Sam Angus, Partner, Fenwick & West LLP
Mr. Angus is resident in the San Francisco office and his practice concentrates on the formation of start-up companies, venture capital and debt financings, mergers and acquisitions, intellectual property licensing, joint ventures and general corporate matters. Mr. Angus represents a broad range of companies from privately held start-up companies to publicly traded corporations. His practice also includes advising entrepreneurs and investors. Mr. Angus served as counsel for In-System Design, Inc. in connection with its acquisition by Cypress Semiconductor Corporation. He also counseled Naxon Corporation (Wineshopper.com) on its acquisition of Wine.com, Inc., Micro Focus Group on its $500 million merger with Intersolve, Inc., Junglee Corp. on its $300 million acquisition by Amazon.com, Inc., and Blue Lava Wireless on its $140 million acquisition by JAMDAT Mobile.
Mano Balasubramaniam, Strategy and Partner Manager Client Software Group - Sun MicrosystemsMano Balasubramaniam is a Member of Technical Staff in Sun Microsystems-CSG Business Organization. Mano has Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from Madras University,India. Mano has a total of 10 years experience in Software Industry, including 7 years of experience in working on the Java ME technology. His expertise involves MIDP security, games, OTA and JDTS. Currently working as Strategy and Partner Manager where the objective is to find interesting and compelling JavaME application start ups and ISV's with whom discuss potential business opportunities with Sun.
Vineet Buch, Partner - BlueRun VenturesVineet Buch, Partner, joined BlueRun Ventures in 2005 and is based in the Menlo Park office. Vineet focuses on Consumer Internet, Mobile Services, and Enterprise Software, as well as BlueRun Ventures' investments in India. Vineet serves on the Board of Directors of Coupa Software,
Like.com and uGenie, and actively works with Slide and Zmanda. Vineet joined BlueRun Ventures after co-founding
Like.com (fka Riya), one of BlueRun’s portfolio companies. Before that Vineet was a Director with Product Management and Software Development responsibilities in Oracle Server Technologies, the organization that develops the Oracle Database and Application Server. Prior to Oracle, Vineet was co-founder and CTO of Karient, a provider of systems management software. Vineet started Karient after serving as Senior Director of Engineering at Corio, a leading Application Service Provider since acquired by IBM. Before joining Corio, Vineet was a Practice Manager in Oracle Consulting, running a consulting practice focused on Enterprise System Architecture. Vineet received his M.S. in Computer Science from Cornell University and a B.Tech. in Computer Science from IIT, Kanpur. Vineet’s blog can be found at
http://ventureexplorer.typepad.com
Jeff Clavier, Managing Partner, SoftTech VCBased in Palo Alto, California, Jean-Francois “Jeff” Clavier is the Founder and Managing Partner of SoftTech VC, one of the most active seed stage investors in Web 2.0 startups. Since 2004, Jeff has invested in more than 20 consumer Internet companies developing new concepts (such as social media) or revisiting “old” ideas with a new set of economics and technologies. In 2007, Jeff was recognized as one of the 13 “Web 2.0 King Makers” by Business 2.0, and is often noted for his investments in categories such as “passion-centric communities,” or for having already sold five of his companies in the past two years through successful M&As. Jeff’s 19 years of operational, entrepreneurial and venture capital experience enable him to add relevant perspective and value to the companies in which he invests. Jeff’s initial investments were in the search, social media, online communities and application infrastructure sectors. Most recently, he added gaming and monetization to his investment focus, and he has been dabbling in Enterprise 2.0, system infrastructure and a few other emerging categories. Jeff invests primarily, but not exclusively, in Silicon Valley-based startups.
Kent Goldman, Director, Corporate Development - Yahoo!Kent is a Director of Corporate Development at Yahoo!, where he focuses on M&A opportunities. Prior to taking on this role, Kent led the business strategy efforts for Yahoo!’s Communications, Community and Front Door products, including the Yahoo! Front Page, Mail, Messenger, My Yahoo! and Yahoo! Groups. Before joining Yahoo!, Kent was a venture investor with a focus on the consumer communications and publishing opportunities. He is an alumnus of Cornell University.
Ken Gullicksen, General Partner - Morgenthaler VenturesKen focuses on software and Internet services investments at Morgenthaler Ventures, an investment firm with venture capital headquarters in Menlo Park, California. He is a board member of imeem, Danal, Digital Railroad, Nominum, and Voltage Security. Morgenthaler manages over $2.5 billion in capital and has built over 200 information technology, industrial, and life sciences companies. Ken has 18 years of experience in Silicon Valley's high-technology industry as CEO, business strategist, marketing/engineering director, and venture capitalist.
