SVOD2006 Speakers

Yuri Ammosov
Senior Policy Officer, Russian Government

Yuri Ammosov is a senior policy officer of the Russian Government in charge of the venture capital and high tech development programs. He is the project leader for Russian Venture Company, a $500 million fund-of-funds, and worked on multiple other hi-tech incentive projects, such as technology parks, free economic zones, nanotechnology program, public IP commercialization regulation, R&D tax breaks etc. Prior to joining the government Yuri co-founded a number of tech startups in Internet, software and telecommunications, worked as a technology observer at Expert, Russia's leading business magazine, and previously worked at a number of Western and Russian investment banks, rising from an associate to a director. He has an B.A. in History from Moscow State University and an M.P.A from Princeton University.

With 16 years experience building successful companies and guiding them through to profitable outcomes, Dan Avida brings a strong operating background to Opus Capital.

Most recently, Dan was President and CEO of Decru Inc., a pioneering storage security company that Dan co-founded in 2001. Decru was acquired for $272.5M by Network Appliance (NASDAQ: NTAP) in 2005.

In 1989, Dan was a founding member of Electronics for Imaging (NASDAQ: EFII), which received its only round of venture funding from Weiss, Peck & Greer Venture Partners, in 1992. Initially, Dan led the Fiery project—the cornerstone of EFI's success. He went on to be promoted several times, ultimately to Chairman and CEO. Under Dan's leadership, EFI experienced five years of dramatic, consecutive growth, placing the company on Business Week, Fortune and Forbes lists of fastest growing companies, and on the Nasdaq 100 index.

Dan served as an officer in the Israel Defense Force during the years 1984-1989. He holds a B.Sc. degree in Computer Engineering from Technion, the Israel Institute of Technology, where he graduated summa cum laude.

Vladimir Bilodid
Director General, United Software Corporation,
Partner, TECHINVEST

He is involved in IT industry since 1980, and is working as entrepreneur for more than 10 years.
Since 1995, Vladimir was a co-founder and Director General of Tessart Ukraine LLC, one of the first Ukrainian IT export companies. Within Tessart, Vladimir and his team carried out over 130 projects for European, US and Mid Eastern customers.
Since 2005, after Tessart was acquired by United Software Corporation, Vladimir works as Director General of USC Ukraine. He succeeded in establishing a business unit, which offers to international clients unique R&D services based on Ukrainian math- and computer science talents. In 2005, USC became the only Ukrainian company holding “IBM Approved Vendor” status and performing R&D for IBM. Company revenue doubles each year.

Vladimir Bilodid is also a partner in VC firm TECHINVEST, which specializes in seed and early stage investments and building competitive global technology companies on the basis of Ukrainian innovations and engineering talent.
 

Vladimir is certified Project Management Professional (Level C), and certified Assessment Team Member (CMM model).

Allen has been with the company since its inception in 2003. Allen was formerly Director of Product Design at SocialNet.com, a social networking service supporting dating, recreational and professional
activities, where he was responsible for product design and implementation of SocialNets member-data focused business model. Previously, Allen was a contract product and web designer for a variety of clients including PayPal and Microsofts Virtual Worlds project, and prior to that lectured at Stanford University.

Oleg Byakhov graduated from the Rostov State University in 1985. After several years of a teaching practice, he worked in the private sector in Moscow from the early 90s until 2003. He was Executive Director at Russia Direct marketing agency in 1998-2000, head of e-business solutions group at Andersen in CIS, senior manager at the corporate finance department at Ernst & Young. Mr. Byakhov was appointed Head of the E-Russia Program Coordination Department at the Russian Ministry of Communications and Informatization in July 2003. In this capacity, he played a key role in preparing the Concept of IT Use in the Federal Government Agencies. Mr. Byakhov acted as the secretary of the IT Council operating within this Ministry. In 2004, he was appointed Head of the Department for the Strategy of Information Society Development at the Russia Ministry of Information Technology and Communications.

