Brad Adams

Before joining KPMG, Mr.Adams was a Director of Business Development for Newmediary, Inc., a provider of on-line directory solutions for leading publishers, portals and communities. At Newmediary, he was responsible for developing strategic partnerships primarily with companies in the procurement and B2B marketplace sectors. Prior to Newmediary, Mr. Adams was a Vice President in the Technology Investment Banking Group for Advest, Inc. During his tenure at Advest, Mr. Adams specialized in initial public offerings, private placements and merger and acquisition advisory assignments for middle market technology companies.

Mr. Adams is proficient in Japanese and has lived and worked in Japan. He is a Series 7, 63 and 24 Registered Principal with FINRA, as well as a Chartered Financial Analyst. Mr. Adams graduated from Bates College and received his MBA from Cornell University. 

Rob Adler is Chief Executive Officer of go2Media. With a successful track record in high technology, Mr. Adler has held senior positions at the executive level for nearly 20 years. When 80108 Media - a local mobile content company he helped co-found in 2006 - merged with go2, Mr. Adler was appointed CEO.

Before 80108 Media, Mr. Adler co-founded CCBN; a business unique in enabling online direct communications between public companies and the investment community, serving as its President from inception through acquisition by Thomson Financial in 2004.

David Barlow is Chairman and CEO of Molecular Insight Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Molecular Insight is an emerging biopharmaceutical company focused on developing innovative molecular imaging pharmaceuticals and targeted radiotherapeutics for cancer. He joined Molecular Insight in March 2000 as Chairman and added the CEO responsibilities in January 2003.

Mr. Barlow has over twenty-five years of distinguished service in the global biopharmaceutical industry that includes building high performance companies and developing, launching and marketing successful products in the US and global market. Mr. Barlow was previously President, Pharmaceuticals, Sepracor Inc. where he was instrumental in the conception and implementation of a strategy that created the first fully integrated chemistry-based pharmaceutical company in decades. During his six-year tenure, which ended in late 1999, Sepracor's valuation increased from roughly $80 million to nearly $5 billion. Over this period Sepracor Pharmaceuticals grew from thirty employees to several hundred; including a full R&D, sales and marketing capability. Substantial corporate partnerships were also created with companies such as Schering-Plough, Eli Lilly and J&J, and over $500 million was raised in the public markets.

From 1988 to 1991, Mr. Barlow was responsible for transforming Rhone-Poulenc Rorer's global Armour Division from an unprofitable commodity business into the corporation's most profitable entity by redefining and rebuilding the business based on novel strategies. He has also held management positions in business development, planning and marketing for Rorer Group, Pfizer Inc., and the ARES Serono Group.

Mr. Barlow serves as a Trustee of Bates College, McLean Hospital, and Newton Country Day School and is a member of the President's Council at Massachusetts General Hospital.  He earned his M.B.A. from Stanford University Graduate School of Business where he is a frequent lecturer on strategic public policy and the biopharmaceutical industry.  He also earned his B.A. from Bates College.

Murray Beach is President and co-founder of Boston Corporate Finance. He has over twenty-five years of experience in negotiating, structuring, valuing and closing mergers and acquisitions, financings, strategic alliances, and joint ventures. Over his career, he has closed over 100 M&A transactions and over 100 financings with companies in the Technology, Healthcare, Consumer Products and Financial Services industries. Prior to founding Boston Corporate Finance, Mr. Beach was a Group Head of Corporate Finance for KPMG, serving Technology clients of KPMG around the globe.

Before joining KPMG in 2000, Mr. Beach was the Head of Investment Banking at Advest, Inc. and also managed Advest's Technology Team. In addition to his Investment Banking duties, he was a Member of the Board of Directors of Advest, a member of the Executive Committee, was President of Advest Capital, Inc. and was responsible for establishing both a Venture Capital fund and a buyout fund. Beyond his investment banking and venture capital work, Mr. Beach has been an expert witness on the valuation of companies, their stock and intellectual property on many occasions, testifying in both Federal and State Courts.

Mr. Beach is an expert in closing international transactions, and currently serves as President of M&A International Inc., a consortium of 42 investment banks from 38 countries around the world which collaborate on cross border transactions for global leaders in the middle market. He has also served as President of the Connecticut Venture Group and as a member of the Board of Directors of the Connecticut Technology Council. He earned his CPA in 1983 and is registered as a principal with FINRA.  Mr. Beach has an AB with Honors from Harvard University and received his MBA from the Amos Tuck School at Dartmouth College.

