Our Board of Advisors and Experts
Our Board of Business Advisors and Experts are world famous in their respective fields. Each advisor focuses on one area to best utilize their professional experience and knowledge. In addition, our Academic Advisory Board is active in our formal educational endeavors editing and reviewing our publications, textbooks, and assisiting us in the development of curricula for entrepreneurs around the world.
Dave Berkus: Professional Angel Investor and Serial Entrepreneur
Dave Berkus is a founding partner of the Tech Coast Angels, the leading angel investor network in the United States. He has made 65 early stage venture investments yielding an IRR of 97%, which includes capital contributions from (Berkus Technology Ventures, LLC and Kodiak Ventures, L.P) where Dave serves as managing partner. Dave was named “Director of the Year” by the Forum for Corporate Directors of Orange County, California. Dave has formed, managed and sold successful businesses in the entertainment and software arenas and has obtained healthy returns from liquidity events in over a dozen early stage investments.
Tom Byers: Stanford Technology Ventures Program
Tom is a professor at Stanford University where he focuses on high-technology entrepreneurship education. He is founder and a faculty director of the Stanford Technology Ventures Program (STVP), which serves as the entrepreneurship center for the engineering school. Tom is co-author of the textbook called “Technology Ventures: From Idea to Enterprise” (McGraw-Hill, 2005). He is a recipient of three recent national teaching awards: the 2005 ASEE Kauffman Award for excellence in engineering and technology entrepreneurship education; the 2005 USASBE Entrepreneurship Educator of the Year Award; and the 2003 Leavey Award for excellence in private enterprise education. In 2004, STVP was named the NASDAQ Entrepreneurship Center of the Year. Tom was also named Entrepreneur of the Year (EOY) in Ernst & Young’s competition.
Gary M. Cadenhead: President of the MOOT CORP Foundation
As a Senior Lecturer in Entrepreneurship at The University of Texas at Austin, Gary served as Director of the world renowned MOOT CORP Competition from 1992 until 2005. Under his leadership the Competition grew from eleven universities to forty, became truly global, became a launch pad for new ventures, and offered the winners $100,000 in investment capital. In 1995, the Kauffman Foundation and the Entrepreneur of the Year Institute recognized him as one of the Top Ten Entrepreneurship Educators of the Year. In 1999, he received the Entrepreneurship Education Pedagogy Innovation of the Year Award from USASBE. In a 2003 survey of entrepreneurship directors commissioned by Entrepreneur magazine, Gary was recognized as one of the three top directors of entrepreneurship programs in the United States. Currently, he serves on the boards of several start-up ventures, including Halsa Pharmaceuticals, Signal One, and EADevices. During 2004, he served as Chairman of the Board of Schlotzsky’s Inc. He is on the advisory board of The Journal of Private Equity.
Scott Crist: Crist Ventures and Serial Entrepreneur
Scott Crist is Managing Director of Crist Ventures and a general partner of Venture Bridge LP, an early-stage venture bridge fund. Scott has an extensive background as an entrepreneur and venture capitalist, having founded and profitable grown two technology companies to revenues of over $100 million each during the last decade. Mr. Crist was formerly founder and CEO of Telscape International (NASDAQ), an integrated communications company in emerging countries, and prior to that, was President and CEO for Matrix, a telecommunications company that was ranked seventh fastest growing private company in 1995 by Inc. Magazine. Scott was a winner of Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year award. He is also on the boards of several early-stage technology companies including Bynari, BizSupplies and SalvageSale.