Tom Byers is a professor at Stanford University where he focuses on high-technology entrepreneurship education. He is founder and a faculty director of the Stanford Technology Ventures Program (STVP), which serves as the entrepreneurship center for the engineering school. STVP includes the Mayfield Fellows work/study program, Educators Corner website of teaching resources, and global Roundtable on Entrepreneurship Education conferences. Tom is also a faculty director of the AEA/Stanford Executive Institute, a general management program for technology executives. Tom is co-author of the textbook called "Technology Ventures: From Idea to Enterprise" (McGraw-Hill). Tom also holds a visiting professor appointment at the London Business School and University College London.

Tom currently serves as a director on the boards of Reactivity, MyThings, and Flywheel Ventures. In addition, he serves on advisory boards or committees of the American Society for Engineering Education's Entrepreneurship Division, Harvard Business School's California Research Center, and the National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE) for inner-city youth. Previously, Tom lectured at the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley. Tom has a range of business experience including executive vice president of Symantec Corporation and founder/president of Slate Corporation. Tom started his professional career at Accenture.

For his efforts at Stanford, Tom holds an endowed chair known as the McCoy University Fellow in Undergraduate Education. Tom was given the 2005 Gores Award for excellence in teaching (the university's highest award) and the 2002 Tau Beta Pi Award for excellence in undergraduate teaching (the engineering school's highest award). He is a recipient of three recent national teaching awards: the 2005 ASEE Kauffman Award for excellence in engineering and technology entrepreneurship education, the 2005 USASBE Entrepreneurship Educator of the Year Award, and the 2003 Leavey Award for excellence in private enterprise education. In 2004, STVP was named the NASDAQ Entrepreneurship Center of the Year. In the past, Tom was named Northern California Entrepreneur of the Year in Ernst & Young's competition and was given the Academy of Management's Innovation in Entrepreneurship Teaching Award and Price-Babson's Appel Prize for bringing entrepreneurial vitality to academia.

Tom holds a BS in Industrial Engineering and Operations Research and an MBA from UC Berkeley. He also earned a PhD in Business Administration (Management Science) at UC Berkeley.

Shlomo Caine
Managing Director of Strategic Investments Intel Capital , Central and Eastern Europe, Russia & Israel

Shlomo Caine is Managing Director of Strategic Investments of Intel Capital, Central and Eastern Europe, Russia & Israel.

With a bachelor's degree in Physics and Mathematics, and an M.Sc in Materials science, Shlomo started his career at Tadiran Electronics in Israel, working on Hybrid microelectronic components and devices. In 1982 he joined the start-up team of the first Intel Fab outside of the US - Fab8 in Jerusalem, where he continued to work in a variety of engineering and manufacturing positions.

In 1994 Shlomo accepted the position of startup manager for Intel's Fab14 in Ireland, responsible for building, staffing and running Intel's first offshore quarter micron facility, a position he held until 1999 when he returned to start up the Intel Capital activities in Israel. In 2002 Shlomo started covering investments in Western Europe and finally in late 2004 he assumed responsibility for Intel Capital’s investments in Central and Eastern Europe and Russia in addition to Israel.

Navin Chaddha is a proven serial entrepreneur, corporate executive and venture investor. He focuses on the software, communications, and consumer sectors and will lead Mayfield’s investment strategy in India.

Navin's past investments include LVL7 Systems, NeoPath Networks and Test Quest in the U.S. and Makemytrip, Persistent Systems and Tejas Networks in India. His notable investments that went public include Allsec, IL&FS Investsmart and Provogue in India and Akamai, Northpoint Communications, and Rhythms NetConnections in the U.S.

Navin was founder and CTO of VXtreme, a streaming media software company that was acquired by Microsoft and became Windows Media. He served in various management roles at Microsoft. Navin was also the co-founder of iBeam Broadcasting (NASDAQ IPO) and CEO of Rivio (acquired by CPA2Biz). His venture investing experience includes serving as a Partner at Gabriel Venture Partners and an entrepreneur-in-residence and venture partner at Mobius Venture Capital.

Navin holds an MS degree in electrical engineering from Stanford University and a B.Tech degree in electrical engineering from IIT Delhi, where he received the Director’s Medal and was recently honored with the prestigious distinguished Alumni Award.