Erik Brooks, Partner, joined ABRY Partners LLC in 1999 with eight years of private equity investment experience. Mr. Brooks has been integrally involved in the acquisition, oversight and divestiture of media and entertainment companies, including television broadcasting, business-to-business media, monitoring and telecommunications entities.

Prior to joining ABRY, he was Vice President at NCH Capital, a private equity investment fund, from 1995 to 1999. Mr. Brooks received an MBA from Harvard Business School and graduated as a Bennett Scholar, magna cum laude, from Brown University.

Jeff Bussgang is a General Partner at IDG Ventures Boston whose investment interests and entrepreneurial experience are in consumer, Internet commerce, marketing services, software and wireless start-ups. He currently represents IDG Ventures Boston on the boards of 80108 Media, BzzAgent, Click Tactics, i4cp InnerWireless, Mall Networks, SimpleTuition, and Transpera and was previously a director at Brontes Technologies (acquired by 3M) and PanGo Networks (merged with InnerWireless).

Mr. Bussgang's blog on helping demystify the venture business for entrepreneurs, "Seeing Both Sides", can be found at www.bostonvcblog.com.

Prior to joining IDG Ventures in January 2003, Mr. Bussgang co-founded Upromise (acquired by Sallie Mae), a loyalty marketing and financial services firm that grew to manage over $11 billion in assets, where he served as President, Chief Operating Officer and Board Director. Prior to Upromise, Mr. Bussgang was an executive at Open Market, an Internet commerce software leader that went public in 1996 and grew to nearly $100 million in revenues. During his five year tenure, he served as Vice President of Worldwide Marketing and Business Development, Vice President of Worldwide Professional Services and head of Product Management. Prior to Open Market, Mr. Bussgang was with the strategy consulting firm, The Boston Consulting Group, and served on the executive team of Athena Design, an object-oriented software start-up.

Mr. Bussgang is co-chair of the Progressive Business Leaders Network and vice chairman of the board of an educational non-profit, Facing History and Ourselves. Jeff is also the author of "Ruling The Net", a 1996 Harvard Business Review article predicting the development of Internet commerce. Mr. Bussgang holds a BA in Computer Science from Harvard University where he graduated magna cum laude and an MBA from Harvard Business School where he was a Baker Scholar and a Ford Scholar.

Wendy Caswell joined ZINK Imaging, Inc. in the fall of 2005 as the President and Chief Executive Officer. She is leveraging 20 years of significant achievement and experience in the high technology industry to cultivate and extend the partner and investor network. Ms. Caswell also will ensure that the corporate infrastructure matures appropriately and that day-to-day operations will maximize the probability of success.

Prior to this appointment, Ms. Caswell was Executive Vice President leading Corporate Strategy & Business Development activities for Polaroid Corporation. There she led all the initiatives aimed at expanding the scope of Polaroid's business and spearheaded the incubation of ZINK. She also co-led the sale of Polaroid to Petters Group Worldwide.

Ms. Caswell joined Polaroid from Ammasso, Inc. a venture-funded company that she co-founded to develop Ethernet-based networking interconnect products for the clustered computing industry. Prior to Ammasso, Ms. Caswell persuaded fifteen global technology companies to co-fund and launch Converge, Inc., a high-tech industry business-to-business exchange focused on improving supply chain efficiencies. Ms. Caswell joined Converge from Compaq Computer Corporation. At Compaq Wendy served as Vice President of Corporate Strategy and directed a global team to drive major strategy initiatives, business acquisitions, new business incubation, and strategy communications. Prior to Compaq, she served 12 years in positions with increasing responsibility at Digital Equipment Corporation where she helped incubate and grow leading software and Internet businesses culminating in her appointment as Vice President of Corporate Strategic Planning.

Robyn C. Davis is an experienced global business advisor, active private equity investor and portfolio manager.  Since 2000, she has been a Managing Director of Angel Healthcare Investors, LLC, a highly recognized and successful investment group. Angel Healthcare is comprised of 48 Boston-based healthcare entrepreneurs, executives, and investment professionals that share an enthusiasm and unique insight to nurture early-stage businesses in the healthcare and biotech arena. Ms. Davis and the group have invested over $30 mm in twenty-eight ventures and work actively with the portfolio companies through board representation and advisory roles. Ms. Davis is a founding member of the Angel Capital Association, has been published on the rise of organized investment groups in the alternative investment sector and is a frequent industry speaker.

