CED's Venture Capital Series: Speakers
Ryan Allis, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, iContact
Ryan Allis joined iContact as Chief Executive Officer as an initial founder in July 2003. iContact, an on-demand email marketing service which allows organizations of all sizes to create, send, and track email newsletters, RSS feeds, surveys, and autoresponders. Initially, Ryan consulted on the development of the iContact software through his web marketing consulting firm, Virante, Inc. Later, Ryan spearheaded the joint venture between Virante and Preation that launched iContact. As CEO, he has managed the company from its start in July 2003 to its current size, with more than 60 employees, over 11,000 customers, and over 1,500 channel partners.
Ryan is an international speaker, author, and syndicated columnist on the topics of entrepreneurship, email marketing, and search engine optimization. Ryan has been featured on ABC News and CNBC’s “The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch,” and in The Wall Street Journal, Investors' Business Daily, the Daily Times of India, Entrepreneur magazine, Success Magazine, and Young Money magazine. In 2005, he was named one of the "Top 25 Entrepreneurs Under 25" by BusinessWeek. Ryan is the founder of the Anti-Poverty Campaign, a non-profit organization dedicated to reducing poverty in developing countries, chairman of the Carolina Entrepreneurship Club, and a member of the Raleigh Chapter of the Young Entrepreneurs' Organization.
John N. Bonfiglio, Ph.D., President and Chief Executive Officer, Argos Therapeutics
John Bonfiglio joined Argos Therapeutics in 2007. Before joining Argos, Dr. Bonfiglio was President and CEO of Immune Response Corporation, where he led that company’s business development strategy and oversaw multiple clinical trials, manufacturing and the development of biologic immuno-stimulatory therapeutic agents.
Prior to joining Immune Response, Dr. Bonfiglio served as Chief Operating Officer and Executive Vice President of Cypress Bioscience, where his responsibilities included business development, marketing, research and development, clinical development, strategic direction, and budgeting. He has also served as President and CEO of Peregrine Pharmaceuticals, as Director of the Strategic Business Unit at Baxter Healthcare Corporation, and as Director of Business Planning at Allergan.
Dr. Bonfiglio holds an M.B.A. from Pepperdine University and received his Ph.D. and Masters in Organic Chemistry from University of California – San Diego. He received a Bachelors degree in Chemistry from the State University of New York – Stony Brook.
Jan Bouten, Principal, The Aurora Funds
Jan Bouten joined The Aurora Funds in 2003 as part of the investment team and focuses on information technology. At Aurora, Bouten spends his time sourcing and evaluating new investment opportunities, and he also gives strategic and marketing support to existing portfolio companies. He is on the Board of Nextreme, Digitalsmiths and Visitar and acts as an observer for Recordant, Centice and WorldCell.
In addition, Bouten serves as an adjunct associate professor at Duke's Pratt School of Engineering and frequently speaks at Duke MBA events as well as N.C. State's School of Management.
Prior to business school, Bouten worked in sales engineering and international business development at Larscom and was part of the core team that successfully built the European presence of this telecommunication equipment manufacturer. He gained hands-on experience at a startup running technical support for K-NET R&D, a video conferencing manufacturer.
Prior to that, he began his career as a support engineer and later as a marketing engineer at Madge Networks, a leading enterprise networking manufacturer. During his time as an undergraduate student, Bouten founded and ran a software and hardware engineering company.
Jud Bowman, Chief Technology Officer, Motricity, Inc.
Jud Bowman is the co-founder and chief technology officer for Motricity, and has been instrumental in raising $400 million of venture capital and growing Motricity to more than 500 employees globally. Bowman is the chief architect of one of the industry's leading mobile content delivery platforms, Fuel, that has delivered more than $1 billion of mobile content to date and been named the 2006 Best Service Delivery Platform by the GSM Association, Best Content Service Delivery Platform by Mobile Entertainment magazine and honored by Frost & Sullivan as the Premium Mobile Content Platform of the Year in 2005.
