Programs

Presenters

Current/Recent

Matt Nichols
Matt is a Senior Associate at Highland focusing on information technology investments specializing in digital media and online marketing. Prior to joining Highland, Matt was a member of Google's corporate development team, where he was responsible for digital media acquisitions and investments. Matt spent two years at Morgan Stanley Venture Partners, where he identified and managed investments in the technology sector. He also engaged in strategic initiatives for portfolio companies, including fundraising and mergers/acquisitions. Prior to Morgan Stanley Venture Partners, Matt worked for three years in Morgan Stanley's Technology Corporate Finance group, where he was part of the Google IPO team and advised clients such as Dell and Intuit. Matt also consulted for the Harry Fox Agency (the rights enforcement arm of the National Music Publishers Association) on the impact of digital delivery and Internet advertising on the music industry. Education: Pomona College, B.A., Mathematical Economics, Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth, M.B.A. with High Distinction.

Paul Sweeney
Paul is a partner in the law firm of FOLEY HOAG LLP, based in the Firm's Boston office. He advises public and private companies on a wide range of transactions, including business combinations, arrangements to exploit intellectual property aspects, and public and private financing transactions. Although he represents clients in all stages of development, Paul has a particular focus on high technology and early stage companies. Paul's corporate finance work includes representing investors and companies in a wide array of venture capital investments and private placements. He also assists with corporate restructurings, corporate credit facilities and other financing structures. Working with companies, underwriters and purchasers on public and private equity offerings, he regularly prepares Registration Statements on Forms S-1, S-3, S-4 and F-4. With this transactional background, Paul also effectively advises public and private companies on equity compensation programs, other employment matters and related reporting and filing obligations, as well as general corporate concerns. Technology companies and other corporate clients rely on Paul's guidance to negotiate and draft intellectual property agreements, including software and new media licenses, technology development agreements and international distribution agreements. He also advises purchasers and sellers in mergers and acquisitions, including the negotiation and drafting of stock, asset and partnership interest purchase agreements. His public company merger experience includes numerous cross-border transactions. Paul has been listed for three straight years as a "Rising Star" in Corporate Finance, Super Lawyers' Massachusetts Rising Stars: A Comprehensive Listing Of The Best Young Lawyers In Massachusetts (May 2005, May 2006 and May 2007) and is a member of Board of Directors at Middlesex Partnerships for Youth, Inc., a non-profit organization affiliated with the Middlesex District Attorney's Office providing violence prevention and intervention resources and training to Middlesex school districts and communities.

Past

Dan Allred
Dan Allred is a Senior Relationship Manager with SVB Silicon Valley Bank. In this role, Dan manages SVB's early-stage efforts in New England, including banking and lending to early-stage venture-backed start-ups, often times at pre-revenue stage. Dan also works closely with SVB's emerging technologies banking practice in New England which is comprised of over one hundred pre-funded technology start-ups. Prior to moving to Boston in May 2007, Dan led SVB's business development efforts in Research Triangle, NC, where he tripled that office's profitability and earning assets between mid-2003 and mid-2007. Dan joined SVB as an associate in the Research Triangle office in September 2002. Dan was Vice President of the Council for Entrepreneurial Development (CED) in Research Triangle Park, NC prior to joining SVB. Dan is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he was a Johnston Scholar and Phi Beta Kappa. He lives in Wellesley, MA with his wife and two daughters.

John Barrett
John Barrett is a Managing Director with Cook Associates. He has built an expertise in the technology, online media, marketing services, consumer, and business services industries. John's clients include private equity and venture-backed portfolio companies as well as the Fortune 1000, and he recruits at senior levels including CxO and functional Vice Presidents. Prior to joining Cook Associates, John served as a Managing Director with Conley & Company. Previously, John was an Executive Director with Russell Reynolds Associates, where he also led the firm's North American Financial Technology Practice and was a member of the its global Financial Services and Technology Practices. Before entering the retained executive search industry, John was Vice President of Marketing for Citi f/i (financial interactive). He has also worked for Mars & Co, a French strategy consulting firm, as a consultant serving Fortune 500 clients across multiple industries. John began his career with ICI Americas, the U.S. subsidiary of the British chemicals conglomerate. John received his BS degree magna cum laude in Mechanical Engineering from Tufts University and his MBA from the Amos Tuck School of Business, Dartmouth College. Soon after graduating from Tufts, he won first place in the Old Guard competition, which is the top national prize awarded to students by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.

Abigail Barrow
Dr. Barrow is the founding director of the Massachusetts Technology Transfer Center (MTTC). She is responsible for the Center's overall management and the development of its program offerings. Prior to joining the MTTC, Dr. Barrow served as managing director of the William J. von Liebig Center at the University of California San Diego (UCSD), which supports the commercialization of research at the UCSD Jacobs School of Engineering. She has also served on the board of directors of the Center for the Commercialization of Advanced Technologies Consortium (CCAT), which is comprised of UCSD, San Diego State University, Lockheed Martin Orincon, and SPAWAR Systems Center (US Navy). CCAT assists in the identification and commercialization of technologies in the area of crisis and consequence management. It has received more than $25 million in federal funding from the Office of Naval Research. Dr. Barrow worked in variety of roles at UCSD CONNECT from 1990 to 2001. She developed and expanded many of its programs to support early-stage company formation and technology commercialization. The program is now internationally recognized and has been successfully replicated in other regions in North America and in Europe. There are active CONNECT programs in Scotland, Yorkshire and the Midlands. Dr. Barrow received her Ph.D. from the Science Studies Unit and a B.Sc. in mechanical engineering from the Univ. of Edinburgh.

Kirke Curtis
Kirke has been an executive in the software industry for over fifteen years where he has successfully led several companies through consistent years of double-digit growth. Kirke is currently finishing a successful turnaround at Pamet Systems, a public safety software vendor. Prior to Pamet he helped raise over $20M in angel and VC capital while at MediaMap, an information service company serving the public relations market. Prior to MediaMap he founded the North American subsidiary of VideoLogic, Ltd and grew it from start-up to ~$10m. Kirke has a BA from Duke University and an MSOD from American University

Matthew Cushing
Matt Cushing has a general corporate and securities practice with concentrations in representation of technology companies and mergers and acquisitions, including representation of both financial and strategic acquirors. He has represented public, private and emerging growth companies in a wide range of corporate matters, including mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, securities law compliance, venture financing, public offerings and technology licensing. Matt has also represented investment banks, private equity firms and venture capital firms in public and private equity and debt offerings, mergers and acquisitions, and leveraged buyouts. He received a BA from Holy Cross and a JD, cum laude, from Fordham University School of Law.