In addition, Ms. Davis has consulted to the largest, most profitable financial services firms as well as growth-oriented companies in a wide range of industries. Currently, she is also co-founder and Managing Director of Higher Aims, a boutique firm allowing top-tier, high caliber MBA's the opportunity to work flexibly with corporate clients and employers on critical strategic, financial and operational initiatives. Prior to 1996, Ms. Davis was a Director of the Merchant Banking Services Emerging Markets practice for Barents Group, LLC and also worked as a strategy consultant at Bain & Company. Ms. Davis graduated from Tufts University, attended L'Institut d'Etudes Politiques, and received her M.B.A. from Harvard University.  

Christopher Dean is a General Partner in Summit Partners' Boston office. Mr. Dean joined Summit Partners in 2001. 

Prior to Summit, he worked for Morgan Stanley, J.H. Whitney & Co., and Sun Microsystems.

Mr. Dean's board directorships and investments include Aurora Diagnostics, Champion Windows, Commercial Defeasance, FleetCor Technologies, InstallShield Software, Liquidnet Holdings, OnSite E-Discovery, optionsXpress Holdings, PSC Info Group, and Senior Home Care.

He received his B.A. from the University of Notre Dame and his M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.

Summit Partners (www.summitpartners.com) is a private equity and venture capital firm with offices in Boston, Palo Alto, and London. Formed in 1984, the firm has raised nearly $9 billion in capital in its private equity, venture capital, and subordinated debt funds. Summit has provided growth equity, recapitalization, and  management buyout financing to more than 290 growing companies, which have completed nearly 125 public offerings and in excess of 105 strategic mergers or sales. Summit Partners seeks outstanding management teams that have self-financed their companies to profitability and market leadership.

Sunil Dhaliwal is a General Partner at Battery Ventures. Mr. Dhaliwal joined Battery in 1998 and focuses on investments in IT infrastructure and financial services. He is currently a board member at Fintura, MRU Holdings (NASDAQ: UNCL), Neocleus (observer) and Netezza Corporation (NYSE Arca: NZ) and previously served as a director or board observer at CipherTrust, Inc. (acquired by Secure Computing), Storigen Systems (acquired by EMC), @stake (acquired by Symantec) and Storability Software (acquired by StorageTek). Mr. Dhaliwal has also been involved with other Battery investments including Cbeyond (NASDAQ: CBEY) and Akara (acquired by Ciena).

Prior to joining Battery, Mr. Dhaliwal worked in the High Technology Group at Alex Brown & Sons, Inc., where he executed numerous equity financings and mergers and acquisitions in the communications and software industries. Mr. Dhaliwal graduated from Georgetown University with a BS in Finance and International Business.

David Friend is President and CEO of Carbonite, Inc., a Boston-based startup that markets “Online PC Backup.” Mr. Friend has been a successful entrepreneur and angel investor in the technology and communications industries for over 25 years. Mr. Friend co-founded Sonexis, Inc., (with Jeff Flowers) in 1999 and was Chairman, President and CEO until 2003. Sonexis is a leading manufacturer of teleconferencing and web conferencing equipment. From 1995 to 1999, Mr. Friend was CEO, co-founder (with Mr. Flowers) and Chairman of FaxNet Corporation, a leading supplier of messaging services to the telecommunications industry. FaxNet was selected by Upside magazine as one of the “Hot 100” private U.S. companies in 1999 and was sold in 1999 for approximately $240 million.

From 1984 to 1994, Mr. Friend was Chairman, CEO and co-founder (with Mr. Flowers) of Pilot Software, Inc., which was sold in 1995 to Dun & Bradstreet Corporation.  Pilot pioneered executive information systems (“EIS”) and multi-dimensional databases, a technology that allowed large retail chains to analyze sales data in new ways. 

Prior to co-founding Pilot, Mr. Friend was Chairman and co-founder of Computer Pictures Corporation, whose “Trend-Spotter” software was among the first to apply computer graphics to business data.  Computer Pictures was bought by Cullinet Corporation (now part of Computer Associates).  Prior to Computer Pictures, Mr. Friend was co-founder and President of ARP Instruments, Inc., an audio hardware manufacturer and leading manufacturer of synthesizers whose customers included many well-known musicians, including the Who, Led Zeppelin and Stevie Wonder.  Mr. Friend is recognized in the musical instrument industry as having been a leading force in ushering in the era of electronic musical instruments.