Bowman has spoken at numerous industry events across 4 continents, including the Red Herring 100 Conference, CTIA Wireless, European Technology Roundtable Exhibition (ETRE) in Athens, The Forum on Global Leadership, Wireless Strategy, Mobile Internet Summit and PCIA GlobalXchange, and is a frequent guest speaker at Duke University's Fuqua School of Business and University of North Carolina's Kenan-Flagler Business School. Bowman is also a frequent speaker for venture capital and investment banking conferences, including the Goldman Sachs Internet Conference, Lehman Brothers Worldwide Wireless and Wireline Conference, and Pacific Crest Technology Forum. Bowman has been featured in over 500 national media publications, including profiles in the Wall Street Journal, BusinessWeek, CNN/CNNfn, Red Herring, Financial Times, Wireless Week and a cover story in the December 2002 issue of Wireless Review.
Bowman has been named as one of the world's “Top 100 Young Innovators” by MIT’s Technology Review and one of “Tech's Best Young Entrepreneurs” by BusinessWeek in 2007. He was also recognized as a winner of the Carolinas' Ernst & Young “Entrepreneur of the Year” award in 2001. He is currently on leave from Stanford University, where he has been named a President's Scholar.
John Cambier, Chief Financial Officer and Senior Vice President, IDEA Fund
As Chief Financial Officer and a Senior Vice President of NC IDEA, John Cambier manages the company’s financial strategy and serves as treasurer in addition to his roles with the venture capital investment team and board participation with portfolio companies.
Over the past 12 years, Cambier has developed a deep understanding of technology commercialization and company formation with broad experience managing intellectual property, licensing and contracts. In addition, Cambier is a seasoned financial manager with operational and investment expertise.
Cambier began his career at the Microelectronics Center of North Carolina (MCNC) in 1994 as the program coordinator for advanced packaging and interconnection research and development. Cambier became the chief financial officer for both MCNC and MCNC Research and Development Institute. He played a key role in restructuring MCNC to establish three separate organizations, including a venture fund organization that led to the creation of NC IDEA, and implementing the sale of the contract research business to RTI International in March 2005.
Jason Caplain, General Partner, Southern Capitol Ventures
Jason Caplain 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, Caplain was a partner at Harrison Hurley and Company, an investment banking and business-consulting firm headquartered in Providence, RI.
Caplain is currently on the boards of eMinor and the Council for Entrepreneurial Development, which is the largest entrepreneurial support organization in the nation. While at Southern Capitol Ventures, he has also served as interim CFO for one of its portfolio companies.
Caplain 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.
Kathryne Carr, Managing Director, Tall Oaks Capital Partners
Prior to her association with Tall Oaks Capital, Kathryne co-founded Whetstone Partners, LLC in 1996 to help fund and grow new businesses in the healthcare sector. Whetstone Partners' clients included a number of seed and early stage companies that originated in several academic research institutions. Whetstone also managed Platform Technology Holdings, an investor in several medical device companies, including SmartPill Diagnostics and Minrad International (AMEX: BUF).
Ms. Carr has held several executive and managerial positions, including Vice President of Operations for Insmed Pharmaceuticals, Project Manager for Innotage Management, an investment management firm for healthcare start-up companies, and Director of Investor and Public Relations for Genetic Systems Corporation, before its acquisition by Bristol Myers. In addition, Ms. Carr was a Technical Staff member at MITRE Corporation and a Market Analyst for the Marketing Corporation of America. Her portfolio responsibilities include Aldagen, Biolex and MaxCyte.
She is a member of the Board of Directors for SEBIO, the University of Virginia Patents Foundation and for the UVa-Coulter Foundation Translational Research Program. Kathryne is a graduate of Allegheny College with a BA in Political Science in addition to graduate studies in finance at American University.
Steven Casey, Vice President, North Carolina Biotechnology Center
Steven Casey is Vice President for Statewide Operations, responsible for developing, directing and coordinating all biotechnology growth and development activities surrounding our statewide locations. These statewide offices are located in Wilmington, Greenville, Winston-Salem, Charlotte and Ashville. This statewide initiative will focus on biotechnology growth through entrepreneurialism, new company creation and company recruitment.
