Michael is an internationally recognized business educator, venture investor and serial entrepreneur with substantial breadth of experience and expertise in advising and assisting early stage software and related services companies. Michael was a Senior Lecturer and Faculty member at the Wharton School for 25 years, a founder and investor in five successful software companies, and an active investor in several additional companies that have been acquired or went public. He is currently Managing Director of MentorTech Venture Partners, a fund that invests in early and growth stage software and medical device companies that are spin-outs and/or otherwise connected to the University of Pennsylvania. Michael also serves on the Board and Finance and Investment Committees of the Ben Franklin Technology Partnership of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania which successfully invests in early stage software, biotech and manufacturing technology companies. Michael is Chairman of the Limited Partner Advisory Board of Rustic Canyon Ventures. Michael received his BS in Economics with Honor from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in 1978, majoring in Entrepreneurial Management and International Business.
Michael's favorite local merchants include Brookline Booksmith in Brookline, Mass., and Micchellis Pizza in Somers Point, NJ.
Susan is renowned for her "power-rolodex" of decision-makers in Internet marketing and media and for her success launching online advertising products for @Home Network, Excite, Mailblocks and Maven Networks. Susan's experience has ranged from first revenue generation at Mailblocks, ultimately sold to AOL, to managing a 200+ team as SVP Sales and Marketing at Excite@Home, responsible for more than $100 million in revenue. Susan currently splits her time between consulting and advisory services. Her consulting work includes account prioritization and sales strategy, go-to-market positioning and packaging products and services for companies in the interactive marketing space. She also actively advises pre-funded start-ups, helping them monetize and position their offering and successfully pitch the venture capital community. She sits on the board of directors of Intelevision and ZEDO, Inc. and the advisory boards of TheBeam.com, Jingle Networks, Maven Networks, Powered, Inc. and Wisdom Ark as well as the boards of the Silicon Valley American Marketing Association and the Bay Area Interactive Group. Susan is also Chair of ad:tech, the leading conference for digital marketers. In addition to a BS with honors in Business Administration from the University of Phoenix, Susan has furthered her executive education at the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
Susan's favorite local business is Reimer Health Center in Los Altos, Calif.
Ron is the Founder and Managing Partner of the Angel Investors LP funds. Ron worked with National Semiconductor Corporation in various marketing positions from 1973 to 1979. Altos Computer Systems also benefited under Ron's leadership as a co-founder, President and CEO, and as a board member from 1979 to 1990. He led Personal Training Systems (PTS) for five years as President and CEO from 1991 to 1995. PTS was acquired by SmartForce/SkillSoft and Ron served on their Board of Directors until September 2002. Ron has served on several boards and advisory boards, including: The Red Herring Magazine, AtWeb (sold to Netscape/AOL), SendMail, Bright Mail, Ask Jeeves, Napster, Support.com, SNOCAP, Plaxo, Soliel Securities, Marimba, Metamatrix and AVP. Ron is involved in community activities as a member of the Board of Directors and Treasurer for The Altos Foundation, from 1993 to 2000, which has contributed over $10 million to Bay Area Charities.
Ron's favorite local merchants include Carpaccio in Menlo Park, Calif., and Il Mulino Restraurant in New York, NY.
Mark holds more than 20 years of experience in operations in a vast array of industries including internet marketing, manufacturing, design, and space-planning. Mark participated in a number of start-up environments and has been instrumental in the success of these endeavors. Currently, Mark directs the Deliverability and Data Management Services operations for a leading email service provider in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Mark's favorite local business is Lucca Ravioli Co. in San Francisco, Calif.
Chas is VP for sales and market development for Federated Media, a network of leading independent blog sites including BoingBoing, Digg, Fark, Matt Haughey's Metafilter, Om Malik's GigaOm, John Battelle's Searchblog, and Heather Armstrong's Dooce, among others. He maintains his own blog on digital marketing at http://chasnote.com. Previously, Chas was VP of sales and marketing for CNET Networks's B2B Portfolio, managing the team representing News.com, ZDNet and TechRepublic to business-to-business marketers. Chas also served posts as VP for CNET's broadband & webcasting unit and as VP of business development for mySimon, CNET Networks' comparison-shopping portal. Prior to joining CNET Networks, Chas was the National Sales Manager for TechTV, a 24-hour cable TV channel and Web site dedicated to computing and the Internet.