Mr. Friend has raised over $125 million of venture capital for his various companies and has been an active venture investor. Mr. Friend is on the boards of several private and public high-tech companies.  Mr. Friend has been featured in USA Today, Tech Capital, The Boston Globe, Mass HiTech, Fortune, Forbes and Tom Peter's best-selling management book, The Pursuit of Wow!  Mr. Friend received his first US patent at the age of 19 (while working at the RCA Sarnoff Research Laboratories) for a bipolar active filter design that is now referred to in engineering texts as the “Friend filter.”

Mr. Friend has been a lecturer at MIT's Sloan School of Management and is an active supporter of music and arts in Boston.  Mr. Friend is a trustee emeritus of the New England Conservatory and Berklee College of Music, to which Mr. Friend gifted the David Friend Recital Hall, and is on the boards of the Boston Chamber Music Society and Boston Baroque.  He is currently a Trustee of the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C.

Mr. Friend holds a bachelor's degree in engineering from Yale University, where Mr. Friend was one of fifteen Scholars of the House and a member of the Aurelian Honor Society, and attended the Princeton University Graduate School of Engineering, where Mr. Friend was a David Sarnoff Fellow.  He is an avid marathoner, distance cyclist, windsurfer, and hiker. 

Dr. Bernd Geiger is a Founding Partner of Triangle Venture Capital Group Management to which he brings more than 20 years of operational experience in industry, science and venture capital. Dr. Geiger is a specialist in software and physical technologies. He has successfully commercialized these technologies, holding management responsibilities in R&D, marketing and sales.

From 1996 to 1998, Dr. Geiger was head of the microscopy OEM product business at medical device manufacturer Carl Zeiss. From 1992 to 1996, he was with the VC financed university spin-off Leica Lasertechnik, where he headed the development of next-generation laser scanners, leading a global development team. In 1987, Dr. Geiger started his research work at the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ), Heidelberg, in the interdisciplinary field of medical imaging. Dr. Geiger studied physics in Berlin, Ypsilanti (Michigan, USA) and Heidelberg. He completed his PhD in natural sciences in 1992 at the University of Heidelberg.

Triangle is the only German VC that focuses exclusively on seed/startup university and research spin-offs. Triangle's partners conducted 70 transactions (first-, follow-on rounds and exits) in 15 companies over the past 10 years.

Josh Hamermesh has served as Vice President of Commercial and Business Development at Molecular Insight Pharmaceuticals, Inc. a leader in the discovery, development and commercialization of innovative and targeted radiotherapeutics and molecular imaging pharmaceuticals that improve disease detection, management and overall patient care, since May 2005. During that time, he has worked on the in-licensing of two drugs from large pharmaceutical companies – Onalta™, a targeted radiotherapy for neuroendocrine tumors, from Novartis; and Solazed™, a targeted radiotherapy for malignant melanoma, from Bayer Schering Pharma.

From 1999 to 2005, he worked at Genzyme Corporation, where he was the Business Director, Cardiac Cell Therapy and Chief Operating Officer of the company's MG Biotherapeutics unit.

Mr. Hamermesh held several cardiovascular product marketing and business development positions at Genzyme, including Director, Cardiovascular Business Development and Marketing Manager, Genzyme Surgical Products. Previously, he was a strategy consultant at Monitor Company. Mr. Hamermesh received a B.A. from Amherst College and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.

Harald Horgen is an acknowledged expert in the field of helping technology companies expand internationally, and with over 25 years of global experience he has learned what it takes to succeed in the global market. As the President and founder of The York Group, an international business development organization with offices and partners in 26 countries, Harald speaks from experience. He has been personally involved in setting up channels in Europe, Asia, Latin America and Africa. He has worked with clients of all sizes, from small start-ups to industry giants such as Microsoft, Intuit, Dell, and Honeywell. His clients have come from more than a dozen countries, including the U.S., the UK, France, South Africa, Australia and India.

A native and citizen of Norway, Harald attended high school in London, Canada, business school in Oslo and graduate school in Arizona. Fluent in English, Norwegian and French, he lived in France for 14 years before moving to Lexington in 2004.