Casey was formerly the Business Development Director at the North Carolina Biotechnology Center where he helped to create the Technology Evaluation and Acceleration Model loan program and the Business Acceleration and Technology Outlicensing Network (BATON) which supports, streamlines and provides business-related inception activities for new companies emanating from North Carolina research organizations.
Casey is the founder and former chief operating officer of Expression Analysis, a Durham company that provides gene expression, genotyping and re-sequencing services for pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies.
Before that he was a manager with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute at Duke University. Previously he was discharged with honors from the U.S. Air Force after two decades of service. Casey has a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Wayland Baptist University and received an MBA from Elon College in 2001.
Bryan da Frota, Chief Executive Officer, Prioria, Inc.
Mr. da Frota graduated from the University of Florida in 2000 with a bachelor’s degree in business administration. In 2003, da Frota co-founded Prioria Robotics, Inc. and currently serves as CEO and president of that company. Under da Frota’s leadership, the Company became profitable in three years through negotiating strategic relationships with Fortune 500 companies, establishing international partnerships and becoming the preferred electrical engineering design partner of companies like Sanmina SCI (NASDAQ: SANM) and Unisys (NYSE: UIS).
John Fogg, Attorney, Hutchison Law Group
John Fogg is a member of Hutchison Law Group and joined the firm in September 2004 from the Silicon Valley office of Gray Cary Ware and Freidenrich, LLP, a national, technology-focused law firm, where he was a partner in the Corporate & Securities Group. Fogg's areas of specialization include initial and secondary public offerings, venture capital financings, mergers and acquisitions, corporate governance and securities compliance.
Fogg has represented a range of high-technology, telecommunications, networking, biotechnology and retail companies in connection with their initial and secondary public offerings. He has also advised companies and investors in well over a hundred private and venture capital financings across a broad array of industries and represented purchasing and selling companies in a significant number of mergers and acquisitions.
Fogg has always been interested in entrepreneurial development. While in California, he served on the Board of Legal Services for Entrepreneurs, a non-profit organization dedicated to providing pro bono legal advice to low-income entrepreneurs, and was active with The Indus Entrepreneurs chapter in Silicon Valley, where he is a charter member.
Vipin K. Garg, Ph.D., President & CEO, Tranzyme Pharma
Dr. Garg joined Tranzyme as its President and CEO in September 2000. He has over 20 years of biotechnology industry experience in both technical and management positions. Under his leadership, Tranzyme merged with a Canadian biotechnology company (NEOKIMIA Inc.) resulting in the formation of Tranzyme Pharma. Prior to joining Tranzyme, Dr. Garg was Chief Operating Officer at Apex Bioscience, Inc. (now Curacyte AG of Munich, Germany), where he was responsible for establishing a major strategic alliance with a Japanese Pharmaceutical Company and advancing the Company’s products through clinical development. Earlier he held senior management positions at DNX, Inc. [NASDAQ: DNXX], Sepracor, Inc. [NASDAQ: SEPR] and Bio-Response Inc. (acquired by Baxter). During his career Dr. Garg has been responsible for establishing a number of corporate alliances and has been involved in several financings and liquidity events, including mergers and acquisitions. He has managed operations in US, Europe and Canada. Dr. Garg serves on the board of the North Carolina Biotechnology Center. He received his Ph.D. in Biochemistry in 1982 from the University of Adelaide, Australia.
David Griest, Managing Director, SJF Ventures
David Griest is based in SJF's Durham, N.C., office. He joined SJF Ventures in June 2004. Griest serves on the board of SJF portfolio companies Rustic Crust, Telkore, Home Bistro and Salvage Direct and is an advisor to Intechra.
Griest was previously with Croft & Bender, an investment bank in Atlanta that provides venture capital, M&A and other financial advisory services for small- to mid-sized companies. He also helped manage C&B Capital, a $19 million venture capital fund.
Griest has an MBA from the Yale School of Management and a BBA in Finance from the University of Georgia.