Stephen Davis
Steve has 28 years of experience as a senior executive, including COO and CMO roles with P&L responsibility in the computer, software, consumer electronics and Internet industries. He has successfully built, managed, and restructured numerous sales and marketing organizations and introduced over 300 new products into various industries. Steve is an industry pioneer whose visionary marketing and sales strategies were instrumental in the introduction of two PC industry milestones, the ATARI home computer and Corvus' OMNINET, the industry's first true local area network. In 1989, he founded the Davis Management Group, a company whose proprietary sales management and marketing methodology promoted rapid growth in revenue and profitability for its clients. Steve is an executive, strategist and creative problem solver who conceives, plans and implements new business practices to produce measurable improvements in market position, revenues, profit and shareholder value. His clients have included The Canadian Government, Apple Computer, ATT, Lotus, Symantec, Hitachi, and Kubota. Prior to Davis Management, Steve spent 15 years in senior level positions at major corporations including Qualogy, Corvus Systems, Atari, IBM and GE. Davis is active with many groups that support entrepreneurs and served on the executive board of the WPI Venture Forum. He is a frequent speaker and prolific writer on marketing and sales topics. Davis has given speeches at some of the nation's leading business and technology forums and his articles have appeared in a variety of engineering and IT business publications. Steve holds an MBA, as well as an MS and BS in Computer Engineering from Syracuse University.

Jack Derby
Jack Derby is the founder of Derby Management. Prior to forming Derby Management in 1990, Jack's background included positions as CEO of Mayer Electronics Corporation, President of CB Sports, President of Litton Industries Medical Systems, CEO of Datamedix Corporation and President of Becton Dickinson Medical Systems. Jack has been named to Mass High Tech's All Star Team. He is often quoted in The Wall Street Journal, The Boston Globe, The Boston Herald and has published articles and editorials in The Boston Business Journal and Mass High Tech. He is frequent speaker at numerous business organizations including the MIT Enterprise Forum, the Small Business Association of New England, the Harvard Business School, and the WPI Venture Forum. He is also a guest lecturer at MIT where he teaches classes in writing business planning for undergraduate students and for the MIT-Singapore University Program. Jack is extremely active in the New England entrepreneurial community. He is currently and has been an active board member in a number of emerging companies. He was instrumental in restructuring the Board of the MIT Enterprise Forum (www.mitforum-cambridge.org) where he has held the position of Chairman of the Forum. Additionally, he has been the Vice Chair of the Smaller Business Association of New England (www.sbane.org). During 2004, Jack was the recipient of SBANE's Pro Bono Publico Award for his significant contributions to the entrepreneurial community. Jack has also been a Director of MIT's Technology Capital Network (www.tcnmit.org), and the President of the University Club of Boston (www.uclub.org). Currently, he is Chairman of the Association for Corporate Growth (www.acgboston.org), a Director of The Associated Industries of Massachusetts (www.aimnet.org), and a Director at Brainshark Corporation, Hybricon Corporation and Beacon Hospice.

Don Dodge
Don Dodge is currently Director of Business Development for Microsoft's Emerging Business Team. Don is a veteran of five start-ups including Forte Software (first multiplatform object oriented development environment), AltaVista (the first web search engine), Napster (the first P2P file sharing network), Bowstreet (the first web services development environment), and Groove Networks (the first secure P2P collaboration platform). Don started his software career with Digital Equipment Corp, in the database group. Don writes a daily blog, "Don Dodge on the Next Big Thing". Don, a native New-Englander, holds an MBA from New Hampshire College and a BS in accounting from the University of Southern Maine.

Tim Evans
Tim Evans is channel sales and marketing professional with over 20 years of experience. As a channel consultant, Mr. Evans helps emerging companies develop and execute go to market strategies. Mr. Evans has technology expertise in local and wide area networking, telecommunications, wireless, interactive gaming, performance management, networking security, voice over the web and power management. His experience includes establishing sales channels domestically as well as internationally. Mr. Evans has held sales and marketing postions at start-ups as well as global public companies with over $1 billion in revenue, including: Director of Worldwide Channel Sales at Visual Networks, Director of Worldwide Partner Channels at Openwave, Director of Channel Marketing at Hasbro Interactive, and others. He is currently retained by 14 emerging companies to provide channel consulting and development. Mr. Evans is a graduate of Boston College with a BA in Communications, Cum Laude.

Aaron Freedman
Aaron Freedman is the co-founder and VP of Business Development at Untravel Media, Inc. Aaron was the founder of RealityWave, Inc., where he sequentially filled the rolls of President, VP of Business and Product Development, and CTO from its inception in 1996. RealityWave was sold in 2005. Aaron graduated with a B.S. in Computer Science from MIT in 1996.

John Gargasz
Mr. Gargasz is currently the Vice President of Strategic Planning and Business Development, for DRS Codem Systems, Inc. Prior to Codem Systems acquisition by DRS Technologies Inc, (NYSE: DRS), John held various roles in General Management, Project Management and Engineering. Mr. Gargasz has experience in satellite communications, wireless systems, and radiolocation for the Defense, Telecom and Retail technology markets. He has a degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Colorado at Boulder and attended the MIT Sloan School Greater Boston Executive Program.

Chris Greendale
Chris brings to Kodiak more than 25 years of software and technology services experience in sales, marketing, investment, and executive management that includes co-founding Cambridge Technology Partners, which had one of the most successful IPOs of the 1990s. As a General Partner, he primarily focuses on investments in the software and services segments but does reach across all of Kodiak's technology segments including communications and wireless, Internet and new media, and semiconductors and equipment. He also is on the boards of directors of the firm's portfolio companies including GlassHouse Technologies; HiWired; uLocate; and Vettro. Prior to joining Kodiak, Chris was a seed investor in many successful technology companies. Most recently he served as Managing Director at Internet Capital Group and was a Venture Partner at GrandBanks Capital. In these positions he served as a board member for start-ups, including Clarify, and publicly traded companies including Surgency, and Context Integration, Inc. (acquired by eFORCE). He also served as Chairman of the Board for Breakaway Solutions, Inc., where he oversaw the company's IPO. In 1991 Chris co-founded and ran sales and marketing for Cambridge Technology Partners (CTP), a systems integration company. By 1997, CTP had reached $600M in revenue with 4500 employees in 45 offices worldwide and enjoyed a very successful IPO. Chris holds a B.A. and an M.B.A. from Southern Illinois University.

