Chairman's Service Award

• Jason Caplain
  Co-Founder and General Partner, Southern Capitol Ventures
• Kent Christison
  Partner, Kennedy Covington Lobdell Hickman LLP

Jason Caplain
Co-Founder and General Partner, Southern Capitol Ventures

Jason is a general partner and co-founded Southern Capitol Ventures after spending two years at Red Hat, the world's premier open source and Linux provider. There, he directed the company's global budgeting process, provided financial analysis for the successful IPO in August 1999 and performed due diligence on many of the company's acquisitions. Prior to Red Hat, Jason was a partner at Harrison Hurley and Company, an investment banking and business-consulting firm headquartered in Providence, RI. Jason was on the board of directors of Synthematix which was acquired by Symyx Technologies (NASDAQ:SMMX) and a board observer for Batanga which merged with Planeta Networks. He is currently on the board of eMinor, a board observer for DoublePositive and serves on the Executive Committee of the board of directors of the Council for Entrepreneurial Development which is the largest entrepreneurial support organization in the nation. While at Southern Capitol Ventures, he has had several interim roles with portfolio companies including CFO and Director of Business Development. Jason writes a monthly column for TechJournal South, has a blog, SoutheastVC, and he has received the Triangle Business Journal's “40 under 40” leadership award. He is also an affiliate faculty member as part of the Engineering Entrepreneurs Program at NC State University.

Kent Christison
Partner, Kennedy Covington

Kent is a partner in the business law department and partner-in-charge of the Raleigh and Research Triangle Park offices. He was formerly the chair of the firm's business and technology practice group. Kent focuses his practice on business law including corporate and partnership/LLC law, mergers and acquisitions, venture capital, private equity, strategic alliances and finance. Kent has served as outside general counsel for numerous business clients, as well as tax exempt entities, and coordinated their operational and transactional legal service needs in such capacity. In addition to his responsibilities as a partner, Kent served as Interim General Counsel and Secretary of MCNC (formerly known as Microelectronics Corporation of North Carolina) during 2001-2002. He has managed, negotiated, and closed multiple transactional matters, including business entity formation and capitalization, mergers and acquisitions, private debt and equity investments, strategic alliances, credit facilities, and tech transfer. He has also worked with licensing transactions in a variety of industries, including banking, manufacturing, plastics, information technology, and other industries. Kent is a member of the Board of Directors and Executive Committee of the Council for Entrepreneurial Development.