Grant Jackson, Partner, The Aurora Funds
Grant Jackson leads The Aurora Funds healthcare services and healthcare IT investing effort. He sources new investments and works with existing portfolio companies in these areas. He is on the boards of Agility Healthcare Solutions and Valor Healthcare. Previously, Grant worked with First Analysis Corporation, an Investment Bank and Venture Capital firm in Chicago, Illinois, where he specialized in venture capital and public equity research in the healthcare services and healthcare IT sectors. His venture capital investment background includes board level experience in all stages of the portfolio company life cycle, from deal sourcing to investment exit. While at First Analysis he served on the board of Future Health Corporation and was the primary interface for CCS Medical (formerly Chronic Care Solutions).
Prior to joining First Analysis in 2001, Jackson worked with Compaq Computer Corporation in their Palo Alto, California, venture capital group. Earlier, he was a manager at Accenture, where he served on merger assessment and implementation teams, building managerial, financial, and operational skills in multiple industries. Jackson earned an MBA with distinction from Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management, where he was awarded the Siebel Scholarship, an academic achievement and leadership award given to the top five students at five of the top graduate business schools in the nation.
Justyn Kasierski, Attorney, Hutchison Law Group
Justyn Kasierski is a member of Hutchison Law Group. His practice focuses on serving start-up and emerging growth companies engaged in a wide range of technology sectors. He also represents angel investors, venture capital funds, institutional investors and investment banks in their investment and underwriting activities.
Kasierski has experience in a wide range of corporate and securities law matters, including public and private offerings of equity and debt securities, mergers and acquisitions, commercial transactions and strategic partnerships and joint ventures.
Kasierski joined Hutchison Law Group after practicing in the Boston office of Gunderson Dettmer Stough Villeneuve Franklin & Hachigian, LLP, a leading Menlo Park-based venture capital law firm.
Kasierski serves as an Executive-in-Residence in the North Carolina State University College of Management’s Technology, Entrepreneurship, and Commercialization Program.
Garheng Kong, M.D., Ph.D., Partner, Intersouth Partners
Garheng Kong joined Intersouth Partners in 2000 and focuses primarily on Intersouth’s life science portfolio. His role at Intersouth involves all aspects of venture investing. He has full-cycle investing experience, successfully sourcing, syndicating, managing and exiting investments.
Prior to joining Intersouth, Kong worked as a clinical scientist at Glaxo Wellcome. While completing his Ph.D., he worked with the Duke University Office of Science and Technology to help commercialize early stage technology. He has performed research in the fields of drug delivery, cancer therapy, bioremediation and self-assembled monolayers. He has published 10 peer reviewed scientific articles and numerous abstracts and has presented at international scientific conferences.
Kong serves on the board of directors of the North Carolina Medical Device Organization and the SEBIO organization and has served on the Duke University Medical Center Institutional Review Board.
Brooks Malone, Partner and Certified Public Accountant, Hughes Pittman & Gupton
Brooks Malone is a North Carolina CPA and Partner with Hughes Pittman & Gupton LLP (HPG), an eight partner Raleigh CPA firm that specializes in serving owner-managed and investor-backed companies and their owners, founders and executives. HPG is also a member of CPAmerica International which has 10 offices in North Carolina, 346 offices in the United States and 602 offices worldwide.
Brooks has 19 years experience having joined HPG in 1990 and was formerly with McGladrey & Pullen in Raleigh. He heads up the Knowledge-Based-Industries practice group at HPG that serves investor-backed life science, medical-device, and information-technology companies. Brooks currently serves on the Board of Directors of Directors of the Council for Entrepreneurial Development (CED) and has been a CED FastTrac Tech Instructor and Duke Start-Up Business Plan Judge for many years. Brooks is also a listed contributor to the National FastTrac Tech Curriculum that was funded by the Kauffman Foundation. Brooks was named one of the 40 Under 40 in May 2005 by the Triangle Business Journal.
Brooks is a graduate of North Carolina State University with degrees in Accounting and Business Management. He is a Durham native and currently resides in Raleigh.
Steve Nelson, Managing Director and Partner, Wakefield Group
Steve Nelson joined Wakefield Group in October 1999 as Managing Director and Partner. He established the venture capital firm’s Research Triangle Park, NC office.