Navin is a charter member of TiE and AAMA, and a Global Leader of Tomorrow Member of the World Economic Forum. He holds over 35 patents and has been recognized as an industry thought leader by several publications and organizations.

Philippe joined Partech in 1997 and focuses on software. He has 17 years of experience in private equity in Europe and the U.S., with 12 years specifically focused on early stage investing.

Prior to joining Partech, Philippe was a Partner with Sofinnova in Paris. He has been a Director of Egide and BVRP (both listed on the French market) and Adknowledge (acq. by CMGI). In addition, he was involved with Flamel Technologies (FLML) and Rightpoint Software (acq. by E.piphany).

Philippe currently sits on the board of directors of Jaspersoft, Spoke Software and VUE Technology and board advisor to Bocada and InQuira.

He attended the Engineering School of Mines in Nancy, France and received an MS from Stanford University where he was named a Sloan Fellow.

Chuck DeVita has over thirty years experience in Sales and Marketing management. He has developed regional and worldwide sales forces and has extensive international background. His expertise includes infrastructure, business intelligence, manufacturing software, supply chain, EDA, software development and semiconductors. As an officer, he led the growth of two startups: Faraday Electronics and Interactive Development Environments. As a consultant, he has helped numerous enterprise software and hosted solution companies in the U.S. and Europe including serving as interim VP Sales & Marketing.

Chuck is a recognized speaker and visionary on sales and marketing management for early stage technology companies. He regularly presents seminars at various industry forums. He also teaches courses at Stanford on "Value Propositions & Pricing Models" and "Entering New Markets & Acquiring Reference Customers". Chuck holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Santa Clara University and an MBA from Stanford University.

His original suggestion to use "viral marketing" in web-based e-mail to geometrically spread an Internet product to its market was instrumental to the successes of Hotmail and YahooMail, and has been adopted as a standard marketing technique to hundreds of businesses. He invested in and contributed to Skype (EBAY), Overture.com (YHOO), Parametric Technology (PMTC), Hotmail (MSFT), Tumbleweed Communications (TMWD), PLX Technologies (PLXT), Digidesign (AVID), Preview Travel (TVLY), Four11 (YHOO), Combinet (CSCO), and Redgate (AOL), among others.

Mr. Draper launched the Draper Affiliate Network, an international network of early-stage venture capital funds with offices in 26 cities around the globe. He founded or co-founded Wasatch Ventures (Salt Lake City), Zone Ventures (LA), Draper Atlantic (Reston), Draper Triangle (Pittsburg), Timberline Ventures (Portland), DFJ EPlanet (global), Polaris Fund (Anchorage), Draper Fisher Jurvetson Gotham (NYC), DFJ Frontier (Sacramento and Santa Barbara), and DFJ Dragon (Shanghai).

As an advocate for entrepreneurs and free markets, Mr. Draper is regularly featured as a keynote speaker in entrepreneurial conferences throughout the world, has been recognized as a leader in his field through numerous awards and honors, and has frequent TV radio, and headline appearances.

On behalf of Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Mr. Draper serves on the boards of Tagworld, SocialText, Glam, decentral.tv, and Chroma Graphics.

Mr. Draper is also the course creator and Chairman of BizWorld, a 501c3 organization built around simulated teaching of entrepreneurship and business to children. He served on the California State Board of Education. In November of 2000, Mr. Draper launched a statewide cyber-initiative on school choice for the California General Election. He has a BS in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University, and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Kirk Dunn
CEO, PowerFile

Kirk Dunn brings a diversified range of technology engineering, marketing, sales and management experience to PowerFile from established companies and high-growth organizations. During his nearly 20-year career, Kirk worked extensively with Fortune 200 accounts, successfully built strategic sales and product divisions, and led international expansions. Prior to PowerFile, Kirk was CEO of Bang Networks where he devised and executed a market and product strategy that delivered the first real-time Web messaging appliance to Fortune 200 customers. He was also Vice President of North America Field Operations for Inktomi where he built and led a team from $3M to a $150M run rate, and was instrumental in new product planning as member of Inktomi's executive strategy council. Kirk came to Inktomi from Network Equipment Technologies, Inc. (NET) where he held executive positions in sales, marketing, and professional services. Prior to NET, Kirk worked for IBM, in senior sales positions. Kirk received a B.A. in Mathematics and Applied Sciences from UCLA.