Zenas Hutcheson is Senior Managing Director at Vesbridge Partners, LLC an early stage venture fund with offices in Boston and Minneapolis. Mr. Hutcheson has been involved with high-tech venture companies since 1981 as an investor, board member, CEO and consultant.

Before forming Vesbridge, Mr. Hutcheson was SPVC's Co-Managing General Partner and the Managing General Partner of the NITI group within SPVC. Zenas joined SPVC in 1997. Prior to joining SPVC, he was an independent consultant and turnaround specialist in the high-tech arena for nearly 20 years and started his career at Bain & Co (1979-81) and BoNY (1975-78). Mr. Hutcheson has a BA in Chemistry from Dartmouth College and an MBA from the University of Chicago.

Oscar Jazdowski is currently a Senior Relationship Manager at Silicon Valley Bank and has spent over 25 years financing technology companies at all stages of development, from young venture-backed startups to large multinational companies. Mr. Jazdowski joined Silicon Valley Bank in 2002 as a senior relationship manager focused on the Boston software industry. Silicon Valley Bank is the pre-eminent bank providing innovative banking and financial products and services to emerging growth and middle-market technology companies, focusing primarily on venture-backed technology and life science companies and the venture capital community. Having started his career with Bank of Boston in the U.K., Mr. 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.

Between 1989 and 1993, Mr. Jazdowski ran Bank of Boston's Silicon Valley office in Palo Alto, Calif., where he oversaw the development of numerous relationships with prominent Silicon Valley technology companies. In 1996, Mr. Jazdowski started the East Coast Technology Group of Imperial Bank (now Comerica) in providing debt financing and other financial services to young, emerging, venturebacked companies. In 2000, Mr. Jazdowski opened and spent two years running the East Coast office for Sand Hill Capital in Boston, focused on providing short term bridge financing to venturebacked technology companies.

Jon Lemelman is a General Partner at Riverside Partners LLC. Mr. Lemelmann has more than 13 years of experience in private equity, technology, and financial services. He joined Riverside in early 2004. Previously, Mr. Lemelman worked at Fidelity Strategic Investments, the private equity division of Fidelity Investments, where he worked on investments in the software, manufacturing and healthcare industries. Prior to Fidelity, he was the Director of Business Development at Reciprocal, Inc., an enterprise software company that was acquired by Microsoft in 2001.

From 1995 to 1999, Mr. Lemelman was a Vice President in Fidelity's Institutional Sales group. Mr. Lemelman holds a Bachelor of Business Administration, with distinction, from Emory University and a Master of Business Administration from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania.

Steven Levine is President and CEO of EarlyBirdCapital, Inc. and Head of Investment Banking. His primary focus is on private placements, public offerings, restructurings, mergers and acquisitions and financial advisory work.

Prior to EarlyBirdCapital, Mr. Levine was Vice President of Investment Banking at Southeast Research Partners, Inc., an investment banking and research firm with offices in New York and Florida that specialized in institutional research and sales, covering middle market private and public companies. In February of 2000, together with Mr. Nussbaum, Mr. Levine launched EarlyBirdCapital to focus on financing and advisory opportunities with small and mid-market private and public companies. From 1980 to 1991 he headed a New York-based food distribution company, a role that gave him hands-on experience in running a mid-sized business.

Mr. Levine serves on the board of Cancer 101 a non profit organization that provides assistance to newly diagnosed cancer patients. Mr. Levine earned his B.A. from George Washington University and his J.D., magna cum laude, from George Mason University School of Law. He is a member of the Virginia State Bar and the District of Columbia Bar.

James Maynard is a Boston-based Managing Director at Silicon Valley Bank Capital and parent SVB Financial Group. Mr. Maynard is responsible for identifying Limited Partnership and direct co-investment opportunities for SVB Capital and its affiliated private equity funds.

Additionally, Mr. Maynard facilitates the SVB's core business development activities with VC-backed emerging growth technology companies, as well as fosters the bank's direct business opportunities with venture capital firms and their principals. Mr. Maynard is responsible for managing some 75 northeast venture capital and private equity firm relationships for SVB Financial Group.  He chairs the SVB east coast VC advisory board for SVB.