George Dalton: Serial Entrepreneur, Founder, NOVO 1
George Dalton has been an entrepreneur in the information technology and financial industry for more than 35 years. As Chairman and CEO of Fiserv, Inc., Mr. Dalton grew the company form its foundation as a regional provider with $14 million in revenues into a worldwide organization by identifying, acquiring and assimilating over 90 companies during his 16-year tenure. Today, Fiserv is a $4.5 billion enterprise with nearly 22,000 employees and 17,000 clients in more than 60 countries. In March 2000, George formed NOVO 1, an innovative direct marketing services firm that has grown from start-up through 15 acquisitions to employ over 2,000 people and generate annualized revenues of approximately $70 million. In 2007 George was appointed to the judging panel for Ernst & Young’s prestigious World Entrepreneur Of The Year (EOY) Awards program. George was a winner of the EOY Award in 1988. He was also a U.S. National Entrepreneur Of The Year award finalist in 1996. Mr. Dalton has been serving as a judge for the U.S. National Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year Awards since 1998.
Ken Deemer: Professional Angel Investor and Social Entrepreneur
He is a co-founder and former Chairman and President of the Tech Coast Angels, one of the largest and most active angel investor groups in the country. Mr. Deemer is an active private investor and has over twenty years of venture capital experience as a General Partner of InterVen Partners, a firm that he co-founded in 1985. He has invested in and served on the boards of numerous early-stage companies in technology, manufacturing and specialty retailing. He also served for fourteen years on the board of Cymer, Inc. (Nasdaq CYMI). He was a founder of the Caltech/MIT Enterprise Forum, and has served on the faculty of the Venture Capital Institute in the U.S., Singapore, and China. Ken is currently working as a founding partner and Chairman of Los Angeles Social Venture Partners.
Lynne Pierson Doti: Chapman University
Lynne is the David and Sandra Stone Professor of Economics at Chapman University. She is the author of Banking in an Unregulated Environment: California 1878-1905 and co-author of California Bankers and Banking in the American West. She has also written about 25 articles on banking, using history as a laboratory to test theories of branching, structure and regulation. Current research is focused on financing sources for real estate development. In April, 2006 Lynne became the Editor of Essays in Economic and Business History. She has served on a number of corporate, civic, and charitable boards. Chapman’s undergraduate entrepreneurship program is now ranked #6 in the USA and their graduate entrepreneurship program is ranked #8 in the USA by Entrepreneur magazine. Chapman Entrepreneurship Program was recently selected by the United States Association for Small Business and Entrepreneurship (USASBE) as the first-place winner of the Innovative Pedagogy Award.
Bart Greenberg: Partner, Venture Capital & Technology, Manatt, Phelps & Phillips
Bart is a partner in the business and transactions group in the Orange County office of Manatt, Phelps & Philips, LLP, where he also serves as co-chair of Manatt’s venture capital & technology practice group. Bart practices general corporate law with an emphasis on mergers and acquisitions and debt and equity financings. Bart’s practice includes a broad range of corporate finance transactions with an emphasis on private securities offerings for technology companies and private equity investors, including venture capital, angel and friends & family offerings. He has represented both issuers and private equity investors in numerous private placements, and has substantial experience in the licensing and distribution of software and other products and technologies. Bart has also had significant involvement with the cost-effective representation of entrepreneurs, start-ups and emerging growth companies.
Mark G. Hessen: President, National Venture Capital Association
As President of the National Venture Capital Association, Mark is responsible for setting the strategic direction for all Association activities, including public policy efforts, research initiatives, educational programs, and member services. In this capacity, Mark works closely with the NVCA professional staff and Board of Directors to demonstrate the positive impact of venture capital investment on the United States economy. Under his direction, the NVCA has created numerous value-added sub-groups including the CFO Task Force, Strategic Communications Group, Corporate Venture Capital Group, Medical Industry Group and Human Capital forum, all of which are dedicated to supporting NVCA membership in uniquely critical areas. Mark is a frequent presenter at industry conferences, appears regularly on CNBC, and is consistently quoted in the press in stories concerning venture capital trends.
Charles W. Hofer: Kennesaw State University
Ranked by Fortune Small Business Magazine as one of the nation’s best professors for entrepreneurship, Charles is known for his dedication to students and especially his work with those in business plan competitions. He is revered for his skills in prepping students for these contests with a combination of brilliant strategic thinking and drill sergeant-style practice sessions. The professor has earned numerous honors, including the Coleman Entrepreneurship Mentor Award and The United States Association of Small Business and Entrepreneurship (USASBE) Distinguished Entrepreneurship Educator of the Year Award.