Ira Ehrenpreis
General Partner, Technology Partners

Ira Ehrenpreis is a General Partner with Technology Partners. He has been with the firm since 1996. Ira leads Technology Partners’ Cleantech investment practice, investing in Energy Technology, Water Technology, and Materials Science opportunities. He has worked for Goldman, Sachs & Co. and Juniper Partners venture capital firm. Ira is the Co-Chairman of both the VCNetwork and the YVCA, two non-profit organizations comprising more than 1,000 venture capitalists. He is a Contributor to Nimmer on Copyright, the leading copyright treatise. Ira is also an active leader at Stanford University, where his contributions have included teaching the course on Venture Capital and serving on the Board of Visitors of Stanford Law School.

He is a member of several industry Advisory Boards, including the Cleantech Venture Network (Chairman), the Clean-Tech Investors Summit (2005, 2006, and 2007 Conference Chairman), the Energy Investors Forum (2004 Conference Chairman), the Energy Venture Fair, the California Climate Change Advisory Board, the Southern California Tech Coast Alliance, the Golden Capital Network, the Forum for Women Entrepreneurs (FWE), and the Comerica Venture Capital Advisory Board.

He also serves on the Education Committee of the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA) and on the Board of the Western Association of Venture Capitalists (WAVC). Recently, Ira was featured as the Keynote speaker at both the 2005 Cleantech Venture Forum VI and the 2004 Cleantech Venture Forum V. Ira received his JD/MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business and Stanford Law School, where he was an Associate Editor of Stanford Law Review. He holds a B.A. from the University of California, Los Angeles, graduating Phi Beta Kappa and Summa Cum Laude.

He was Founder and CEO of four successful companies during the last decade, including ELVEES (www.elvees.ru), ELVIS+ (www.elvis.ru) and TrustWorks Systems (now Synartra Ltd. member of Hamsard Group, www.hamsard.com) which were focused on innovative and groundbreaking computer, networking, enterprise software and security products and technologies. He pioneered with ELVIS+ and Sun Microsystems in wireless WiFi (802.11) hardware and networking software development back to 1992-94 and distributed FW/VPN development in 1994-1997, as well as with TrustWorks in Security Management platform for heterogeneous and distributed FW/VPN and end-to-end security solution in 1998 -2003.

He obtained the first overseas investment Sun Microsystems ever made for his Russian company ELVIS+. back in 1993 and later raised over USD 30 M investment capital from western VC in his Netherlands based TrustWorks during 1998-2002, which is still unique a company originating from Russia. Alexander was the Founder and strategic leader of one of the first and leading Russian ISP ELVIS Telekom, which was sold to Telenor/Nextra in 2000. He is the Founder and investor of the Dutch based Mobile services Cost management Company EzWIM (www.ezwim.com). In the past, as former President and General Manager of the Soviet Space Agency (NPO ELAS), he was one of the top technical executives responsible for the design and implementation of satellite and spacecraft software, as well as computer and data communication systems for the Soviet defense industry. He was the youngest national program leader for national programs like on-board computer systems and low-orbit data communication system of the Soviet "Star Wars" response.

Currently Alexander serves and has served as a board member, investor and/or as the advisor of several innovative companies like Magnifire (now F5), SWSoft, SJLabs, Start-Telecom, NavMaps and S-Terra. As Chairman of the companies, he is also actively involved in ELVIS+ and EzWIM. In his current activities he partners with several top tier VC and corporate investors and helps USA, Russian and European emerging technology companies to define the best strategy to go to market and to identify and match their technologies with their business opportunities.

Alexander has authored over a hundred international publications and over thirty inventions and patents; he has been a featured speaker at numerous international conferences, including Interop, World Economic Forum, Catalyst , High-Tech Forum, ETRE, Infosecurity, etc. and has been interviewed and profiled in numerous publications, including the Wall Street Journal, Forbes ASAP, the New York Times, Financial Times, the San Jose Mercury News, and others. He was named by independent agencies as the most influential person in the Russian IT and Internet industry during 1994-98 and again in 2000-2001, 2003. He was named "Technology Pioneer" by the World Economic Forum in Davos in 2000, while at the same time the technology achievements of his TrustWorks were recognized and received the award for 'Technology of New Millennium'.