Kevin Greene
Kevin joined Flagship in 2006 from IBM's Software Group. At IBM, Kevin was responsible for establishing, retaining and growing relationships with IBM business partners. Kevin also held a variety of product marketing positions at IBM including managing the WebSphere Application Server product portfolio. Prior to IBM, Kevin worked for several years at Goldman Sachs in its New York and Hong Kong offices where he executed over $30 billion in equity, equity-linked and M&A financing transactions for technology, media and energy-related clients. Kevin earned a BS in finance and marketing from the University of Virginia's McIntire School of Commerce where he also captained the varsity swimming team, and earned his MBA from the Harvard Business School. Kevin's primary areas of interest include software services & infrastructure, on-line media, mobile & wireless and clean technology companies.

Jon Gworek
Jon Gworek's practice focuses on the representation of entrepreneurs, technology start-ups and emerging companies from formation through liquidity event. In this role Jon routinely advises clients through angel and venture capital financings, and mergers and acquisitions. He also represents venture capital funds and other institutional investors in fund formation and investments in start-ups and emerging companies. Jon has a particular interest in bridging the interests of investors and founders in the venture funding process. Over the course of his 15 plus years of experience as a corporate lawyer, Jon has represented a wide array of entrepreneurs, investors and public and private companies in complex business transactions as well as ongoing needs as they arise in the areas of corporate, securities, tax, employment, compensation, intellectual property and licensing law. Jon is a graduate of Brown University (Sc.B., Applied Mathematics/Biology) and a cum laude graduate of the University of Connecticut School of Law. While at law school, he was a member of the Connecticut Law Review. Jon has been an active member of the MIT Enterprise Forum of Cambridge for many years, and is a member of the Forum's Executive Committee. He is also a judge in the annual MIT $100K Entrepreneurship Competition. Jon is a member of the state bars of MA and CA. Before practicing law, Jon was an account executive at the advertising agency of Young & Rubicam.

Stephen Hallowell
Stephen Hallowell is an Associate at Commonwealth Capital. He is interested in investments in service-based software, media distribution and advertising, mobile technology, and energy storage and conversion. He has been closely involved with the senior management of Constant Contact, Visible Assets, and Zeetoo. Prior to Commonwealth, Steve was a consultant in the strategy and innovation management practices of the Monitor Group. At Monitor, he helped Fortune 500 clients develop strategies for growth through acquisition, product innovation, and marketing excellence. Steve also spent time teaching engineering in the Philippines before joining Monitor. Steve graduated with High Honors from Dartmouth College with an A.B. in engineering sciences and a B.E. in systems engineering. At Dartmouth, he was designated a Presidential Scholar and was a recipient of the Dartmouth Society of Engineers Prize. He holds a patent related to advanced technology vehicles.

Jeremy Halpern
Jeremy Halpern is the Managing Director of Evolution Advisors LLC, a Boston based strategic transaction advisory firm. Concurrently, Mr. Halpern is serving as the Executive Vice President of Business Development for MobileTek Corporation, a developer of PC based applications enabling smarter mobility for consumer mobile devices. Mr. Halpern is a member of the Board of Directors and the Roundtable Chairman of The Capital Network, a Boston-based non-profit providing education, resources and a community to entrepreneurs seeking early stage capital. In 2004, Mr. Halpern joined the faculty of the Entrepreneurial Leadership Studies Department of Tufts University where he continues to teach the capstone Entrepreneurial Leadership course. Mr. Halpern also continues to serve as a Mentor at MIT's Venture Mentoring Service. Mr. Halpern has practiced law with Goodwin Procter LLP and Bingham McCutchen LLP in Boston and at Irell & Manella LLP in Los Angeles. Mr. Halpern received his B.A., summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, from the University of California at Berkeley and his J.D. from the University of California at Los Angeles. While an undergraduate, Mr. Halpern spent two years as the Executive Chairman of a concert and special events production company in the Northern California East Bay area.

Jean Hammond
Jean is a successful serial entrepreneur with more than 20 years experience in the high-tech industry. She is an investor and member of Hub Angels and Launchpad Venture Group. She is also the co-coordinator of the Boston chapter of Golden Seeds. She was recently the interim CEO for JAM Technologies and relinquished that role when they closed on their latest round of financing. She founded Quarry Technologies with a team from the GTE Internetworking / BBN Technologies SuperRouter project and served as startup CEO and on the Board of Directors. Jean also co-founded AXON Networks, a developer of network management applications and following 3Com's acquisition of AXON, Jean was responsible for 3Com's WAN strategy. She earned an M.S. from the MIT Sloan School of Management.

Alain Hanover
Alan has over 30 years of experience in venture capital, executive management, software development, and engineering. He has served as CEO for over 15 years at InCert and Viewlogic, as well as being an early stage investor or advisor in over 20 private companies. He also co-founded CommonAngels, Boston's leading Angel Investor group. Most recently, he served as Managing Partner of Main Street Partners, a seed-stage, venture capital firm, where he helped launch five start-ups: IPVision, SemiDAQ, Bitpipe, ShieldIP and Saoirse. Previously, he co-founded InCert Software Corporation and led the company as President and CEO from 1997-2000. Hanover holds B.S. degrees in electrical engineering and mathematics from MIT; an M.S. in applied math from Harvard University; and an OPM program degree from the Harvard Business School.

John Hession
John Hession is a partner in the Venture Capital Financings and Emerging Companies practice groups at Cooley Godward Kronish and a member of the Cooley Godward Kronish Business department. He is also Managing Partner of the Boston office. John represents emerging-growth companies, principally in the medical device, software, life sciences, telecommunications and electronic commerce fields, as well as angels and venture capital funds in the investment process in these sectors. He has participated in, structured and negotiated more than 200 venture and angel financings, 30 public offerings, more than 125 strategic alliances involving technology transfers, and 150+ acquisitions ranging in size from $1.0 million to $4.2 billion. John has won several awards during his twenty-five-year career in the legal profession. John was voted by Digital Industry in May 2001, as "one of Boston's best VC lawyers" and by Boston Magazine in October 2002, as "one of Boston's best start-up company lawyers", and nominated in the November 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2007 issues of Boston Magazine as a "Super Lawyer" and also "one of the Top 100 Lawyers in Massachusetts". John was also named as one of The Lawdragon 500 Leading Dealmakers for 2007. In 2005, 2006 and 2007 he was also acclaimed by Chambers, an international rating agency, as one of the distinguished members in his field of Venture Capital and Private Equity. He is also the co-founder of TEN, The Entrepreneurs Network, a nonprofit organization dedicated towards building technology companies and fostering job growth in the upstate New York area.