At SVB since 1993, Mr. Maynard has been a senior commercial lender in the Communications Practice and the Software Practice. He has been a guest lecturer at MIT, Harvard Business School Xedia Corp. Case Study with Greylock Management)and Babson College (Blank Center for Entrepreneurial Studies) on the subject of equity and debt financing for emerging growth companies. He has served on the advisory board of both the New England Chapter of the National Association of Corporate Directors and Benchmark,Inc., a employment and human resources consulting firm. Prior to joining SVB, he was a commercial real estate lender at Fleet Bank in Providence and Boston for 4 years. Mr. Maynard is a 1988 graduate of Wesleyan University in Middletown, CT.

Robert Nault has served since March 2007 as vice president and general counsel of Constant Contact, Inc., a publicly traded provider of email marketing solutions for small organizations.  In his role, he oversees and provides strategic legal counsel for both internal and external business affairs, including corporate governance, business development, SEC reporting, contract matters, compliance, human resources, and future corporate planning.

Prior to joining Constant Contact, Mr. Nault served as senior vice president and general counsel at RSA Security Inc., a publicly traded provider of e-security technology solutions. Prior to that, he was vice president and general counsel at Med-i-Bank, Inc., a transaction processing software provider, and ON Technology Corporation, a publicly traded enterprise software company. He also served as senior vice president and general counsel at The Pioneer Group, Inc. and was a member of the corporate department at Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP (formerly Hale and Dorr LLP).

Mr. Nault holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Rhode Island and a Juris Doctorate from Boston University School of Law.

Gary Phillips is President and CEO of Marathon Technologies Corporation. Mr. Phillips came to Marathon with more than 20 years of experience in senior management for high technology firms. His broad experience includes sales, marketing, professional services and general management. Before joining Marathon, Mr. Phillips served as senior vice president, worldwide sales and services for Avaki, a leading enterprise integration software company.

Mr. Phillips' experience also includes serving as vice president, worldwide sales and services at Bowstreet, a pioneer in the Web services market and as vice president and general manager of the Americas at BroadVision, through the company's acquisition of Interleaf. At Interleaf he was vice president of sales and services. He also held executive sales and marketing positions with BBN Corporation, Wang Laboratories, Inc. and NCR Corporation. Mr. Phillips holds a BS in business administration and marketing from Plymouth State College.

William J. Rich is Senior Vice President of Business and Corporate Development at Bluesocket, Inc. As Senior Vice President of Business and Corporate Development, Mr. Rich is responsible for the company's strategic direction, business and corporate development goals, and aggressive growth plans.  Previously CEO of Pingtel Corp., which was acquired by Bluesocket in July 2007, Mr. Rich has a 20-year background in communications software, hardware and services.

Prior to Pingtel, Mr. Rich served as an entrepreneur-in-residence at St. Paul Venture Capital (SPVC), where he assisted with new ventures and the development of SPVC's portfolio companies, including serving as CEO of Aravox Technologies, which provided session border controllers for service provider VoIP networks. Before St. Paul, Mr. Rich was president and CEO at VocalData, a leading provider of feature servers that enable service providers to deliver next-generation IP telephony services. Earlier in his career, he was the senior vice president of marketing and senior vice president of operations development at ICG Telecom Group, where he launched the company's retail competitive local exchange services and its wholesale products. Before ICG, Mr. Rich led wholesale product marketing at WilTel and was a sell-side telecom industry analyst. Mr. Rich earned a BA in economics from the College of William and Mary.”

Chris Risley, CEO of StreamBase Systems, leads the company as it scales to support the demand for its Complex Event Processing (CEP) software. Mr. Risley joins StreamBase with over 20 years of software business experience during which he has led four startups resulting in one IPO and three sales to public companies. Most recently, Mr. Risley was the CEO of Nominum, Inc., an IP name and address software company.

Mr. Risley's background also includes service as CEO of NewChannel, an e-business service provider and as Chairman and CEO of ON Technology Corp., a network software provider. Risley led ON Technology's IPO in 1995, and within the next year, the company was listed as the 36th Fastest Growing Public Companies by INC 100. In addition, under Mr. Risley's leadership, ON's revenues grew by 2,700 percent over the next five years. Mr. Risley has also served as Entrepreneur-in-residence at Bessemer Venture Partners.

Prior to his achievements in the software industry, Mr. Risley spent 10 years with European industrial companies including BTR plc (now Invensys) and Advisor to the Chairman of British Aerospace during the company's turnaround. Mr. Risley holds a B.A. Magna Cum Laude from Cornell University and completed the Program for Management Development at the Harvard Graduate School of Business.