He donates a lot of time for public activities through advisory board of Stockholm Challenge, membership in ISDEF (www.isdef.org), Counsel of Advisors and his leading role in Foresight Russia.

Through all his past and current activities, Alexander is aiming to bring and to place Russian originating technologies and entrepreneurs on the World High-Tech Map using his knowledge, experience, industry authority and connections. The great potential and unique platform of the European Tech Tour has convinced him to donate his time and to be the President of the Russian Tech Tour, which was held in September 2004. Dr. Galitsky divides his time as a Partner in Russian Technologies Venture Partners (www.rt-tech.ru) and as investor though his privately owned Dutch based investment company AV Galitsky Holding BV.

Olena Hantsyak-Kaskiv
Deputy Director of InvestUkraine

Olena Hantsyak-Kaskiv is a Deputy Director of InvestUkraine (Ukrainian Center for Foreign Investment Promotion). She supervises the activities of Information and PR Departments of InvestUkraine.

Olena is an author and initiator of the idea of creating Image Policy of Ukraine Working Group (IPU WG) within Foreign Investors Advisory Council to the President of Ukraine (FIAC) (5 September – 1 2005). Since November 2005 she coordinates FIAC IPU WG. In the same time Olena serves an independent expert of the Foreign Investors Advisory Council to the President of Ukraine (FIAC).

Franklin "PITCH" Johnson
Founding Partner at Asset Management

Pitch Johnson leads the Asset Management team. Known throughout the venture capital industry for his vision, insight and principles, he has been at the center of a number of Silicon Valley's biggest and longest-running success stories. He stands out as one of the inventors of the venture capital business.

A Palo Alto High School graduate, Pitch got into venture capital after graduating from Stanford University and Harvard Business School, doing a hitch in the Air Force and working the furnaces at a steel mill. In 1962, he and Bill Draper decided to put together an early investment fund.

Three years later, Pitch founded Asset Management Company. Over the ensuing decades, Pitch launched and managed a number of funds. Many Silicon Valley firms owe their success to the leadership that came from Asset Management.

Among Pitch's many accomplishments, he helped found Amgen and served on the board of directors for 27 years. Pitch also served on the board of directors of Applied Micro Circuits and, until its merger into BMC Software, served for 30 years as chairman of the board of Boole and Babbage. Pitch remains an active board member of a number of private companies.

In addition, Pitch devotes time to developing venture capital operations in other countries, particularly in Eastern Europe. He also created and for 12 years taught the course in venture capital at Stanford Business School.

Pitch and his family are intensely involved in philanthropic and community activities, primarily in the Bay Area. He also has been active in alumni affairs at both Stanford and Harvard Business School, and served for over a decade as a trustee of the Foothill-DeAnza Community College District. Pitch is a long-time trustee of the San Francisco Opera and is its current board chairman.

Prior to founding IBS Anatoly was Technical Director of Intermicro Joint Venture; Director of PROSYSTEM, an Austrian company; and a Computer Engineer of Computer Center at the All-Union Research and Development Institute for Railroad Transport.

Ten times was Anatoly Karachinsky awarded the title of one of the most competent authorities of the Russian computer business community (DATOR Top100 and TOP-PROFI ratings). Anatoly Karachinsky was the first Russian businessman to be rated among the top fifty European leaders in the forefront of positive change (‘The Stars of Europe’ rating by Business Week, 2002).

Anatoly is a Member of the Management Board of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs; the Competition and Entrepreneurship Council under the Government of the Russian Federation and others.

Anatoly Karachinsky graduated from the Applied Cybernetics Department (computer science) of the Moscow Institute of Railroad Engineers, majoring in Systems Engineering in 1981.

Paul Koenig has held sales and business development and marketing executive roles at startup companies or in new products groups within established companies such as Apollo Computer, Oracle, Data General, Sybase, Active Software (webMethods), Contivo and Versata. Paul has a degree in Engineering from UC Berkeley.