Ken Itrato
Mr. Itrato practices business and corporate law with an emphasis on representing early stage technology, life sciences, internet and software companies. Mr. Itrato's practice includes, among other things, advising companies with respect to formation issues, equity and compensation matters, debt and equity offerings, joint ventures and other partnering transactions, mergers and acquisitions, asset purchases, reorganizations and divestitures. He provides counsel with respect to intellectual property matters and agreements, including licensing, development and distribution agreements. Mr. Itrato advises venture capital funds with respect to portfolio company investments and follow-on investments, fund formation and sales of fund interests. He also advises later stage private and public companies in the areas of SEC and Sarbanes-Oxley Act compliance, securities and disclosure issues, contract negotiations and corporate governance matters.

Andrew Jay
Dr. Andrew Jay initiated and runs the Medical Solutions Fund at Siemens Venture Capital. He previously was an analyst following the medical technology industry at Deutsche Bank-Alex Brown and Wachovia Securities. During his career, he was an II ranked analyst for his stock picking, instrumental in raising $2 billion in equity capital for a multitude of companies and published over 10,000 pages of research. Dr. Jay's prior experience includes managing several international healthcare consulting projects for Arthur D. Little and running his substantial dental practice. He currently is a Director of Molecular Insight Pharmaceuticals, U-Systems and Vasamed.

Oscar Jazdowski
Oscar Jazdowski has spent over 25 years financing technology companies at all stages of development, from young venture-backed startups to large multinational companies. Jazdowski joined Silicon Valley Bank in 2002 as a senior relationship manager focused on the Boston software industry. Having started his career with Bank of Boston in the U.K., Jazdowski was transferred to Head Office in 1983 to join the High Technology Lending Group. Over the next 13 years he held various positions and was involved in financing young emerging, middle market and large corporate, public-traded technology companies.

Meerie Joung
Meerie M. Joung concentrates her practice on general corporate and securities matters, with a focus on structuring and financing start-up ventures, representing venture capital and private equity funds, mergers and acquisitions of private and public companies, private placements and public offerings, formation of joint ventures, and licensing and commercial transactions. She is currently a guest lecturer at MIT\'s Sloan School of Management. She received her A.B. degree from Princeton University and her J.D. degree from Northwestern University School of Law.

Josh Kanner
Josh Kanner is the co-founder of Vela Systems. He graduated with honors from Brown University and then pursued an MBA from the Sloan School at MIT. Upon graduation Josh was hired as the first Marketing employee at Emptoris, Inc., a web based software provider, and assumed responsibility for product management. After assisting with early sales at Motorola and elsewhere, Josh was promoted to develop and manage Emptoris' entire product strategy. During his tenure, Emptoris grew from one to twelve products, from 20 to 200 employees and from 1 to 100 customers, including Heinz, GlaxoSmithKline, and Vodafone; became the only privately-held company in its segment to be annually placed in the 'visionary' quadrant by Gartner Research; and was selected by IBM and Accenture as their global strategic sourcing platforms over industry "heavyweights" Oracle and SAP. Josh was a 2004 recipient of the prestigious Franz Edelman Award for technology innovation.

Laila Kassis
Laila Kassis is an Associate at Key Venture Partners and focuses on investments in communications, software and technology enabled services businesses. She serves as a board observer of Centive, OpSource, and TriActive and is actively involved with Insight Direct. Laila joined Key Venture Partners in early 2005 from Spectrum Equity Investors in Boston where she focused on late stage growth investments in software, technology enabled services and media. She was primarily responsible for sourcing new investment opportunities for the firm in these areas. Prior to joining Spectrum, Laila worked as a Financial Analyst in Bear Stearns' Technology Investment Banking Group in New York City. At Bear Stearns, she focused on M&A advisory to Fortune 500 clients in the enterprise software, IT services, aerospace-defense, and communications technology arenas. Laila has a B.A. in Economics and Foreign Affairs from the University of Virginia.

Elliot Katzman
Elliot is a general partner of Commonwealth Capital Ventures. Elliot has more than 25 years of high-technology experience and has been instrumental in building some of New England's most successful software companies. He focuses his investment activity in software, internet-related and new media companies. Prior to joining Commonwealth Elliot was a general partner at Kodiak Venture Partners where he led investments in companies such as Groove Mobile, Mindreef, Newforma, Pragmatech Software, Spaceclaim and Wis.dm. In addition, he was on the board of Watchfire. Before becoming a venture capitalist, Elliot spent more than twenty years as a senior operating executive. He founded and led Myteam.com, a direct marketing/new media company now part of the Active Network. Prior to Myteam.com, he was Senior VP and CFO at SolidWorks, where he led the merger with Dassault Systemes. As CFO of Atria Software, he led an IPO and a $1 billion merger with Pure Software, the largest software merger of its time. Earlier, Elliot served as CFO of Epoch Systems, where he had senior operational responsibilities and managed the company's merger with EMC. He was also an executive with Prime Computer during its significant growth phase in the mid-1980s.

Bob Kispert
Bob is the Director of Federal and University Programs at the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative (MTC) a quasi-public state organization focused on economic development for the Massachusetts technology sectors. Bob manages MTC's outreach activities and the Research Center Matching Fund, a $30 million fund that supports Centers of Excellence and major collaborative R&D Centers funded by the federal government.

Bill Kolb
Bill is a partner in the law firm of Foley Hoag LLP, based in the Firm's Boston office. As Coordinator of the firm's Business Department and Chair of the Mergers and Acquisitions Practice Group, William Kolb is recognized in Chambers USA, Massachusetts SuperLawyers and The Legal 500 for his experience in transactional matters. He has represented both buyers and sellers (including a special board committee) of public and private companies, particularly those involved in the technology industry. William also works closely with technology companies on licensing matters, including complex in-bound and out-bound licenses of various intellectual property rights. William also advises companies and their underwriters in public securities offerings, including clients such as Allaire, Aware, Banc of America Securities, Charles River Associates and Credit Suisse First Boston. He also provides these and other clients with counsel on compliance with the securities laws, Sarbanes-Oxley and other governance issues. In addition, his transactional work includes representation of high-growth and emerging companies seeking venture capital and strategic investments. William has been a Certified Public Accountant since 1984.

Bob Lentz
Bob Lentz, CEO of PermissionTV, brings extensive experience to his role. Most recently, he was Senior Vice President of Operations and CFO of OATSystems, Inc., the recognized RFID framework leader, which provides software for supply-chain management systems that utilize radio-frequency identification (RFID). Prior to joining OATSystems, Bob was Sr. Vice President, Operations and CFO at eRoom Technology, a web-based collaborative workspace that enables distributed teams to work together more efficiently. Bob was a member of the management team responsible for the turnaround at Xionics Document Technologies, which became the leading provider of digital page processing software and technology for the office market, enabling users to print, scan, copy, process and transmit documents to computer peripherals. Before that, he served as Senior Vice President CFO for Individual Inc., an Internet information services company that merged with Desktop Data to become NewsEdge Corporation, and was Sr. Vice President and General Manager of Appex Corporation, a software company serving the cellular telephone industry that was sold to Electronic Data Systems. Bob started his career as a CPA with Ernst and Young. He has an MBA from Babson College, and a BS in Business from Northeastern University.