Bill Shaw is a Senior Managing Director for The Nasdaq Stock Market, Inc. based in Menlo Park, California. Mr. Shaw's primary responsibility in the Global Capital Markets department is developing client relations with global advisory institutions driving private companies to the public markets, including investment banking, financial sponsors and corporate advisors. This new team is the center point of communications within Nasdaq and is also involved in the business development of the company.

Since 2003, Mr. Shaw has held various positions within Nasdaq including working with CEO's and CFO's of Nasdaq listed companies in the Western United States and Canada, in the firm's Corporate Client Group. Additionally, he has worked in the Listings Group specifically concentrating on the development of relationships in the private company banking and sponsor firms of the private investment and development of regional networking events and conferences to support the listings team.

Prior to joining Nasdaq, Mr. Shaw worked for Genesis Merchant Group Securities, an investment-banking firm based in San Francisco, California. His responsibilities included trading listed and over-the-counter stocks, institutional research sales and high net worth investment management. Prior to Genesis, Mr. Shaw was president and founder of Eiger Communications, an integrated sales & marketing company based in San Francisco. Among his clients were Fortune 500 companies including Sony, Ford Motor Company, Anheuser Busch and The Chrysler Corporation.

Before 1980, Mr. Shaw built a career as an athlete competing 5 years on the FIS World Cup as a member of the United States Alpine Ski Team and 9 years on the World Pro Ski Tour, twice winning the Japan National championships. His fellow global competitors elected him to serve two terms as President of the World Pro Ski Tour. While attending Boise State University and the University of Wyoming on football and skiing scholarships, Mr. Shaw earned NCAA titles along with Hall of Fame and All American honors.

Chris Sheehan is a Managing Director of CommonAngels, joining the group in 2005. Within CommonAngels, Mr. Sheehan manages deal flow, due diligence and the investment process. He also guides the group's strategic direction and works closely with portfolio companies.  He is also a managing director of the group's two $10M venture funds.

Previously, Mr. Sheehan founded Newburyport Partners, a consulting firm that works with investors and their portfolio companies. Mr. Sheehan also served as a venture partner at Industry Ventures where he was actively involved in the acquisition and management of secondary venture investment portfolios.

Prior to starting Newburyport Partners, Mr. Sheehan 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.  He was also part of the executive team for one of the company's product divisions.  Prior to BEA, Chris led the private equity practice for the Cambridge based research firm, Stax Inc. Mr. Sheehan also spent six years with the top ranked investment bank in Australia. He started his career as an equity analyst focusing on the oil and gas sector.

Mr. Sheehan is currently either a board member or observer at Carbonite, Polnox, Outside the Classroom, Most Effective Media, Xconomy and GateRocket.  He holds a Bachelor of Commerce degree from the University of Queensland, Australia.

Stefan Wolfgang Weber is a partner with the international law firm Noerr Stiefenhofer Lutz. He heads the firm's New York representative office together with Prof. Dr. Ronald Frohne. Mr. Weber is licensed to practice law in Germany, his areas of practice encompass corporate and finance transactions. He has worked on numerous financings particularly in the semiconductor industry. Mr. Weber received his law degree from Humboldt University in Berlin and joined Noerr's Dresden office in 2001.

Noerr is an international partnership of attorneys, tax advisors, and auditors. More than 400 professionals advise companies, financial institutions, wealthy individuals, and public-sector entities in all areas of commercial law. Noerr has thirteen offices in the major commercial centers in Germany and Central and Eastern Europe. Professionals in the New York representative office serve as first point of contact to clients in the United States.

Stephen “Zam” Zamierowski is a member of Deloitte's New England technology & life sciences practice. As director of the Tech-Venture Center, he helps information technology and life sciences entrepreneurs form the professional service and capital foundations for their companies.  Before joining Deloitte, Mr. Zamierowski was vice president of marketing for a software startup. Earlier in his career, Mr. Zamierowski held a variety of senior marketing and product management positions at Data General, Progress Software and Interleaf. He began his career as a market analyst with International Data Corporation. 

Mr. Zamierowski is a speaker, judge and coach for several entrepreneurial programs at such institutions as the Mass Biotech Council, MassMEDIX, Boston College, Boston University, Harvard Business and Harvard Medical Schools, MIT, Northeastern and Tufts. He is a member of the board of directors of The Capital Network (TCN) and the New England Technology Foundation. Mr. Zamierowski is also a grant reviewer and advisor for the Mass Technology Transfer Center (MTTC).