Robert D. Hisrich: Thunderbird School of Global Management
Prior to joining Thunderbird Charles was the Chaired Professor of Entrepreneurial Studies at Case Western Reserve University. He was a named a Fulbright Professor in Budapest at the Foundation for Small Enterprise Economic Development, where he also held the Alexander Hamilton Chair in Entrepreneurship. He has authored or co-authored fourteen books and has written over 300 articles on entrepreneurship, international business management, and venture capital. He has served on the editorial boards of The Journal of Business Venturing, Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, Journal of Small Business Management, and Journal of International Business and Entrepreneurship.
Larry Jordan: Professional Angel Investor, Executive Coach, Board Member
Larry Jordan is a founding member of the Tech Coast Angels Los Angeles and sits on the Executive Committee. He has personally invested in over 20 angel-funded startups in the past 8 years. Larry sits on a variety of Boards of Directors and Corporate advisory boards and provides consulting services to business enterprises, primarily in technology, relating to business management and revenue acceleration practices. Larry has been involved in technology for over 30 years. He once served as International Vice President with this Fortune 500 Company. Larry joined FileNet (NASDAQ-FILE) as a founding member of the Senior Management team for sales and led this pioneering software’s company’s strategic sales efforts in content management for 12 years during its growth from $0 to $200 million in sales
Richard Koffler: Koffler Ventures and Serial Entrepreneur
Mr. Koffler has been growing entrepreneurial software companies for over 20 years. He has incubated several start-ups as CEO of Koffler Ventures LLC. He is a member of the Tech Coast Angels, past-president of both the Los Angeles Venture Association and the Software Council of Southern California. He is also a member of the advisory boards of both the Center for Technology Commercialization at the University of Southern California, and the Wells Fargo Center for Small Business and Entrepreneurship at the College of Business Administration and Economics at California State University, Northridge.
Randy Lunn: General Partner, Palomar Ventures
As a founding partner of Palomar Ventures which currently manages US$550 million, Randy helps set fund strategy and works closely with portfolio companies. He began his venture capital career in 1979 as a founder of Harrison Capital, the venture arm of Texaco. At Harrison Capital, he was responsible for investments in such companies as RF Monolithics, Iomega, Amgen, Compression Labs, MCC, Summa Four, and Synercom. Randy has sat on numerous boards of both US and European companies, helped establish US subsidiaries (SCM Microsystems, Sequenom, ATecoM, Dalim), took interim management positions, and helped advise companies as they navigated the IPO process both in the US and Europe. He currently sits on the board of seven Palomar investments: Akonix, Continuous Computing Corporation, Incuity, Inovys, Datallegro, Newport Imaging Corporation and Network Physics.
Barry Moltz: Speaker, Author, Consultant
Barry has founded and run small businesses with a great deal of success and failure for more than 15 years. After successfully selling his last operating business, Barry has branched out into a number of entrepreneurship-related activities. He founded an angel investor group, an angel fund, and is a former advisory member of the board of the Angel Capital Education Foundation. His first book, “You Need to Be A Little Crazy: The Truth about Starting and Growing Your Business” describes the ups and downs and emotional trials of running a business. It is in its fourth reprint and has been translated into Chinese, Russian, Korean and Thai. His second book, “Bounce! Failure, Resiliency and the Confidence to Achieve Your Next Great Success”, published by Wiley, was released in early 2008. Barry is a nationally recognized expert on entrepreneurship who has given over 100 speeches to audiences ranging from 20 to 20,000. He was appointed by the Illinois Governor in 2005 to serve on the board of the Institute for Entrepreneurship Education (IIEE). As a member of the Entrepreneurship Hall of Fame, he also has taught entrepreneurship as an adjunct professor at the Illinois Institute of Technology.