Chas' favorite local merchant is Progressive Grounds Coffee House in San Francisco, Calif.
Mark is the Joan Butler Ford Professor in the Department of Sociology at Stanford University. He received his BA from Princeton University in Modern History, his PhD from Harvard University in Sociology, and holds honorary PhDs from Stockholm University (1996) and from Sciences Po (Institut d'Études Politiques de Paris) (to be conferred in 2006). He has previously taught at Johns Hopkins, Harvard, Stony Brook and Northwestern. Mark has published many articles in professional journals on social networks, inequality and economic sociology, and is the author of Getting a Job: A Study of Contacts and Careers (1995), and co-editor (with Richard Swedberg) of The Sociology of Economic Life (2001). His current research on social networks in industry includes an historical study of the American electricity industry from 1880 to 1925, and a study of the role of social networks in the high tech economy of Silicon Valley. His personal web page is at http://www.stanford.edu/dept/soc/people/faculty/granovetter/granovet.html
Mark's favorite local business is Hunan Garden Restaurant in Palo Alto, Calif.
Auren is Chairman of the Stonebrick Group -- a lead development and investment firm. He is also CEO of the Connector Group. Previously, he founded and sold three Internet companies before age 30: BridgePath (sold in 2002), Kyber Systems (sold in 1997), and GetRelevant (sold in 2002). Auren is a trustee of the Junior State of America Foundation and Chairman of Lead21. He is the founder of the Silicon Forum and chairs the karmaOne.org project. Auren holds a BSE in Industrial Engineering and Operations Research from the UC Berkeley. He writes a widely read blog called Summation (www.summation.net).
Auren's favorite local merchant is Mart Barber Shop in San Francisco, Calif.
Mark Hull is VP of Marketing and Product Management for iWin.com in San Francisco, Calif, a leading developer and publisher of casual games. Previously, Mark was VP of Product Management and Marketing for MerchantCircle, and was responsible for the initial product and marketing strategy. Before MerchantCircle, Mark led the casual games division and community products division of Yahoo!, as director of product management. Mark launched and ran more than a dozen businesses at Yahoo!, including Yahoo! 360, Groups, Photos and Personals. He is also an inventor of six pending patents in the field of social networking. Prior to joining Yahoo! in 1998, Mark built online content services for the San Jose Mercury News. Mark holds an MBA from the Haas School of Business at University of California, Berkeley, and a BA in Journalism from Pepperdine University.
Mark's favorite local businesses are Stacks' in Campbell, Calif., and Dana Bazar in Fremont, Calif.
Josh is a serial entrepreneur and investor who has been an active leader in the Internet industry since its commercialization. In 1992, while a student at the Wharton School, Josh co-founded Infonautics Corporation, an Internet information company that went public in 1996. He left Infonautics to found Half.com in 1999, leading it to become the world's largest seller of used books, movies and music. Half.com was acquired by eBay in 2000, and Josh remained with eBay for three years, running the Half.com business unit and growing eBay's Media marketplace to almost half a billion dollars in annual sales. In 2004, he helped to found TurnTide, an anti-spam company that was acquired by Symantec after just six months. Josh is currently Managing Director of First Round Capital – a seed-stage venture capital fund.
Josh's favorite local merchant is Gladwyne Village Lunch in Gladwyne, Penn.
