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Ann Winblad is the co-founding Partner of Hummer Winblad Venture Partners. She is a well-known and respected software industry entrepreneur and technology leader. Her background and experience have been chronicled in many national business and trade publications. Ann has over 25 years of experience in the software industry. She began her career as a systems programmer at the Federal Reserve Bank. In 1976 Ann co-founded Open Systems, Inc., a top selling accounting software company, with a $500 investment. She operated Open Systems profitably for six years and then sold it for over $15 million. Prior to co-founding Hummer Winblad Venture Partners, Ann served as a strategy consultant for prestigious clients such as IBM, Microsoft, Price Waterhouse, and numerous start-ups. In addition, Ann has co-authored the book Object-Oriented Software and has written articles for numerous publications. Ann received a BA in mathematics and in business administration, as well as an MA in education and international economics from the University of St. Thomas, St. Paul, Minnesota. Ann also has an honorary Doctorate of Laws from the University of St. Thomas. Ann has served as a Director of start-up and public companies and currently serves as a director of Intacct, The Knot, Voltage Security, Krillion and Mulesource. She is also a member of the Board of Trustees of the University of St. Thomas and is an advisor to numerous entrepreneur groups.
Before co-founding Fluidigm, as Mycometrix, Mr. Worthington held a variety of engineering, operations and marketing positions at Actel Corporation, which designs, develops and markets field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) and associated design and development software and programming hardware. Mr. Worthington served in several departments during his tenure at Actel, including product engineering, R&D engineering management, program management, product planning, and strategic marketing. His last position at Actel was Director, Strategic Marketing and Product Planning. Mr. Worthington received his undergraduate degree in Physics and a Masters degree in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University.
Dr. John Hennessy has been President of Stanford University since 2000. He became a Stanford faculty member in 1977. He rose through the academic ranks to full professorship in 1986 and was the inaugural Willard R. and Inez Kerr Bell Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from 1987 to 2004. A pioneer in computer architecture, in 1981 Dr. Hennessy drew together researchers to focus on a computer architecture known as RISC (Reduced Instruction Set Computer), a technology that has revolutionized the computer industry by increasing performance while reducing costs. In 1984, he used his sabbatical year to found MIPS Computer Systems Inc. to commercialize his research in RISC processors. Dr. Hennessy is a recipient of the 2000 IEEE John von Neumann Medal, a 2004 NEC C&C Prize for lifetime achievement in computer science and engineering, and a 2005 Founders Award from the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Dr. Hennessy earned his bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from Villanova University and his master's and doctoral degrees in computer science from the State University of New York at Stony Brook.
Randy Komisar joined Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers in 2005 as a partner. For several years prior Randy has partnered with entrepreneurs creating businesses with leading edge technologies. He was a co-founder of Claris Corporation, served as CEO for LucasArts Entertainment and Crystal Dynamics, and acted as a "virtual CEO" for such companies as WebTV, Mirra and GlobalGiving. He was a founding Director of TiVo where he is currently chairman of the Nominating and Governance Committee. Earlier Randy served as CFO of GO Corporation and Senior Counsel for Apple Computer, following a private practice in Technology Law. Randy holds a BA in Economics from Brown University and a JD form Harvard Law School. He is a Consulting Professor of Entrepreneurship at Stanford University and author of the best-selling book The Monk and the Riddle, as well as several articles on leadership and entrepreneurship. Randy frequently speaks here and abroad on such topics.
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.
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
Guy Kawasaki is a founder and Managing Director of Garage Technology Ventures. Prior to this position, he was an Apple Fellow at Apple Computer, Inc. and sits on the board of BitPass Inc. A noted speaker and the founder of various personal computer companies, Guy was one of the individuals responsible for the success of the Macintosh computer. He is also the author of eight books including Rules for Revolutionaries, How to Drive Your Competition Crazy, Selling the Dream, and The Macintosh Way. Guy holds a B.A. from Stanford University and a M.B.A. from UCLA, as well as an honorary doctorate from Babson College.
Robert I. Sutton is Professor of Management Science and Engineering in the Stanford Engineering School, where he is Co-Director of the Center for Work, Technology, and Organization, an active researcher and cofounder in the Stanford Technology Ventures Program, an IDEO Fellow and an Honorary PeopleSoft Fellow. Sutton is also a member of the MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Teaching and Learning. Sutton received his Ph.D. in Organizational Psychology from The University of Michigan and has served on the Stanford faculty since 1983. He has also taught at the Haas Business School and was a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences during the 1986-87, 1994-95, and 2002-03 academic years. He has served on the editorial boards of numerous scholarly publications, and as an editor for the Administrative Science Quarterly and Research in Organizational Behavior. Sutton's honors include the award for the best paper published in the Academy of Management Journal, induction into the Academy of Management Journals Hall of Fame, the Eugene L. Grant Award for Excellence in Teaching, the McGraw-Hill Innovation in Entrepreneurship Pedagogy Award, the McCullough Faculty Scholar Chair from Stanford, and selection by Business 2.0 as a leading "management guru" in 2002. Sutton studies the links between managerial knowledge and organizational action, innovation, and organizational performance. He as published over 90 articles and chapters in scholarly and applied publications. He has also published seven books and edited volumes. His research and opinions are often described in the press and he is also currently writing a bi-monthly column for CIO Insight on organizational behavior. Sutton has been a guest on numerous radio and television shows.
Randy Adams conceived the idea for AuctionDrop in 2002. He took his idea to Silicon Valley veterans Bill Rollinson and Andy Jeffrey, founding the business together later that year. Best described as a 'serial entrepreneur', Randy Adams has more than 25 years of experience in consumer technology. He has successfully founded and sold numerous companies including Emerald City Software, acquired by Adobe Systems; the Internet Shopping Network, acquired by the Home Shopping Network; Navitel Communications, acquired by Spyglass, Inc.; and Newsnet Technologies, Inc., currently under contract with Microsoft to develop specialized renditions of popular magazines for the Tablet PC. Through the years he has assisted many other entrepreneurs in their efforts to secure funding and build their companies. Most notably, he facilitated the initial funding of Yahoo by Sequoia Capital and served on the Board of Directors of Yahoo during its first year of operation. Randy received his undergraduate degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Electrical Engineering.
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