John Morris: Managing Director GKM Ventures
John Morris is a Managing Director of GKM Ventures, a venture capital firm focused on information technology companies in the Western states. He is also the immediate past Chairman of the Tech Coast Angels, the largest angel organization in the country, and continues as an active member of the board of governors. TCA members mentor, coach and invest in startups and early-stage companies based on southern California. John is a frequent speaker on venture capital and angel investing. During his career in venture capital, John has been a director in several private and public companies. John is currently serves on the board of directors for Syntricity, Inc. in San Diego and Accordent, Inc. in El Segundo and BrightQube in Carlsbad. He serves on the board of Entretech and Los Angeles Venture Association (LAVA). John is co-founder and past president of the Forum for Corporate Directors.
Warren Packard: Managing Director, Draper Fisher Jurveston
Warren Packard is a Managing Director at Draper Fisher Jurvetson (DFJ). DFJ is a preeminent venture capital firm with global presence through a network of partner funds, with offices in more than 33 cities around the world and over $5.5 billion in capital commitments. DFJ’s mission is to identify, serve, and provide capital for extraordinary entrepreneurs anywhere who are determined to change the world. Over the past twenty years, DFJ has funded more than 300 companies across many sectors including such industry-changing catalysts as Hotmail (acquired by MSFT), Baidu (BIDU), Skype (acquired by EBAY), United Online (UNTD), Overture (acquired by YHOO), Athenahealth (ATHN), EnerNOC (ENOC), Interwoven (IWOV), Four11 (acquired by YHOO), Parametric (PMTC), and Digidesign (acquired by AVID). Warren currently serves on the Boards of Anagran, BinOptics, CastTV, EoPlex, Imago Scientific Instruments, Media Lario, and Ooma. Mr. Packard also leads the firm’s investments in CallGate, Jaxtr, Microfabrica, Primet Precision Materials, TicketsNow, and YeePay. Prior to joining the firm, Mr. Packard co-founded Angara Database Systems, a main memory relational database company, which was acquired by Personify.
Gerhard R. Plaschka: DePaul University
Ranked by Fortune Small Business Magazine as one of the nation’s best professors for entrepreneurship, Gerhard enlivens the course materials with real cases, executive guest speakers and computer simulations in addition to lectures and articles. He likes to use different teaching techniques to keep students motivated. Students work in teams to define and solve business problems. Gerhard encourages competitiveness among the groups in the classroom, which he regards as a rehearsal for the real world. He is especially interested in making sure students know how to manage challenges at different stages in the life cycle of a new venture. One of his courses “Managing Fast Growing Firms” requires students to identify a growing company, then interview and analyze the entrepreneur or team behind it, looking at how challenges are handled at every phase of growth.
Russell Reeder: Serial Entrepreneur
Russell has extensive experience in information technology, in both sales and software development. Russell’s skill set embodies that of an engineer and a solution sales executive, allowing him to understand all aspects and functions of a company based in the ever-changing technology industry. As a business leader and entrepreneur, Russell offers a dynamic reputation in starting up and spearheading IT companies, leading turnaround events, capturing millions of dollars in venture capital funding, founding and directing offshore development teams in India and The Philippines, and presiding over global sales and marketing organizations. He has successfully navigated enterprises through start-up phases, the dot com crash, and post 9-11.
Betsy Sanders: The Sanders Partnership
As a director, consultant, mentor, speaker, writer, and servant leader, Betsy partners with senior executives around the world who are committed to leading meaningful companies and meaningful live. Betsy began her experience leading winning-edge organizations when she joined Nordstrom as a sales apprentice. She moved quickly through the ranks, becoming Nordstrom’s first female store manager. Over a 12-year period Betsy and her team made retail history building the new southern California business to $1 billion in annual sales with more than 11,000 employees, quickly becoming Nordstrom’s largest and most profitable region. While developing Nordstrom into a business partnership with their customers, this team, under Betsy’s leadership is credited with having set the industry and international standards for service. Betsy has held director positions with such prominent corporations as: Wal-Mart, Wolverine World Wide (Hush Puppies), Washington Mutual, Advantica (Denny’s), and WellPoint (Blue Cross). In addition, she serves on advisory boards for several privately held companies and as a personal mentor to executives in various customer-focused businesses.