Edward Kozel
President and CEO, Skyrider

Gene Linetsky
Vice President, Endpoint Products for Check Point Software Technologies

Gene Linetsky has founded several software startups and served in various executive and technology leadership positions in Silicon Valley, California. He has extensive experience that spans staffing and management of distributed engineering teams, game design and development, secure real-time communication protocols, large-scale Web applications, cross-platform development environments, compilers, and sales automation systems.

Gene is currently working on two new stealth projects. In his most recent corporate position as Vice President, Endpoint Products for Check Point Software Technologies, Gene was managing a large geographically dispersed development organization, creating and shipping award-winning endpoint security products for consumer, small business, and enterprise markets. Two of his earlier startups, IMsecure Corp. and Ultris, Inc., were acquired by Zone Labs and Saba Software, respectively. Earlier, in his native Russia, Gene pioneered computer science curriculum for high schools, developed educational software for children, and co-authored a computer science textbook with over 3 million copies in print.

Serhiy Loboyko is an often quoted expert of the Ukrainian high-tech industry and one of its strongest advocates. Serhiy is regularly asked to advise the Government on the development of the hi-tech industry, and he is a frequent speaker at international conferences.

Mr. Loboyko is a Co-founder and Managing Director of the pioneering Ukrainian venture capital firm TECHINVEST. TECHINVEST managed to multiply investments of its first investment partner 2.5 times during 2004-2005.

Together with Tim Draper, Managing Director of Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Serhiy Loboyko is working on establishment the first in Ukraine $50 mln technology venture fund DFJ Techinvest. DFJ Techinvest, an affiliate of DFJ Network, will invest in seed/early stage global companies based on Ukrainian technologies.

Serhiy Loboyko is board's member of several successful technology companies originated from Ukraine. Among them are: IT company "United Software Corporation", which became an approved vendor of IBM; nano-technology company "APowerCap Technologies", which develops breakthrough ultra-capacitors technology.

In 2005, Serhiy Loboyko initiated the Ukrainian High-Tech Competition for selection of promising technology projects for venture investments.

In 2003, Serhiy Loboyko organized the first international research of Ukrainian IT-export industry with Market-Visio (Gartner Group) and Ukrainian Software Consortium of over 30 leading IT-export companies.

In 2000-2001, Serhiy Loboyko worked as an advisor for Glushkov Cyber Center Institute in Kyiv, a division of the National Academy of Science of Ukraine (NASU). He, jointly with the former scientists of the NASU, started his venture entrepreneurship activities by setting up a successful technology firm specializing in export production of Silicon and Silicon-Carbide mono-crystals.

Also, Serhiy Loboyko worked as an advisor to the local offices of UNDP and Soros' Foundation (2000-2001), Ministry of Economy of Ukraine (1999-2000), the World Bank (1998-1999), BARENTS Group (KPMG), (1997-1998), Credit Suisse Fist Boston (1997-1998), National Institute of Strategic Studies (1996-1998), Secretariat of the Parliament of Ukraine (1995-1996), as well as local governments and business organizations.

Serhiy graduated cum Laude with a Master's degree in Economics from Lviv State University, Ukraine. He also holds a certificate in technological entrepreneurship from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY, USA.

Peter N. Loukianoff joined Alloy Ventures in January 2001. Prior to Alloy, he was on the founding management teams of two venture capital-backed startups: Autonomy, Inc. (NASDAQ: AUTN) and Ubiquinet, Inc. (now C-Cor, NASDAQ: CCBL). Peter also started and ran the cable division of Alliance Systems (acquired by Mobile Data Solutions, NASDAQ: MDSI). He began his career as a design engineer with Zurich-based ABB, Ltd. From the beginnings of Mikhail Gorbachev's Perestroika program in 1989 through 1994, Peter pioneered technology joint ventures between prominent scientific institutions in Russia and leading U.S. and European companies. He is a member of the board-of-directors of Attune Systems, Apptera, Ravenflow and Sapias. His prior investments include AudioBasket (acquired by eMotion, Inc.), K2 Optronics (acquired by Emcore, NASDAQ: EMKR), Versata (NASDAQ: VATA) and ZipRealty (NASDAQ: ZIPR). Peter is a co-inventor on four voice technology patents. He earned an MBA and BS Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley.