Oliver was most recently co-founder and VP of Market Development at Epicentric, the leading provider of business portal solutions. Previously, Oliver held various senior marketing and product management positions and played a critical role in the successes of five startups. At TouchWave, he was responsible for the launch of the first web-based Voice Over IP phone appliance. TouchWave was later acquired by Ericsson. As co-founder of RandomNoise, Oliver launched Coda, the industry's first all-Java Web Site builder, which went on to win several industry awards before it was acquired by Vignette. Oliver has been featured in numerous trade journals and national newspapers and is a frequent speaker at conferences on enterprise software and web services. He is also an inventor of one of the first patents awarded to an enterprise portal software company, covering the administration of user privileges in portal frameworks, and has other patents pending in the areas of location-based services and RFID. Oliver serves on the advisory boards and board of directors of several early stage startups primarily focused on Internet, enterprise and infrastructure software. Oliver earned a BS in Industrial and System Engineering as well as a Minor in Marketing from the University of Southern California.
Jeff has over 20 years of high technology sales, marketing, business and corporate development and venture capital experience. He was most recently with Commerce One as VP of Business Development, Corporate Development and General Manager of Commerce One Ventures. Before Commerce One, Jeff was with BlueCurve, Inc. (sold to Red Hat) where he was the Director of Sales/Business Development. Prior, he performed various business development, marketing, and product management roles at Sybase, including acting as Director of Business Development for the Workgroup Product Division. Before his time at Sybase, Jeff was involved with the successful sale of start-up Technology Concepts where he was the Director of Product Sales and Consulting Services for three years, and prior, Unisys Corporation. Currently, Jeff is CEO of his own management company. He also sits on several high technology company boards and the National Wildlife Refuge System Board. Jeff is an honors graduate of Boston College School of Management, received his MBA from New Hampshire College, his Masters in International Management/Finance from Thunderbird, and is APICS Certified. He enjoys spending time with his wife and two children and is an avid outdoorsman.
Jeff's favorite local merchant is Cold Stone Creamery in Pinole, Calif.
Mary Lou is a community consultant, helping companies build collaborative relationships with consumers and strategies for working with them to develop innovative products and strong consumer brands. Previously, Mary Lou was senior product manager for eBay. As the company's third employee, she participated in the development of the eBay online community. When she joined the company in 1996, eBay had approximately 15,000 community members; today it has more than 40 million. She was responsible for the strategic direction of community products, the development and implementation of community tools and initiatives. After eBay, Mary Lou joined Friendster, a social networking company, in 2003 as director of community development. There she helped develop community strategies for its international user networks. Song left Friendster in 2004 to pursue motherhood (of twins) and a consulting career. Prior to eBay, Mary Lou worked as a journalist. She holds a BSJ from the Medill School at Northwestern University and an AM in Media Studies, Communication from Stanford University.
Mary Lou's favorite local merchants are Nancy's Tailor and Linden Tree Children's Records and Books, both in Los Altos, Calif.
Holly has spent more than 15 years in various senior-level product marketing and management roles in Silicon Valley as a strategic leader focusing on services and software for consumers, small businesses and enterprises. Currently, Holly is the Director of Solution Marketing for small business solutions at SAP Labs, Inc. Prior to that she was responsible for online product strategy for Knight Ridder's newspaper sites throughout the United States. She also managed her own small business for several years consulting for Fortune 500 companies and held permanent roles at Apple, Metricom (wireless) and several Silicon Valley startups.
Holly's favorite local merchants include Vin Santo Ristorante and Joseph George, both of San Jose, Calif.
A recognized pioneer in Web Services and On-Demand technologies, Patrick Grady has guided Rearden Commerce to a commanding leadership position within the Services-On-Demand market. Five years in development, the company has a large and growing patent portfolio and enjoys first mover advantage, with a host of name-brand enterprise customers and several major technology and marketing partnerships.
Grady is a sought after speaker with engagements including PC Forum, Supernova, Burton Catalyst Conference, AlwaysOn, Red Herring, Comdex, InfoWorld Symposium, Enterprise and Internet World. In addition to serving as Rearden Commerce’s strategic architect, he oversees Sales, Marketing, Product Development, Finance, and Operations.
Prior to founding Rearden Commerce, he spent 10 years in various venture capital, private equity, and operational roles in the technology sector. Grady led investments in successful start-ups within the software, wireless, high-performance computing, and networking sectors. He is also on the Board of Directors of the Greater Bay Area Chapter of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.
