Steve Case
CEO, Revolution LLC; Chairman, Startup America Partnership
Steve Case is one of America's most accomplished entrepreneurs and philanthropists. Steve co-founded America Online in 1985, and under his leadership, AOL became the world's largest and most valuable Internet company. In 2005, Steve founded Revolution LLC, focused on investing in and building disruptive, innovative, consumer-facing companies. Steve also chairs the Startup America Partnership and is a member of President Obama's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness, two efforts focused on celebrating and accelerating entrepreneurship. In addition, Steve chairs the Case Foundation, which seeks to tap new technologies and entrepreneurial approaches to help strengthen the social sector.
Kevin Chew
Vice President & Managing Director, EMC Ventures
As Managing Director of EMC Ventures, Kevin is responsible for capital placements, deal syndication and managing portfolio companies to successful exits.
With 24 years of high-tech industry experience, he has been instrumental in the development, management and marketing of some of the industry's most respected software products.
Prior to forming the venture team, Kevin was Vice President of Business Development for the Content Management and Archiving Division of EMC. Prior to Documentum/EMC, Kevin was in Business Development and Product Management roles at Vignette and OnDisplay. Kevin contributed to OnDisplay's $1.3B IPO and subsequent acquisition by Vignette.
Before Vignette, Kevin was Director of Product Strategy at Peoplesoft, growing the ESA business to $40M+ per year in revenue. Kevin was responsible for all outbound marketing, inbound product management, sales enablement, presales and postsales implementation.
Kevin graduated from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, with a Bachelor of Science in Finance and Management of Information Systems. He also holds an MBA from the University of Southern California. Outside of work, Kevin is a husband, father of two and a professional musician.
Daniel Ciporin
Venture Partner, Canaan Partners
Dan Ciporin is committed to building innovative businesses that make the Internet a more engaging place for consumers. Dan joined Canaan's Connecticut office in 2007 to invest in emerging leaders in online advertising and digital media in the New York corridor, as well as in communications infrastructure companies that deliver interactive content to connected consumers.
Dan brings two decades of executive-level operational experience to Canaan. He was the former Chairman and CEO of Shopping.com, the pioneer in online comparison shopping, where he oversaw growth from zero to over $100 million in revenues in just five years, culminating in the company's IPO in October 2004 and later acquisition by eBay for $680MM in 2005. Previously, Dan served as chairman of the Internet Lab, a US-Israeli incubator for early-stage consumer Internet startups, and as Senior VP of MasterCard International, where he was responsible for the marketing and product management of all online global debit products, and as a strategy consultant for both Mars and Co. and Corporate Value Associates.
At Canaan, Dan sits on the board of Lending Club, an innovative online lending community where people borrow and lend money, bypass the banks, and get better rates; OpenSky, a social shopping platform that helps consumers discover and buy great products through established tastemakers and curators that fill their interests in categories such as Food, Style, Healthy Living and Home & Design; Gemvara, a web-based service that is revolutionizing the jewelry market through 'Mass Customization' by empowering consumers to design fully personalized, high-quality jewelry; and Peer39, the global leader in semantic advertising solutions.
Dan earned an AB from Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and an MBA from Yale University. Dan is committed to improving the lives of people living in poverty in Southeast Asia. After serving in 1980 as Director of Educational Programs for the UN-funded Sakaeo Refugee Camp in Thailand, where he lived in a teak stilt house in the middle of a remote rice paddy, Dan has continued to support volunteer organizations in that part of the world.
Matt Lauzon
Founder & CEO of Gemvara
While still an undergrad at Babson College, Matt Lauzon and a fellow classmate co-founded Paragon Lake, a platform developed to streamline the manufacturing process for independent retail jewelry stores across the country. Paragon Lake launched in 2006; the company installed computer kiosks inside retail stores so customers could virtually create tailored pieces otherwise not kept in stock by the retailer.
In 2010, Matt transformed Paragon Lake into what Gemvara is today; a direct-to-consumer, online retailer of customizable fine jewelry. His "meCommerce" vision provides everyone with a seamless online shopping experience to discover the perfect piece of jewelry. Taking notes from how Dell transformed PC customization, Zappos revolutionized online customer service and Netflix used targeted data to meet customer needs, Matt is changing the way jewelry is bought and sold, leading Gemvara to become the world's fastest growing online jeweler. Gemvara was officially launched in March 2010 and Matt has already secured three rounds of funding totaling over $25M in financing from Highland Capital Partners, Canaan Partners and Balderton Capital. He is one of the only company founders in the New England area, under age 30, to obtain VC funding in the past five years.
Matt earned a B.S. in Business Management from Babson College where he was an Arthur M. Blank Scholar. He was also on the winning team for the John H. Muller Jr. Business Plan Competition and was awarded the Shelby Cullom Davis prize for social entrepreneurship. Most recently, Babson College awarded Matt with its Distinguished Alumni Award.
Matt served on the 2010 Future Leaders Group for the Massachusetts Innovation & Technology Exchange and the Advisory Board for the annual Nantucket Conference, which brings together entrepreneurs and innovators, and was also an honoree on Inc. Magazine's 2011 "30 Under 30" list."
Peter Levine
General Partner, Andreessen Horowitz
Peter Levine is a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz, a venture capital firm that helps entrepreneurs become successful CEOs and build important and enduring companies. Andreessen Horowitz provides seed, venture and growth-stage funding to the best new technology companies and has $2.7 billion under management across three funds. Among its over 90 investments are Airbnb, Apptio, Box, Facebook, Foursquare, Jawbone, Lytro, Pinterest, Silver Tail Systems, Twitter and Zynga.