Lydia Mazzie is responsible for researching and identifying new international locations for Google engineering offices, setting up new development sites and managing operations of existing ones. As one of her recent projects, Lydia lead the establishment of Google Moscow development center.

From 2003 to 2005, Lydia was a manager in Google's Corporate Development group responsible for international acquisitions and investments. From 2002 to 2003 Lydia worked in Google's finance team.

Prior to Google, Lydia spent three and a half years working at the investment bank of JPMorgan Securities, Inc., advising technology companies in their merger and acquisition strategy and execution.

During her tenure at JPMorgan Securities, Inc., Lydia advised on over 15 transactions. Lydia graduated with high honors from the University of California in Berkeley with a degree in Business Administration.

Albina Nikkonen
Executive Director, Russian Venture Capital Association (RVCA)

Since 1998 Albina Nikkonen is an Executive Director of RVCA. The main goal of RVCA is to promote formation and development of venture capital industry in Russia. Albina Nikkonen is one of the organizers of the first Russian "fund-of-funds" Venture Capital Innovation Fund which was established in 2000 under the Government Decree. The main goal of VIF is to promote the appearance of venture funds with national capital in Russia. Also she is the Founder & Chairman of the Organizing Committee of the Russian Venture Fair. Mrs. Nikkonen previously worked as a Deputy Manager of the Provisional Science Group PULSE at the USSR Academy of Science and the State Committee for Science & Technology.

Serge Plotkin
Venture Partner, Opus Capital

In Opus Capital Serge sources and evaluates investment opportunities and contributes technical assistance to portfolio companies. Serge is also an associate professor of Computer Science at Stanford University, where he has served since 1989.

Together with Opus Capital General Partner Dan Avida, Serge co-founded Decru in 2001 where he served as chief technology officer and vice president of engineering. Serge has published more than a hundred technical papers and has been issued seven patents. He is currently the vice chair of the Security in Storage Workgroup P1619/P1619.1, IEEE standardization committee, which is tasked with creating a standard for storage encryption, and is the editor of the IEEE1619 standard.

Serge obtained a Ph.D. in Computer Science from MIT and BSc and MSc degrees in Electrical Engineering from Ben Gurion University, Israel. Before his studies at MIT, Serge served for five years as an officer in the Israel Defense Forces.

Hans has more than 25 years of management experience in Advanced Technology, Account Management, International Business Development, software engineering research, market management, technical support, international sales, services management, customer training, and embedded software product development, at companies such as Lucent, AT&T, Philips, Origin, TNO research,VERITAS Software and Symantec.

Hans expertise areas are in Security, Storage, Telecommunication, IT infrastructure and embedded software solutions. He has an extensive track record in creating "bridges" between different companies, different (country) cultures and between (software) technology and business.

At Origin he successfully established an embedded software services activity in Santa Clara California, and setup an Independent System Integrator (ISI) relationship with Philips TriMedia. Prior to that he was responsible for international business development of embedded software services. He also established the first ever AT&T 5ESS account in the newly created country of Ukraine.

Hans has both an MS in mathematics and an MBA in telecommunication. He spend more than 10 years working at AT&T Bell Labs in the Netherlands and has successfully out-sourced a group of (embedded) Software Process consultants from Philips Research to Origin. Hans has written and published many articles on Telecommunication, Computers and Audiology and has over 18 software patents in his name.

Today he is the senior director of the Technology Scouting Group in the office of the CTO at Symantec located in Mountain View, California. In this role he scouts out 3rd party disruptive technologies that are or should be of interest to the company, this work has led to the acquisition of Jareva, Ejasent and Relicore by Symantec.

Jake focuses on investments in systems, components and software. Prior to Lightspeed, Jake was a product line manager for Cisco Systems. He was responsible for launching and managing the industry's first DOCSIS-based cable modems and routers and led his product to win "Best of Show" and "Best Networking Hardware" at Comdex. Previously, he worked in business development for Boston Technology (Comverse) in Tokyo.