Seth Goldstein, Co-Founder and CEO, SocialMedia NetworksSeth Goldstein is co-founder and CEO of SocialMedia Networks. In his role as CEO, Seth drives the strategic direction of the company, overseeing the development of technologies and services to keep SocialMedia Networks at the forefront of social media and advertising. Seth has extensive leadership experience advising advertisers on the evolving opportunities in social media, while encouraging developer creation of lasting and interactive applications for online consumers. An experienced entrepreneur, he has created several successful Internet businesses, including one of the first Internet advertising companies, SiteSpecific, in 1995.
Erin Håkansson, Corporate Development - CondeNet
Erin Håkansson works in corporate development for CondéNet, where she helps develop strategic investments, acquisitions and partnership activities for the online division of Condé Nast. Prior to joining CondéNet, she was the business development manager for Travelocity where she built and shaped the product line for non airline, car and hotel services. In addition to Travelocity, Erin worked for the British web-to-print company Postanywhere as director of marketing and for the telecommunications company Genesys as a product manager.
Steve Jang, CMO and Head of Business Development, imeem
Steve serves as Chief Marketing Officer and Head of Business Development at imeem and is responsible for imeem’s content and technology partnerships, product management, and community marketing. Prior to joining imeem, Steve worked in business development and marketing roles in digital/online media at EMI Music, XUMA, WR & Hambrecht + Co, and Salon.com. Steve earned a BA from the University of California, Berkeley and a MBA from University of Southern California.
Charlene Li, Vice President, Principal Analyst - Forrester Research
Charlene Li is a leading voice in the area of social computing and Web 2.0 through her research work in the last nine years with Forrester Research. She is one of Forrester's most quoted analysts, and is an accomplished and frequently requested public speaker. In a new book, Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies, Charlene and coauthor Josh Bernoff describe how people are using social technologies to get what they need from each other. http://www.forrester.com/rb/analyst/charlene_li.
Dave McClure, Startup Advisor & Angel Investor, 500 Hats LLC
Dave McClure has been geeking out in Silicon Valley for almost twenty years as a software developer, entrepreneur, startup advisor, angel investor, blogger, & internet marketing nerd. He is an advisor or investor for Mint Software <http://mint.com/> , Spock Networks, Mashery, Simply Hired, TeachStreet, Oortle , CrazyEgg, SlideShare, Eventvue, RichRelevance, HealthUnity, & Canopy Financial . His admittedly second-rate blog Master of 500 Hats can be found at http://500hats.typepad.com. From 2005-2006, Dave ran marketing for job search engine SimplyHired.com. Before that, he was Director of Geek Marketing at PayPal from 2001-2004, where he founded & ran the PayPal Developer Network program. Before PayPal, Dave founded Aslan Computing in 1994, an internet & e-commerce firm acquired in 1998. Dave graduated from the Johns Hopkins University with a BS in Mathematical Science Engineering.
Sergio Monsalve, Principal, Norwest Venture Partners
Sergio brings to NVP over 12 years of operational experience in marketing, product management, business development, sales and finance from a wide range of business and consumer technology companies. Sergio is focused on investments in the consumer internet, media and software sectors. His current investments and board seats include Adzilla and Fatdoor. Prior to NVP, Sergio was the first business executive and Vice President of Marketing at Photobucket, Inc., which was successfully sold to News Corp in May for a reported $300 Million. Prior to Photobucket, Sergio was Director of New Ventures at eBay, Inc. where he pioneered and led eBay’s digital goods marketplace and its user generated content efforts worldwide. Prior to that, Sergio was General Manager of the consumer electronics marketplace at eBay, which he grew from $150 million to over $500 million in gross merchandise sales in less than three years. Prior to eBay, Sergio was the co-founder and led sales and marketing at Cymerc from inception to more than $15 million in revenue. Sergio is an officer of the Harvard Business School Tech Club, which he helped start and grow to one of the largest alumni networking organizations in the country.
Jason Oberfest, VP Business Development - MySpace
Jason Oberfest is Vice President, Business Development for MySpace. Prior to MySpace Jason served as Managing Director of Business Development and Product Management for Los Angeles Times Interactive. In 2006 Jason launched a first phase redesign of latimes.com which led to a 279% increase in monthly page view growth while growing online display ad revenue by 133% and CPC ad revenue by 136%. Following the redesign Jason continued to improve key audience metrics and boost advertising effectiveness by partnering with industry leading startups including Netvibes, Aggregate Knowledge, Eventful and Mixx.com. During his tenure at the LA Times Jason also created the entertainment awards franchise The Envelope (http://theenvelope.com).