Ham Lord
Ham has over 20 years experience in the software industry founding and building industry leading companies. Currently, Ham is the Managing Director of Launchpad Venture Group. Launchpad is a Boston-based angel group that focuses on seed stage technology companies. He manages the group's deal flow, due diligence and investing activities. Ham is an active angel investor and advisor to early stage companies. He is a board member for Building Engines and a board observer for Mok3. Ham's senior management experience was in the software industry, most recently as co-founder and Vice President of Marketing for Advanced Visual Systems (AVS). AVS develops software for scientists and engineers involved in applications such as Medical Imaging, Geographic Information Systems(GIS), Engineering Analysis and Oil&Gas Exploration. Muse Technologies acquired AVS in 2000. Prior to AVS, Ham helped launch two computational chemistry companies, MicroChem Technologies and Polygen. These two companies were pioneers in the development of software for drug discovery, and were part of an industry wide acquisition roll-up that resulted in Accelrys Inc. (NASDAQ: ACCL). Ham graduated magna cum laude with a degree in computer science from Brown University.

Ed Mallen
Ed Mallen is the CEO of TimeTrade Systems, the leading SAAS provider of self-service appointment scheduling. Ed Mallen has over 25 years of professional management experience in software and systems. He started his career at IBM. As vice president of US sales at Interleaf he was part of the team that built the company to $100 million in sales, an IPO and subsequent financings. As vice president of software products for Xerox Imaging Systems he led the marketing and development of TextBridge, which became the premiere OCR product in the world. He joined Xionics as an executive vice president at an early stage, and helped grow the company to $40 million in sales, building the sales, support, product management and marketing teams that positioned Xionics for a successful IPO. As president and CEO of Profile Systems he led the company's success in pursuing vertical markets and solutions, leading to acquisition by Comergent Technologies, where he became a Senior Vice President. He was most recently CEO of OzVision, a leading supplier of video services for the security industry. A graduate of Macalester College in St. Paul, he is a member of the board of eCopy and MassNetComs.

Geoff Mamlet
Since 2001, Geoff has been a Technology Partner with DFJNE Venture Fund. Previously, Geoff was CTO and a founder of E-Travel, Inc., acquired by Oracle in 1999. Prior to E-Travel, Geoff spent 12 yrs in networking and telecom startups. He is currently the Managing Director of Cambridge Innovation Center which provides growing companies and venture capitalists with low-risk, turn-key office space solutions and services in the Boston area. Geoff holds a B.A. from Williams College

Pete McDonald
Pete McDonald is a Relationship Manager with SVB Silicon Valley Bank's Emerging Technologies practice. Pete leads SVB\'s efforts in New England, providing banking services to hundreds of early-stage technology and life science start-ups. A majority of his portfolio consists of companies working towards raising their first round of equity. As part of his role, he acts as a resource for these companies as they begin the fund raising process, including business idea feedback, plan/slide deck review, and insight into the current investment climate. Pete has been with SVB for over 13 years beginning as an analyst in the Bank's Boston office and relocating to Virginia as part of the founding team in the Mid-Atlantic region. Pete moved back to Boston in 2000.

Laura Morse
Laura Barker Morse joined Atlas Venture in 1999 as Human Capital Partner. She works closely with portfolio companies on strategic human capital issues including recruitment, development, and reward systems and acts as a firm liaison with consultants and preferred providers of recruitment, compensation, and human resources. Prior to joining Atlas Venture, Laura worked in Brussels for SWIFT, the global financial telecommunications consortium, where she reported to the CEO during a strategic reorganization and led worldwide recruiting and expatriate services. Before that, Laura spent twenty years in technology executive search with Russell Reynolds and Heidrick & Struggles. She joined Russell Reynolds in 1977 in Chicago and helped open the Boston office in 1981. As Managing Director and global Practice Leader of the Venture Capital practice, she worked with venture firms and their portfolio companies. In 1991, she joined Heidrick & Struggles as a Partner in their Technology practice, relocating to their Brussels office in 1992. Laura is a graduate of the University of Iowa where she was elected to Mortar Board. She is a frequent speaker on team building and career planning at leading business schools including Solvay (Belgium), Harvard Business School and MIT/Sloan. Laura served for ten years as a Trustee of The Computer Museum, is a member of the Lank Center Visiting Committee at Dana Farber, and is an Overseer of the Boston Museum of Science.

Larry Nannis
Larry is a CPA and partner in the accounting firm of Levine, Katz, Nannis + Solomon, PC. Larry's sub-specialty in his technology practice is understanding the financial management issues surrounding government R&D contracts - primarily the SBIR program. Larry received a Bachelor's Degree in Accounting from Boston University School of Management and a Master's Degree in Taxation from Bentley College. He is an active member in the AICPA, MSCPA and Smaller Business Association of New England (SBANE), the premier trade association for New England Companies. He has served as a member of the Innovative Committee of SBANE, which was the driving force behind the passage of the Small Business Innovation Development Act. He was an elected delegate from Massachusetts to the 1995 White House Conference for Small and Emerging Business. Larry is currently the Chairman of SBANE and has served as the chairman of the Massachusetts Small Business Development Center (SBDC) and was a member of the National SBDC Advisory Council.

John Niemoller
Mr. Niemoller is the President and Chief Executive Officer of Perillon Software Inc., a leading enterprise software vendor in the emerging Operations Risk and Compliance Management market. Mr. Niemoller has a 20-year entrepreneurial track record in the manufacturing and enterprise software industries, including senior management roles at Kronos, SupplyWorks and Textron. Mr. Niemoller joined Perillon in 2002 and transformed the company from a niche IT services firm into an enterprise software product company driving the market. In 2005, he led a management buy-out of Perillon from its parent, securing outside capital and positioning the company for rapid growth. Mr. Niemoller has an MBA from Babson College and a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Lehigh University.

