Venture 2009 Featured Speakers
Erskine Bowles has served as president of the multi-campus University of North Carolina since January 1, 2006. Born and raised in Greensboro, N.C., he is a graduate of the University North Carolina at Chapel Hill (1967) and Columbia University’s Graduate School of Business (1969). He holds eight honorary doctorates from universities and colleges throughout America. Bowles began his business career at Morgan Stanley & Co. in New York as an associate in the corporate finance group. In that position, he saw the unfilled opportunity to provide corporate finance expertise to America’s middle-market companies. He soon returned home to North Carolina, where he founded and served as chairman and CEO of the Charlotte-based investment banking firm that became Bowles Hollowell Connor & Co. Bowles also was a founder of Kitty Hawk Capital, a venture capital company, and Carousel Capital, a middle-market private equity company.
In 1993, Bowles was appointed by President Bill Clinton to serve as director of the Small Business Administration, and later was tapped to serve as deputy White House chief of staff (1994-95) and White House chief of staff (1996-98). As chief of staff, he helped negotiate the first balanced budget in a generation. As a member of the National Economic Council and National Security Council, he helped guide domestic and foreign policy. In prior service as deputy White House chief of staff, Bowles helped direct the government’s response to the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995. After he left the White House, he also served from 1999 to 2001 as a general partner of Forstmann Little, a New York-based private equity firm. He ran for the U.S. Senate in 2002 and 2004, and currently serves on the boards of General Motors, Morgan Stanley, Cousins Properties, and NC Mutual Life Insurance Co. Bowles has shown a life-long commitment to public service in North Carolina and beyond. He helped found Dogwood Equity, chaired the Rural Prosperity Task Force, and served as a trustee of the Golden LEAF Foundation—three entities designed to bring economic development to rural North Carolina. Bowles also has served as vice chair of Carolinas Medical Center in Charlotte and as a trustee of the Duke Endowment. Family illness inspired Bowles to help lead efforts to create an ALS (Lou Gehrigs Disease) Center in Charlotte and to serve as the international president of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. In 2005, he was appointed United Nations deputy special envoy to 13 tsunami-affected countries in Southeast Asia.
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Janet Cowell is a business investment expert who has focused her public service on investing in North Carolina’s future. While Cowell is the first person in her family to be elected to public office, she comes from a tradition of public service. Her father is a retired Methodist Minister. As a member of the North Carolina Senate prior to serving as State Treasurer, Cowell protected pensions, raised teacher pay and made education more affordable for North Carolina families. Cowell earned an MBA from the Wharton School of Business and worked as a financial analyst with HSBC Bank and Lehman Brothers before making her home in North Carolina. As State Treasurer, Cowell is the sole fiduciary of approximately $60 billion in state pension assets. These assets fund the retirement of 820,000 public servants. The Pew Center for the State consistently cites North Carolina as having one of the best pension funds in the United States. Cowell also chairs the State Banking Commission and serves on the State Boards of Education and Community Colleges. Cowell is committed to helping all North Carolinians create wealth and invest in their own future by promoting financial literacy, ensuring a healthy and stable financial services sector and advocating for college affordability.
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John Denniston
Partner
Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers
John Denniston is a partner with Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. At KPCB, Denniston has worked with a wide variety of portfolio companies, with a primary emphasis on the Greentech industry. Denniston was a member of the KPCB Partner team that many years ago conceptualized and launched KPCB's Greentech investment initiative. Since then, KPCB has been an active investor in the Greentech field, having invested in start-up companies across a wide variety of sectors. Denniston is an active participant in KPCB’s Greentech Innovation Network, a network of business, academic and policy leaders who meet regularly to identify, and then pursue, the most important green technology and public policy innovations. He is actively involved in Greentech public policy issues, having testified before several Congressional committees. Denniston serves on the Board of Advisors of the National Renewable Energy Labs. He is a frequent speaker at Greentech industry conferences. Prior to joining KPCB, Denniston was a Managing Director and Head of Technology Investment Banking, Western U.S. at Salomon Smith Barney. He also served on the Investment Committees for both Salomon's venture capital direct investment fund and CitiGroup's venture capital fund-of-funds. Before that, he was a Partner at the law firm Brobeck, Phleger & Harrison, where he was the Head of the firm's Venture Capital Practice Group, co-head of its Information Technology Practice Group, and served on the Investment Committee for its venture capital fund.
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Chris Hughes
Facebook co-founder
Entrepreneur in Residence
General Catalyst Partners
As an Entrepreneur in Residence at General Catalyst Partners, Chris Hughes focuses on identifying new investment opportunities and supporting strategic business development initiatives in the areas of consumer services, Internet and new media, and disruptive technology.
Chris is a co-founder of Facebook, the largest social networking site in the world and most recently served as New Media Strategist for President Barack Obama's presidential campaign and pioneered the use of online campaigning through the political social networking site My.BarackObama.com.
He holds a bachelors degree in history and literature from Harvard College, where he graduated magna cum laude.
John G. Stumpf
President, Chief Executive Officer
Wells Fargo & Company
John Stumpf was named chief executive officer in June 2007, elected to Wells Fargo’s Board of Directors in June 2006, and has been President since August 2005. A 26-year veteran of the company, he joined the former Norwest Corporation (predecessor of Wells Fargo) in 1982 in the loan administration department and then became senior vice president and chief credit officer for Norwest Bank, N.A., Minneapolis. He held a number of management positions at Norwest Bank Minneapolis and Norwest Bank Minnesota before assuming responsibility for Norwest Bank Arizona in 1989. He was named regional president for Norwest Banks in Colorado/Arizona in 1991. From 1994 to 1998, he was regional president for Norwest Bank Texas. During his four years in that position, he led Norwest’s acquisition of 30 Texas banks with total assets of more than $13 billion. In 1998, with the merger of Norwest Corporation and Wells Fargo & Company, he became head of the Southwestern Banking Group (Arizona, New Mexico and Texas). Two years later he became head of the new Western Banking Group (Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Texas, Utah, Washington and Wyoming). In 2000, he led the integration of Wells Fargo’s acquisition of the $23 billion First Security Corporation, based in Salt Lake City. In May 2002, he was named Group EVP of Community Banking. He serves on the Board of Directors for The Clearing House, the San Francisco Committee on JOBS and the Financial Services Roundtable. He also serves on the Board of Trustees of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and is a member of the California Business Roundtable. A Minnesota native, he earned his bachelor’s degree in finance from St. Cloud State University, St. Cloud, Minnesota and his MBA with an emphasis in finance from the University of Minnesota.
PAST Featured speakers include:
- Marshall Phelps, Corporate VP of Intellectual Property at Microsoft Corp
- Ray Kurzweil, renowned inventor, futurist and author
- Robert Johnson, founder and CEO, Black Entertainment Television (BET) and owner, NBA Charlotte Bobcats
- Bob Dole, former Presidential candidate
- Mike Krzyzewski, Duke University Men’s Basketball Coach
