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Fern Mandelbaum, is a Partner at Monitor Venture Partners. Ms. Mandelbaum is an entrepreneur and CEO who specializes in creating and growing technology focused businesses. Since 1998, Ms. Mandelbaum has worked with CEO's helping them develop and refine their business concepts, recruit management teams, key advisors and board members, implement fund raising strategies and establish strategic alliances. Her portfolio includes: New Vine Logistics, CaseCentral, Informative, NapaStyle, WetFeet, Care2, and LiveAdvice (merged with Keen). She has worked with, and secured funding for her companies from many of the leading venture capital firms, including: Mohr Davidow; ATV; Kleiner-Perkins; Draper Fisher Jurvetson; ThomVest; and Carlyle Ventures. Between 1991 and 1998, Ms. Mandelbaum was co-founder and CEO of Skyline Products, one of the premier toy invention firms that was sold to IDEO Product Development, the largest design firm in the U.S., in 1998. Skyline achieved annual growth in excess of 200%, becoming one of the top toy invention firms in the U.S. She was responsible for all marketing, business development, financial, legal, and strategic planning aspects of the company, and licensed over 80 products to 50 companies during her tenure. Between 1988 and 1991, Ms. Mandelbaum was a General Manager at Metcal. She created and managed a division to develop and commercialize foodservice equipment incorporating Metcal's proprietary heating technology. Prior to, and while, attending business school, Ms. Mandelbaum worked at Bain and Company, SRI International as a research analyst in the financial industries center, Hewlett Packard, creating the used equipment vendor program, and the Kyoto Shinyo Kinko, managing the initial stages of a new product introduction. Ms. Mandelbaum received her M.B.A. from Stanford Graduate School of Business in 1988 and her B.A. in Economics from Brown University in 19
Mr. Davidson is the Chairman of Fenwick & West. He advises technology companies, including networking, computer software and electronics companies as well as medical technology companies. His clients range from start-ups to Fortune 1000 companies, including: Cisco Systems, Inc. Electronic Arts, Inc. Intuit Inc. Macromedia Inc. Symantec Corporation Other clients include Barclays Global Investors, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Mohr Davidow Ventures, Morgan Stanley and Sequoia Capital.
For entrepreneurial companies and their established counterparts, joint ventures and strategic alliances bring mutual benefits that each would otherwise be unable to achieve independently.
It's easy for an entrepreneur to kill any chance of raising money for his or her venture. Just fall into the trap of arguing one of the three great myths of business detailed in this article.
Executed well, franchising can be a solution to the challenge of harvesting intellectual capital to achieve the goal of driving business growth. If it is right for your company, consider making it work, the author says.
Winning interscholastic new venture competitions and real-world financing entails focusing on markets rather than technology or planning, says a venture capitalist who judges such contests.
A profile and a video tell the story of how entrepreneurship mentoring organizations have been a large factor in Peter Thomas' success, and how he in turn generously gives back his time and financial support.
Larry Levy believes entrepreneurship education is important for the future of our country, and his involvement with Northwestern University's Kellogg Graduate School of Management, demonstrates the commitment behind his beliefs.
Social responsibility is a driving force for Jim Kenefick, both in business and in how he gives back.
Mr. Gifford leads The Foundry in all of its activities, including the identification and early development of new technologies, the formation, staffing and growth of new companies, and serving as a board member of the new ventures. Most recently, Mr. Gifford was Vice President of Research and Development at Heartport, Inc.. From 1993-1998, he built and led a 62-person team developing a wide variety of novel devices and procedures for Minimally Invasive Cardiac Surgery that were instrumental in the company's enormously successful public offering in 1996. Heartport's market capitalization at its peak in 1996 reached over $1 billion. In 1992, Mr. Gifford and Professor Dr. Berthold Hoefling co-founded Bavaria Medizin Technologie (BMT), GmbH, to develop innovative drug delivery catheters and to establish a German source for innovation and production of catheters for Interventional Cardiology. During the two-year period following the founding of this business, he served in the role of Managing Director of BMT until such time as he transitioned management of the company to a German national. In 1990, Mr. Gifford and John B. Simpson, MD, Ph.D., founded Cardiovascular Therapeutic Technologies, Inc., a business devoted to the development of innovative local drug delivery catheters for thrombolytic and antiproliferative agents. Eli Lilly and Company acquired this business for its technology in 1991, and it became the original basis for Guidant's Compass organization. From 1985-1990, Mr. Gifford worked at Devices for Vascular Intervention (DVI), where he was the driving force behind the design of the company's first generation Peripheral and Coronary atherectomy systems. In addition, during this period he served in various Clinical Research and Marketing capacities. Before joining DVI, Hanson worked in an engineering role at Oximetrix, Inc., working in the field of intravascular blood gas monitoring
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