Satya Patel, Investment Professional - Baterry Ventures
Satya joined Battery in 2007 and focuses on the software, consumer Internet and digital media markets. He is on the board of Freewheel Media and Lotame, and is actively involved with Angie's List and Bazaarvoice. Prior to Battery, Satya spent several years at Google, most recently as Senior Product Manager. At Google, he helped to build the AdSense business through various partner development and product management activities. Before Google, Satya was a Senior Product Manager at DoubleClick, leading the company’s efforts in the search marketing business. Satya also worked on various product and operational initiatives for the DART adserving platform.
Jim Scheinman - EIR, Charles River Ventures and former Head of Business Development & Sales at Friendster and Bebo
Consumer Internet technology entrepreneur and executive with over 13 years of experience at early-stage, pioneering consumer Internet companies including Bebo (1st employee), Friendster and NBCi. Areas of expertise include social networking and online community, viral marketing, user-generated content, online ad sales, business development, and e-commerce. Frequent speaker and moderator on such topics.
Dan Schiappa, General Manager, Strategy Entertainment and Devices Division, Microsoft Corporation
Dan Schiappa is the GM of Strategy and Business Development for the Entertainment and Devices Division of Microsoft Corporation. Dan is responsible for developing and refining key strategies and leading the work on the Connected Entertainment Strategy. He also works to identify and evaluate acquisition and divestiture opportunities, monitor interesting new start-ups and new technologies, drive international business development and assist senior management team in prioritizing activities and opportunities. Dan was previously the GM of Windows Security, General Manager of Microsoft Passport. His previous employment was with Eastman Kodak, Informix Software and Oracle, focused on Interactive Television and other multimedia efforts.
Deborah Schultz, Strategist - DeborahSchultz.com
An Internet-industry veteran and innovator, Deborah passionately believes in the power of technology to connect people, communities and business. She currently advises both start-ups and the Fortune 50 on the impact of social software on business strategy & customer relationships. She is currently Procter & Gamble’s Strategic Adviser for Social Media and is developing a P&G Social Media Innovation Lab designed to actively explore and gain insights on the impact of the social web on business. Social Web Strategy, www.deborahschultz.com
Mark Silva, Principal & Founder, Real Branding
Mark Silva founded Real Branding in 1994 to pioneer the emerging field of digital communications for brands. He serves as senior consultant and agency sponsor for many of Real Branding’s long-term clients as well as emerging interests. Silva brings over 20 years of traditional and online advertising experience directing strategic planning, account and creative teams with his passionate, visionary approach to integrated communications. At Real Branding Silva has lead online brand strategy for blue-chip companies including AOL, Coca-Cola, Corona, Diageo, HBO, Scottish & Newcastle, Unilever and Warner Bros. Before founding the agency, Silva drove strategic planning, creative direction and new business development at high-tech and recruitment advertising agencies including FCB, TarGet, and Omnicom/Bernard Hodes. He was instrumental in launching CareerMosaic, one of the first 100 commercial websites. Silva cut his agency teeth on high-tech accounts including AMD, BayNetworks, National Semiconductor, Sybase and Symantec.
Jason Shellen, Founder, The Secret Agency
Jason Shellen created The Secret Agency, to incubate new product ideas after leaving Google's New Business Development team in August 2007. As an employee of Pyra Labs, Shellen was part of Google's acquisition of Blogger in 2003. During his tenure at Google, Shellen became the founding product manager of Google Reader and holds provisional patents on feed and social media technologies. Jason Shellen is on the advisory board of the New Progressive Coalition, LLC, the RSS Advisory Board, Dev HD and 8tracks.com. He blogs about blogging, feeds and other social media at http://shellen.com .
Erik Stuart, Director, Corporate Strategy - eBay
Erik leads eBay's efforts to discover and engage
with startups across the consumer internet landscape, especially (though
not exclusively) in areas outside eBay's current corporate footprint of
e-commerce, payments, and communications. As part of this effort, he
initiated and championed eBay's acquisition of StumbleUpon. Prior to
his current role, Erik worked in product management and strategy at eBay
and at E2open, and was a member of the Strategy Practice at McKinsey.
He holds a Ph.D. in economics from the Stanford Graduate School of
Business.