Tom O'Donnell
Tom O'Donnell is currently Director, Business Development for TIAX, LLC (www.tiaxllc.com). TIAX is a Cambridge, MA - based technology processing company that transforms emerging innovations into technology platforms ready for interactive hand-off to established companies. TIAX's primary technology areas include energy & energy storage systems, advanced materials / nano-materials, green chemistry and building / appliance systems. In his role reporting to TIAX's President, Tom focuses on identifying and developing new business opportunities for TIAX, including technology commercialization partnerships with established companies, research partnerships with university labs and marketing partnerships with industry organizations. Prior to TIAX, Tom spent 14 years at Cisco Systems, Inc. in sales, business development and consulting roles. Most recently, Tom was a Senior Business Development Manager within the Technology Center Group, an internal advanced technology and market opportunity incubator for Cisco. Technology Center reported into Cisco's Corporate Development Group and worked very closely with the established business unit, strategic alliance and M&A teams to develop and drive emerging opportunities for Cisco. In collaboration with Technology Center's advanced engineering team, Tom focused on identifying and developing new technology and market opportunities for Cisco. This included work on disruptive market strategies, enabling business models, essential technology or business partnerships (including investments), specific strategies to address regulatory hurdles and overall solutions for unique operational requirements. Technology areas of focus included pervasive / ad-hoc / mesh networking, sensor networking, wireless, grid computing, security, alternative access technologies, IP telephony and next-generation routing protocols. Tom also led a broader Cisco initiative to engage more aggressively with and create linkages to the broader Boston area emerging technology community, including early-stage technology companies, VCs, research centers and academia. Tangible results of that initiative included Cisco's sponsorship of both the MIT Media Lab's Digital Life Consortium and MIT's Communication Futures Program (CFP). Previously at Cisco, Tom held leadership roles in the technical sales organization on the Enterprise, Service Provider and Channel teams. Prior to Cisco, Tom was a senior network consultant for Bolt Beranek and Newman's (BBN's) Systems and Technologies Division in Cambridge, MA and a system engineer for GTE Government Systems in Needham, MA. Tom holds a B.S.E.E. from Worcester Polytechnic Institute, M.S. Computer Engineering from Boston University and M.S. Management from MIT's Sloan School of Management. In addition, Tom is a member of the Research Advisory Board for the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative’s (MTC) John Adams Innovation Institute, a mentor with MIT's Venture Mentoring Service (VMS) and an industry advisor on the Tech Users Committee of TechConnect, a global technology outreach and development organization.

Rod Randall
Rod has spent over 24 years in the networking industry as an entrepreneur, senior executive and venture capitalist. Prior to forming Vesbridge, Rod was a General Partner with SPVC since 2000, where he led the mobile investment practice. Some of Rod's representative investments include Dynamicsoft (acquired by Cisco), Bitfone (acquired by Hewlett Packard), FusionOne and Visage Mobile. Before becoming a venture capitalist, Rod had been Chief Marketing Officer at Lucent's Service Provider Group, which he joined in 1999 upon the acquisition of Ascend by Lucent for $24 billion. At the time of acquisition, Rod was the Vice President of Worldwide Marketing helping re-position Ascend. Prior to Ascend, Rod was Vice President of Worldwide Marketing and General Manager at Stratus Computer and Vice President of Strategic Market Development at Madge Networks. Prior to Madge Networks, Rod co-founded Teleos Communications in 1987. During the nearly 10 years Rod spent building Teleos, he held several roles including CTO, Vice President of Business Development, and Vice President of WAN Access Technology. Rod helped guide Teleos until its acquisition in 1996 by Madge Networks. Rod began his career in technology at AT&T Bell Labs in 1981 as a Member of Technical Staff and later as MTS Supervisor. Rod holds several US Patents. Rod is on the Board of Directors at Visage Mobile, Bytemobile and FusionOne, and is on the Board of Overseers at WGBH. He is holds a BSEE with Highest Honors from Georgia Tech and an MSEE & MSCS from University of California at Berkeley.

Marc Recht
Marc is a partner in the law firm of McDermott Will & Emery LLP, based in the Firm's Boston office. He is a member of the Corporate Department. Marc's practice includes both public and private transactional work, including public offerings of securities, mergers and acquisitions, private equity buyouts, venture capital financing, as well as strategic alliances and licensing transactions. He also counsels public companies with respect to SEC periodic disclosure, Sarbanes-Oxley compliance, corporate governance and stock exchange rules. His clients are largely focused on the life sciences and biotechnology industries, but also include firms in the high technology and telecommunications sectors. Marc is a committee member of the Combined Jewish Philanthropies Young Lawyers Group and is recognized as an Emerging Leader in connection with his philanthropic and development efforts for Brandeis University.

Harry Ruda
Mr. Ruda is presently in the position of CEO of Desktone, Inc. an early stage provider of an end-to-end virtual desktop platform that enables desktop computing at large enterprise to be delivered, on demand, as a network-based service. Desktone is in the market entry stage and is expecting its first revenues in 2007 with significant growth in worldwide revenues in 2008. Mr. Ruda's career spans over thirty years in the information and communications technology marketplace. Mr. Ruda co-founded Softricity as its CEO in June, 1999 when the company was still in the business planning stage and continued in that role until March, 2006, when he assumed the role of Chairman. In April, Softricity agreed to be acquired by Microsoft and the transaction completed in July. This was considered one of the most strategic acquisitions Microsoft has ever made and it was one of the largest software transactions in New England, valued at greater than 17x previous year's revenue. Since Softricity's inception, Mr. Ruda had raised over $60 million from top-tier venture funds all of whom realized significant returns on their investments. Prior to Softricity, Mr. Ruda was President and CEO of ITS, a manufacturer of video access equipment for IP and ATM networks. ITS was acquired by Artel Video in March, 1999, just prior to the closing of its first round of funding. Mr. Ruda also co-founded and was VP Sales and Marketing for a VC-backed start-up, Network Switching Systems, a manufacturer of integrated voice and data switching equipment which was later acquired by BBN Communications. Post-acquisition, Mr. Ruda served as BBN's VP for Integrated Network Sales, responsible for worldwide deployment of integrated T1 networks to enterprise accounts. Mr. Ruda also founded and operated a global telecomm consulting business, Global Technologies, whose clients were composed of many of the world's leading telecomm service providers; including, Bellcore, NYNEX, France Telecom, PacBell and GTE Services. Mr. Ruda has also held the following positions: VP Field Operations for Bell Atlantic (a NE public communications carrier), VP Sales and Marketing for Bridgeway Corporation (a network management software company based in Redmond, WA) and President and CEO of Glyph Systems (an Andover-based software company specializing in international software and typefaces). Mr. Ruda serves on several private company boards as an Independent Director and also sits on several Advisory Boards for early stage companies. Mr. Ruda holds an MBA from Boston College, and MS in Operations Research from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) and a BS in Management Science from RPI.