Steve joined Wakefield after 19 years of executive and general management experience in technology, software and Internet-based businesses. During the last three years of his business career before starting at Wakefield, Steve was at Quokka Sports, a digital media company, in several executive capacities. Quokka raised over $140m in capital and successfully completed an IPO in July, 1999.
Steve served as chief executive of a joint venture company between NBC Sports and Quokka Sports, NBC/Quokka Ventures, LLC. Prior to Quokka, Steve served as a Vice President with Informix Software, based in Menlo Park, CA. His first business experience was 14-plus years at IBM, ultimately as Vice President and General Manager in San Francisco.
Steve is a former member of the board of directors at Constella Group, recently sold to SRA International (SRX) for $185M. He is currently a board member at Motricity, APEX Analytix, Integrian, Near-Time, rPath, FrontStream, RxMedic, Liquidia (where he also serves as CEO), and BlueCross BlueShield of North Carolina. He is past Chairman of North Carolina’s Council for Entrepreneurial Development (CED), is a current Foundation board member at the North Carolina School of Science and Math, is co-founder of North Carolina’s Innovation Association, and is a member of the Investment Advisory Committee for the State Treasurer’s office of North Carolina, helping oversee the State’s $75B investment portfolio.
Steve received his B.S. degree in Business from Wake Forest University.
Neal Page, President & CEO, Inlet Technologies
Neal has over 20 years experience in business management and product development specializing in advanced technologies for video, imaging, and computer graphics. He is a recognized leader in the streaming media industry, and founded Osprey Technologies in 1994 (now a division of ViewCast Corporation). Neal led Osprey to a majority market position by securing strategic industry partnerships, winning OEM business, and delivering world-class products to establish the Osprey brand as the industry's “de facto standard.” RealNetworks launched RealVideo® in 1997 with Osprey products.
Previously, Neal held management positions at Sun Microsystems where he led an elite Advanced Products Group to quickly deliver advanced media technology to market. Prior to that, he held senior engineering positions at Sun Microsystems, General Electric and Data General.
Neal holds BS and MS degrees in electrical and computer engineering from North Carolina State University, and has completed executive programs at the University of North Carolina's Kenan-Flagler Business School. He presently serves on the board of directors of Hauppauge Digital, Inc (NASDAQ: HAUP).
Caroline Horton Rockafellow, Attorney, Hutchison Law Group
Caroline Horton Rockafellow provides counsel to life science and information technology companies, concentrating her practice on legal issues impacting the use and commercialization of intellectual property. She speaks and writes often on intellectual property matters and is a member of numerous organizations and associations.
Prior to joining Hutchison Law Group, Rockafellow practiced at the RTP law firm of Daniels Daniels & Verdonik, in addition to serving as in-house counsel at both a biotechnology company and a software development corporation. She is the immediate past co-chair of the RTP chapter of the Licensing Executives Society (LES). Caroline is registered to practice before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
Michael Ramich, Partner, Frontier Capital
Michael Ramich is a Partner at Frontier where he is responsible for developing, analyzing, executing and monitoring investment opportunities, and has been instrumental in crafting Frontier’s extensive sourcing and monitoring process.
Prior to Frontier, Ramich was with General Electric. Through roles in corporate mergers and acquisitions, internal consulting, and operating finance, Ramich gained strategic and financial experience in a number of GE’s industrial and financial businesses.
In addition, Ramich’s initial exposure to growth capital investing came with JH Whitney in Stamford, CT. He currently serves on the Boards of Conclusive Marketing, Plan Express, and Quickparts.
Adam Smith, Vice President, Square 1 Bank
As the lead for the Square Roots program at Square 1 Bank, Adam Smith works with early stage companies and is focused on helping entrepreneurs become successful through hands-on support, strategic connections and a targeted bundle of financial services to fit their distinctive needs.
Prior to joining Square 1, Smith was Vice President of the Council for Entrepreneurial Development, the largest entrepreneurial support organization in the nation. At CED, Smith was responsible for financing strategy, program development, early stage company mentoring, strategic direction and sales. He also maintained and cultivated key customer relationships such as the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation. Smith led the Kaufman Foundation team that authored the curriculum for the FastTrac TechVenture program, a world-renowned training and mentoring program for technology and life science entrepreneurs.