Richard Shuttleworth: Senior Vice President, Silicon Valley Bank
Rick currently focuses on providing a variety of debt solutions for emerging and growth information technology and life science companies headquartered in Orange County. Rick has more than 29 years of banking experience in corporate, international, middle market, and technology lending. He was with First Interstate/Wells Fargo for 20 years, and has been with SVB for the past nine years. He is currently on the Board of Directors of the Orange Coast Venture Group and OCTANe, and is also on the Executive Committee of the AeA’s Orange County Council.
Karl H. Vesper: University of Washington
Karl is a professor of Business Administration at the University of Washington in Seattle. He is a nationally recognized chronicler of the growth of entrepreneurship education in U.S. higher education and a national expert on entrepreneurship programs. His books include New Venture Experience, Vector Books, 1996, New Venture Mechanics, Prentice-Hall, 1993; The Washington Entrepreneur’s Guide, University Press, 1993; and New Venture Strategies, Prentice-Hall, 1990. He has held endowed professorships as a visitor at Baylor University, Babson College and the University of Calgary. As the first Babson Professor or Entrepreneurship he helped to create the Babson Center for Entrepreneurial Studies and also started the Babson Entrepreneurship Research Conference. He edited the first ten volumes of Frontiers of Entrepreneurship Research, the proceedings of that conference.
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Other Academic Advisory Board Members
Fernando Alvarez: Rutgers Business School
Raymond Bagby: Baylor University
Joseph M. Bearson: Eckerd College
Zenas Block: New York University
Joseph Bonnici: Bryant College
Martin S. Bressler: Thomas College
Duke K. Bristow: The Anderson School at UCLA
William H. Crookston: University of Southern California
Alex F. DeNoble: San Diego State University
Monica Diochon: St. Francis Xavier University
David E. Douglas: University of Arkansas
Rex Dumdum: SUNY at Binghamton
Robert F. Dyer: George Washington University
David R. Eppright: American University
Badie Farah: Eastern Michigan University
Theresa Flaherty: Old Dominion University
Mikhail V. Gratchev: Case Western University
Carlos Guzman: University of Phoenix
Peter H. Hackbert: California State at Monterey Bay
Charles O. Heller: University of Maryland
Paul R. Johnson: Bond University
William C. Johnson: Nova Southeastern University
Jill R. Kickul: DePaul University
Ceyhan Kilic: DePaul University
Sandra Kramer: INSEAD
Rachna Kumar: Alliant International University
Roger D. Lee: Salt Lake Community College
William S. Lightfoot: North Carolina Wesleyan College
Patricia P. McDougall: Indiana University
Thomas Mierzwa: University of Maryland/College
Ronald E. Milliman: Western Kentucky University
William Naumes: University of New Hampshire
Pallab Paul: University of Denver
John Pearce: Villanova University
Kenneth A. Pickar: California Institute of Technology
Thomas F. Pendergast: Pepperdine University
Michael P. Peters: Boston College
Frederick A. Ricci: Nova Southeastern University
Richard Robinson: University of South Carolina
Brian Satterlee: Liberty University
Jim Sethi: Western Montana College
Hans Schollhammer: The Anderson School at UCLA
Andy Sernovitz: Wharton School of Business
Pamela K. Shay: Union College
Joseph R. Stasio: Merrimack College
Amita Suhrid: Keller Graduate School of Management
Wee-Liang Tan: Singapore Management University
Nancy Tans: Madison Area Technical College
Elisabeth J. Teal: North Georgia College & State University