David Safaii
David Safaii joined Windspeed Ventures in January 2004. He came to Windspeed from the Technology Investment Banking Group at CIBC World Markets where he focused on enterprise software. Since March of 2000, David has completed numerous public and private equity financings, mergers and acquisitions and general financial advisory engagements. Prior to his career in investment banking, David spent two years in the Equity and Fixed Income Sales Department of Oppenheimer. His clients included numerous banks, mutual funds, and insurance companies. David holds a BA in computer information processing from Boston College. He is presently the Co-Chairman of the New England Venture Network (NEVN).

Bard Salmon
Bard is President/CEO of Beaver Worldwide LLC of Groton, MA, a firm providing services including Mentoring Entrepreneurs; Advising Investors; and Merger, Acquisition and Valuations for Businesses. He is also: Chairman/CFO of Perillon Software Inc., an enterprise software company delivering Operational Compliance Management solutions to manufacturing enterprises; and Chairman/CEO of Lexent Technologies Inc., a wireless security company. Bard is a serial entrepreneur, mentor and investor in early stage, fast growth information technology companies. He has founded six companies and has patents in the fields of multimedia matching of goods and services and in wireless security. He holds a BSCE from MIT and an MBA from Northwestern University.

Ben Saren
An entrepreneur and high-tech veteran with more than a dozen years of industry leading experience, Ben's credentials include entrepreneurship, management, business development, consulting, and engineering. He has performed in such roles at start-ups such as Delphi Forums, Prospero Technologies as well as at multinationals such as Bell Atlantic, Digital Equipment Corporation, GE Capital, RSA, and Parametric Technologies Corporation. Ben is currently founder and Chief Executive Officer at CitySquares.com, a local search company.

Jay Schwartz
Dr. Schwartz received his Ph.D in Biochem and Molecular Bio from New York Medical College. He was a Post-doctoral fellow at the M.I.T. Dept. of Biology / Harvard Medical School working on many aspects of cardiovascular molecular medicine, bioassay development, gene therapy. Subsequently as a Research Scientist Faculty at the M.I.T. Center for Biomedical Engineering where his laboratory worked in the field of protein and peptide engineering and non-viral gene therapy. In his latest startup, he was co-founder and Principal Scientist of engeneOS, Inc. a bio-nanotechnology company where he co-designed the scientific and business vision of the company which led to $7MM in funding. Dr. Schwartz is a member of the M.I.T. Venture Mentoring Service. He is also an active member of Keiretsu Forum, an angel investment group, where he is a private investor and serves as the Boston chapter co-chair on due diligence committees dealing with biomedical, therapeutics and medical device investment opportunities. Dr. Schwartz is scientific advisor and business consultant to a drug delivery, two diagnostics companies and a laparoscopic medical device company. Dr. Schwartz is a named inventor on four patents.

Alex Shah
Ashesh (Alex) C. Shah serves as Get Solo's Chairman, bringing over fifteen years of industry expertise managing successful technology and Internet start-ups. His interest in loyalty programs derives from his experience with The Partnering Group, where he designed and product managed the Category Manager, a multi-million dollar data mining application that evolved into what we now know as loyalty programs. Prior to Get Solo, Mr. Shah served as co-founder and CTO of PLEJ, a next-generation payment technology company, and as Chairman and CEO of Wallaware, Inc. He holds a degree in Political Economy from Williams College (MA).

Chris Sheehan
Chris is a managing director of CommonAngels, joining the group in 2005. Previously, Chris founded Newburyport Partners, a consulting firm that works with investors and their portfolio companies. Prior to starting Newburyport Partners, Chris was a Director of Corporate Development for BEA Systems, a leading enterprise software company with over $1B in sales. At BEA, he was a key member of the corporate team responsible for all venture capital investing and M&A activity. Chris currently is a board observer at Carbonite, Polnox, Outside the Classroom, and GateRocket.

Kathy Sherbrooke
Responsible for translating the Circles vision into strategic business objectives and financial results, Kathy Sherbrooke has propelled Circles to a leadership position in the customer and employee loyalty space among Fortune 1000 companies. Kathy is wowed by the change Circles is able to make in peoples' lives. For example, by fulfilling a customer's request to help achieve her sister's life-long dream of riding an elephant while in remission from breast cancer, we were able to create a profound impact in her family's life. Kathy is also moved by "putting together groups of people who love working together, have real friendships, and are passionate about what they do." Previously, Kathy was Product Marketing Manager for INC. Magazine's business products division. In this role, she had direct responsibility for helping small businesses run effectively and caught the entrepreneurial bug. A graduate of Stanford Business School, Kathy co-founded Circles in 1997 to address the needs of time-starved professionals and corporations that rely on these professionals as high-value customers or employees. Two things she didn't learn in school: the "power and importance of good decision making" and the "complexity in managing an organization full of people." Kathy believes Circles' mission is to make peoples' lives richer. "We are making a difference in the lives of the people who work here, the members who call in each day and our clients and partners." Kathy was a finalist for the 2003 Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award and was recognized as one of Boston Business Journal's Top 40 Under 40. Circles received the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce Small Business of the Year award for 2003.

Carl Stjernfeldt
Carl Stjernfeldt has an investment focus on wired and wireless communications technologies and services. He also has a strong interest in the intersection of content mobility, transport, and trust. Prior to Castile, Mr. Stjernfeldt was a partner at Battery Ventures where he spent seven years investing in leading IT companies. Currently he serves on the board of PermissionTV, and has also served on the boards of Arbor Networks, Agito Networks, Broadbus Technologies (acquired by Motorola), Cedar Point Communications, and Tejas Networks, and was a board observer of Optium (NASDAQ: OPTM). Prior to Battery Ventures Mr. Stjernfeldt worked for Cambridge Technology Partners as a client partner and project manager and at Summa Four developing telecommunications solutions for domestic and international service providers. Mr. Stjernfeldt holds a dual MS in Electrical Engineering from the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Stockholm and Northeastern University in Boston, and an MBA from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Sloan School of Management, where he now teaches a course in entrepreneurial finance. Mr. Stjernfeldt serves as a Catalyst for the Deshpande Center at MIT, is on the University of Michigan's Technology Transfer National Advisory Board, and serves on the Board of the New England Venture Capital Association.