In his time with Square 1 Bank and CED, Smith has worked with more than 600 early stage companies and innovators. He has over 7 years of experience working with technology and life science entrepreneurs, investors and entrepreneurial networks.
Wright Steenrod, Principal, Chrysalis Ventures
Wright joined Chrysalis in June 2001 and was promoted to Principal in 2005. At Chrysalis, Wright has worked with Ygnition, Genscape, and Appriss, among others. He focuses on media and communications. Prior to Chrysalis, Wright was Vice President of Business Development for Darwin Networks, a former Chrysalis portfolio company. From 1995 to 1998, he worked at SunTrust Bank in Atlanta as an Associate in Mergers & Acquisitions. Prior to SunTrust, he served five years in the US Marine Corps from which he was honorably discharged as Captain. Wright has a B.A. in Economics from Princeton University.
Michael Wasserman, Partner, H.I.G. Ventures
Michael Wasserman focuses on investments in therapeutics and medical devices. He is involved in all stages of the investment process and currently serves as a board member or observer for H.I.G. portfolio companies HyperBranch Medical Technology, Tranzyme Pharma, CardioFocus and Metastatix.
Prior to joining H.I.G., Wasserman was a Principal at Innovations Foundation, a firm focused on the creation, financing and growth of high technology companies in the life sciences, information technology and engineering sectors.
Wasserman has also held prominent operating roles in several entrepreneurial and venture-backed life sciences companies, including CELLutions Biosystems, where he served as Vice President, Business Development. At CELLutions, Wasserman broadly managed business operations and was directly responsible for the successful negotiation of multiple partnership, co-development and licensing agreements deals with industry leading pharmaceutical and biotechnology organizations.
Ben Weinberger, Chief Executive Officer, Digitalsmiths
Ben Weinberger co-founded Digitalsmiths in 1998, and has grown the operation from a two-person college business into a market-leading technology company. Digitalsmiths entered the entertainment industry in 2001 when it introduced its proprietary technology platform, Media Access Pro® and later InScene™, a ground-breaking software platform allowing clients to search massive amounts of film and television content in a simple and methodical way. The technology underlying InScene has enabled Digitalsmiths to develop VideoSense, an innovative product used to create contextual advertising opportunities related to broadband video. VideoSense has propelled Digitalsmiths to the cutting edge of online advertising and marketing technology.
Weinberger graduated with honors from Southern Illinois University, and serves on the board of directors for the Honors Program at Southern Illinois University.
Scot Wingo, President and CEO, ChannelAdvisor
As President and CEO of ChannelAdvisor, Scot Wingo leads the company in its mission to provide retailers and manufacturers with the software and services needed to successfully sell their products via online sales channels. Prior to launching ChannelAdvisor, Scot played a role as the General Manager of GoTo Auctions, CEO and co-founder of AuctionRover.com (acquired by GoTo.com) and CEO and co-founder of Stingray Software (acquired by RogueWave).
Scot received a Bachelor of Computer Science degree from the University of South Carolina and Masters in Computer Science degree from North Carolina State University. Scot has received numerous awards including Ernst and Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year and Triangle Business Journal’s 40 under 40.
Janet Yang, Principal, Novak Biddle
Janet Yang joined Novak Biddle Venture Partners in 2006. Yang started her investment career on Wall Street as a sell-side equity research analyst for Merrill Lynch and later Salomon Smith Barney, where she was a top-ranked analyst in her sector, according to fund managers’ surveys, and helped raise over $800 million for various corporations.
Prior to Novak Biddle, Yang worked closely with William H. Draper, III in San Francisco-based venture capital firm, Draper Richards, focusing on early-stage technology investments in the United States and India.
Yang brings substantial international experience, as well as operating experience, to Novak Biddle. She has over 10 years of work experience in Asia, in particular, the Greater China region. While in Asia, Yang held various senior executive positions at PCCW, the largest telecommunications company in Hong Kong. Her experience included being the CFO of an IT outsourcing company in partnership with China Telecom and PCCW.