Peter was previously senior vice president and general manager of the Data Center and Cloud Division at Citrix, where he was responsible for revenue, product management, business development and strategic direction. Peter joined Citrix in 2007 through its $500 million acquisition of XenSource, the leading provider of enterprise-class open source virtualization software. Previously, he served as XenSource's CEO, leading its 600 employees and establishing strategic agreements for the XenServer product family with customers such as Microsoft, Symantec, HP, NEC and Dell.
Prior to XenSource, Peter was a general partner at the Mayfield Fund. Before Mayfield, Peter was an early employee of VERITAS Software. During his 11-year tenure with the company, he helped to grow the organization to over 5,000 employees and more than $1.5 billion in revenue. Peter served as executive vice president and was responsible for worldwide marketing, OEM sales, business development and several product divisions. Peter began his career as a software engineer at Spectrum Software and was later a software engineer at MIT's Project Athena.
Peter holds a B.S. in Engineering from Boston University and attended the Sloan School of Management at MIT. He is also currently a management lecturer at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and a former entrepreneurship lecturer at the Sloan School. He serves on the boards of Actifio and Bromium and blogs at http://peter.a16z.com/.
Jesse Lipson
Founder, ShareFile; GM of Data Sharing, Citrix Systems
A self-taught software programmer, Jesse has been a full-time entrepreneur since the age of 23. His first venture was Rapidata.net, a pharmaceutical market research company, where he served as President and CEO. In just two years, he helped grow revenues at Rapidata.net by over 500% and laid the foundation for the company's acquisition by Greenfield Online in early 2005. Jesse also co-founded a web development company, novelProjects, before launching ShareFile in late 2005. In 6 years, ShareFile has grown from zero to almost 20,000 customers, 140 full-time employees, and over 4 million users with no funding. In October 2011, ShareFile was acquired by Citrix Systems (CTXS) and Jesse became GM of Data Sharing at Citrix. Jesse graduated Magna Cum Laude from Duke University with a degree in philosophy in 2000.
Marten Mickos
CEO, Eucalyptus Systems
Marten Mickos is CEO of Eucalyptus Systems, the leader in open source cloud computing platforms for on-premise use. Previously as CEO of MySQL AB, Marten grew that company from a garage start-up to the second largest open source company in the world. After the acquisition by Sun Microsystems of MySQL AB for $1 billion, he served as Senior Vice President of Sun's Database Group.
Marten holds a M.Sc. in technical physics from Helsinki University of Technology in his native Finland. He is a recipient of the Audemars Piguet "Changing Times Award: European Entrepreneur of the Year 2006" and the Nokia Foundation Award.
Michael Olson
CEO, Cloudera
Mike was formerly CEO of Sleepycat Software, makers of Berkeley DB, the open source embedded database engine. Mike spent two years at Oracle Corporation as Vice President for Embedded Technologies after Oracle’s acquisition of Sleepycat in 2006. Prior to joining Sleepycat, Mike held technical and business positions at database vendors Britton Lee, Illustra Information Technologies and Informix Software. Mike has Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Computer Science from the University of California at Berkeley.
Mark Templeton
President & CEO, Citrix
Mark Templeton is president and CEO of Citrix Systems, the leading provider of virtualization, networking and cloud computing technologies that let people work and play from anywhere on any device. Templeton leads the Citrix mission to create better ways for people, IT and business to work using virtual meetings, desktops and datacenters. He is responsible for the company’s vision, market direction, product strategy and passion for customer care. In addition, he guides the company’s unique culture by emphasizing values of respect, integrity, innovation and fun.
Templeton joined Citrix in 1995 as vice president of marketing, prior to the company’s initial public offering. He was appointed president in 1998 and chief executive officer in 2001. Under his leadership, Citrix has been transformed from a $15 million organization with one product, one customer segment and one go-to-market path, to a global powerhouse with revenues of nearly $2 billion. Today, Citrix virtualization, networking and cloud computing products reach 230,000 enterprise customers and 100 million corporate desktops, and touch 75 percent of all Internet users each day. Citrix partners with more than 10,000 companies in more than 100 countries and employs nearly 6,000 people around the globe.
Templeton holds a bachelor’s degree in product design from North Carolina State University and an MBA from the University of Virginia, Darden School of Business. He is a passionate participant in many community and charitable organizations and serves on the board of directors of Equifax (NYSE: EFX).
A popular and provocative speaker, Templeton has shared his perspective and technology vision with audiences at events such as CIO 100 and Interop, as well as the bi-annual Citrix Synergy™ user and Citrix Summit™ partner conferences. He has received numerous leadership awards, such as the AeA Abacus Award for Outstanding High-Tech Executive, “Businessperson of the Year” (EVIE Award) and the Excalibur Award.
Jim Whitehurst
President & CEO, Red Hat
Jim Whitehurst was named President and Chief Executive Officer of Red Hat in December 2007.
Before joining Red Hat, Whitehurst held various positions at Delta Airlines, most recently as Chief Operating Officer, responsible for Operations, Sales and Customer Service, Network and Revenue Management, Marketing and Corporate Strategy. Prior to joining Delta, Whitehurst served as Vice President and Director of The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and held various leadership roles in their Chicago, Hong Kong, Shanghai and Atlanta offices.
A native of Columbus, Georgia, Whitehurst graduated from Rice University in Houston, Texas, with a bachelor's degree in Computer Science and Economics. He also attended Friedrich-Alexander University in Erlangen, Germany, holds a general course degree from the London School of Economics and an MBA from Harvard Business School.