Jay Teich
Jay incorporated Seahorse Bioscience (formerly Thermogenic Imaging) in 2000, completed the technology licensing and initial funding in 2001 and in 2004 completed the acquisition of Innovative Microplate which became Seahorse Labware. Prior to forming Seahorse Bioscience, over a seven year period, Mr. Teich led the growth, management buyout, and sale of Inframetrics Inc., the world's leading manufacturer of thermal imaging systems for industrial and law enforcement applications. In 1999, he negotiated the merger of Inframetrics with FLIR Systems Inc. (NASDAQ:FLIR) to form the world's largest supplier of commercial thermal imaging systems. During a twenty-five year career, Mr. Teich has led engineering and marketing teams in the development and commercialization of a diverse range of electro-optical, ultrasound, and biochemical instruments for Honeywell, Damon Corporation and Ciba Corning Diagnostics Inc.

Mark Terrell
Mark currently serves as President and CEO of SepSensor Inc, a wireless sensor and remote monitoring start-up targeting the Food Service Market, and has held C level executive positions at Sionex Corp., Image Engineering Group, and Inframetrics Inc. (now part of FLIR Systems). Mark is an experienced entrepreneur and senior executive of seed and early stage high tech firms. He has participated on numerous boards, and has over 30 years in general corporate management, business development, operations, and engineering management. He started and ran companies whose products included raster scanned cameras, displays, and laser vector projectors including electro-optic sensing and projection systems, working from the far infrared through the visual spectrum. He holds a Bachelor of Electrical Engineering (5 year) and a Certificate of Advanced Engineering Study from Cornell University.

Lou Volpe
Lou Volpe has over 25 years of technology industry experience. As an operating executive, his career includes many successful IPOs and acquisitions such as the multi-billion dollar purchases of ArrowPoint Communications and GeoTel Communications by Cisco Systems. At Kodiak, one of his portfolio companies had a successful acquisition when IMLogic was acquired by Symantec in January 2006. In his key role as Kodiak's Managing General Partner, Lou sets the strategy and growth initiatives for the firm. He focuses on investments across the spectrum of the firm's technology sectors, concentrating on software and services. He is a member of the boards of directors for Kodiak portfolio companies including airwide solutions; Azimuth Systems; Bentley Kinetics; Egenera; GTESS; HighRoads; and SpaceClaim. Lou joined Kodiak from ArrowPoint Communications, where he was President, Chief Operating Officer, and a member of the board with responsibility for all of the company's functional organizations and for managing worldwide operations. Under his leadership, ArrowPoint had a successful IPO in March 2000, and subsequently was acquired by Cisco for $5.5B in June of that year. Before ArrowPoint, Lou was Senior Vice President of Worldwide Sales & Marketing, and a member of the board of GeoTel Communications. He joined the company early in its developmental stage, was a major contributor in building its worldwide sales and marketing presence, and was instrumental in guiding the company in its IPO and eventual $2 billion acquisition by Cisco in June 1999. In previous positions, Lou served as Senior Vice President of Marketing and Operations for Parametric Technology Corporation and also was an executive at Prime Computer. He also has been an active investor and board member for a number of companies including Atria (acquired by Pure) and Softdesk (acquired by Autodesk). Lou is an enthusiastic golfer and has run the Boston marathon. In addition to being involved with his local community, he is a member of the Board of Overseer's at the New England Aquarium. Lou holds a B.A. from Tufts University and an M.B.A. from Boston University.

Dan Von Kohorn
Dan Von Kohorn founded Beacon Angels along with William Swiggart and Alexander Kelso, and leads the screening committee. He is a VP and portfolio manager at VKRA where he manages a commodities fund, is a member of the investment committee for two global equity funds, and publishes an investment commentary. He is also Director of Technology Investments for Mediatech Capital Partners and a member of the investment committee for Analytic Capital. He graduated from Princeton University (A.B./Economics, Cert/Applied and Computational Mathematics) and worked in the Applied Research Group of JP Morgan Investments where he built asset allocation models implemented for the allocation of $4.2 billion. Dan participated in the development of an internal hedge fund strategy and taught internal classes on fixed income analytics, derivatives pricing, and asset allocation for the JP Morgan Private Client Group. In 1999, Dan founded ThoughtStore, Inc., an electronic open-market for patent licenses which was acquired in September, 2000. He is a member of the U.S. Secret Service NY Electronic Crimes Task Force.

Matt Westover
Matt Westover joined Newton Peripherals as President and Chief Executive Officer in mid-2005, his latest executive position in a successful career spanning almost 22 years in key roles at high-technology firms. He previously served as an executive consultant to the CEO at Certance, helping lead that firm's transition away from Seagate and into its own operation, which resulted in its acquisition by Quantum Corporation. Matt founded Storability, and served as its Chairman and CEO, prior to its acquisition by StorageTek. He has also served in executive roles at StorageNetworks, Connected Corporation, and Andataco. Matt is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame, where he was on the school's football team. He has been a featured speaker at leading business schools, such as Sloan, Babson and Mendoza, as well as at numerous technology conferences.

Bill Whelan
Bill is a member of the Corporate practice at Mintz Levin. Currently, he serves as Co-Chair of the Life Sciences Practice Group. Bill's practice is focused primarily in the areas of securities law, venture capital and mergers and acquisitions. Bill regularly represents technology-based companies, principally in the areas of biotechnology, medical technologies and software. He routinely counsels these clients on many aspects of their corporate development, from initial organization and acquisition of technology, through private financing and initial public offering, to strategic alliances and business combination transactions. Bill also regularly represents venture capital firms in portfolio investment activities and underwriters in public offerings and private placements of equity securities.

Alex Wilmerding
Alex Wilmerding is a Director at The Citigroup Private Bank in Boston. He has more than 19 years of experience, primarily in venture capital and private equity investing as well as corporate and business development. Prior to joining The Citigroup Private Bank, Alex served for nine years as a principal and Partner at Boston Capital Ventures. Before this, he managed business-and-operations projects in Shanghai and Southeast Asia for Fednav Limited. In addition, he held four executive management positions with Cathay Pacific Airways and Dragon Airways, subsidiaries of the Swire Group. Having lived in China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Indonesia for seven years, Alex is fluent in Mandarin. Alex earned his bachelors degree in history from Yale University and an MBA in finance and organizational management from the Columbia Business School. He is the author of two books, Deal Terms and Term Sheets and Valuations. He also sits on the boards of family office Charles Pratt & Company and the Dosoris Turst Company, and he is trustee and officer of the Yale-China Association.

James Woodward
James has over 30 years of high tech management experience. He has been the first CFO of eight successful companies including Iris Graphics (sold to Scitex for $31 million), Computer Access (Lotus), Exos (Microsoft), and ActualSoft (Palm). Jim has raised over $20 million in VC and has been CFO of several public companies. He is currently VP Finance or a Director of several companies and a member of the Launchpad Angel Group.