Jake serves on the Venture Capital Advisory Board for the Fabless Semiconductor Association. He holds a BS in Electrical Engineering and a M. Eng. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from MIT. At MIT, he earned the Karl Taylor Compton Prize, the highest honor given to an MIT student.

Beth joined Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers in May 2005, to work in the life sciences area. She has been involved with helping their portfolio companies and launching the Pandemic Preparedness & Biodefense fund. She is currently on the Board of Directors of three companies, most recently joining BioCryst. Her primary focus is in novel therapeutics to treat unmet medical needs.

Beth was formerly the Senior Vice President, Global Development, and Chief Medical Officer at Amgen, Inc., the world’s largest biotechnical company. Prior to joining Amgen, Beth was a senior executive in research and development at Bristol-Myers Squibb Company and Merck & Co., Inc. She began her career in basic and clinical research at the National Institutes of Health specializing in immunology and infectious diseases. In total, she introduced 10 innovative products to market and achieved over 40 regulatory approvals (including new indications and formulations) on a worldwide basis. These products have been successfully commercialized and have provided benefits to millions of patients with grievous illnesses and generated several billion dollars of revenue.

Beth received her B.S. from Barnard College magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa; and her medical degree from the University Of Miami School Of Medicine, alpha omega alpha. Her post-graduate training was completed at Johns Hopkins, George Washington School of Medicine and the National Institutes of Health. She is a trustee of Barnard College and a member of the Science Advisory Board.

Leon Shklar
Head of technology, Reuters Media

Prior to joining Reuters, Leon headed up the development team for the online edition of the Wall Street Journal at Dow Jones. Prior to Dow Jones, he spent six years at Bell Communications Research and almost as long in the world of dot coms and Internet software. Leon holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ. He is a published author ("Web Application Architecture", Wiley, December 2003) and holds two US patents.

SPIRIT Founder and Chairman, is a recognized leader in VoIP domain

He has more than 15 years' experience in voice, audio, video and communication software areas. Through multiple brand name products, SPIRIT communication software is now used in over 80 countries and powers over 100 million voice channels worldwide. Today SPIRIT counts among its customers Adobe, Agere, Atmel, Compal Communications, Flextronics, Ericsson, HP, HTC, Kyocera, LG, Marconi, MediaRing, Microsoft, National Semiconductor, NEC, Nortel Networks, Oracle, Paltalk, Panasonic, Philips Semiconductor, Polycom, Radvision, Samsung, Siemens, Texas Instruments, Toshiba and Trinity Convergence, among 200 other communication OEMs and software vendors. Under Mr. Sviridenko's leadership, SPIRIT has become the biggest eXpressDSP-compliant software house in Europe. Andrew is also founder and chairman of SeeStorm, a technology pioneer in synthetic video conferencing.

Rob Theis brings 20 years of operating experience and brings business contacts, relationships and executive management expertise from his leadership positions at explosive growth companies like New Era of Networks, Sun Microsystems, and Silicon Graphics.

Prior to joining DCM, Rob was Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer for New Era of Networks (NEON). During his four-year tenure, he held a wide range of executive operational roles - from sales and marketing to corporate development. Rob was instrumental in leading NEON through a successful IPO, multi-rounds of corporate financing and grew the company to $200 million in revenues.

Prior to NEON, Rob spent ten years at Sun Microsystems, where he carried out successful growth strategies in a variety of senior management roles: as Managing Director of Sun's Worldwide Financial Services Group, Rob grew Sun's revenue in the Financial Services sector to over $1 billion; as Director of Sales and Marketing for the Asia Pacific region, Rob managed business operations and achieved a 100 percent annual growth rate; in his early years at Sun, Rob developed and managed Sun's Computer Systems business in the Design Automation, CAD/CAM and Manufacturing markets to $400 million in revenues.

Rob spent his early career at Silicon Graphics as a product marketing manager, where he developed product strategy, marketing programs and launched SGI's workstations, and at McDonnell Douglas Corporation (Boeing) in sales.

Rob was awarded the Honors Scholarship at the University of Pittsburgh, where he earned a BA degree in Economics.