coalition of executives focused on the growth of the technology industry and economy, on the board of the Global Security Institute, and the University of California President's Board on Science and Innovation. She is a Fellow at Carnegie Mellon University's Center for Engineered Innovation. Courtesy of http://www.spikesource.com/management.html and http://www.osbc2004.com/live/13/events/13SFO05A/keynotes.
Kim Popovits has served as President and Chief Operating Officer since February 2002, and as a director since March 2002. From November 1987 to February 2002, Kim served in various roles at Genentech, Inc., a biotechnology company, most recently as Senior Vice President, Marketing and Sales from February 2001 to February 2002, and as Vice President, Sales from October 1994 to February 2001. Prior to joining Genentech in November 1987, she served as Division Manager for American Critical Care, a Division of American Hospital Supply. Kim holds a BA in Business from Michigan State University.
Thomas Prescott, CEO of medical device manufacturer Align Technology, discusses disruptive product innovation and leadership in the medical device industry. Prescott shares the company's story, including insights on the launch of their signature product, the Invisalign orthodontic system. He also discusses operational trends and the need for sound analysis of financing, product execution, and business development tactics.
Kavita N. Ramdas has won numerous awards for her vision and advancement of an inclusive philanthropy in which donors and grantees are treated as equal partners. In 2005, Kavita received the Juliette Gordon Low Award for her significant contributions to advancing women's human rights and for being exemplary role model for girls and women. In 2004, Financial Women's Association named Kavita Woman of the Year for the Public Sector; and Women and Philanthropy gave her the LEAD (Leadership for Equity and Diversity) Award for her championship and commitment to funding the global human rights of women and girls. KQED public television recognized her as a 2004 Bay Area Local Hero. She serves on the Board of Trustees of Mount Holyoke College, Massachusetts, and the Board of Directors of the Rural Development Institute, Washington state. She is a member of the Advisory Council to the Ethical Globalization Initiative, a venture of Mary Robinson, former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. She also serves on the Council of Advisors on Gender Equity to the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University and the Women's Rights Prize of the Gruber Foundation. Before joining the Global Fund, Kavita supported both domestic and international initiatives in economic development and population as a program officer at the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation in Chicago, Illinois. She earned a master's degree in international development and public policy at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University, and a BA at Mount Holyoke College. Kavita was born and raised in India, and speaks Urdu, Hindi, English, German, French and Spanish.
Serial entrepreneur and investor Bill Recker discusses some common myths that entrepreneurs believe vs. what they should really be focused on.
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