Alex Polvi
Alex lead Cloudkick, a Y-Combinator funded start-up, as its CEO and co-founder to its acquisition by Rackspace. At Rackspace he was responsible for Product Strategy and build out of Rackspace’s Bay Area operations. Previously, he has worked on many infrastructure projects for the Mozilla Foundation, Google, and the Oregon State Open Source Lab. He holds a BS in Computer Science from Oregon State University.
Art Hiemstra has been providing debt capital to Northwest companies for over 25 years. Currently he is a SVP at the Bank of the Cascades, an Oregon bank focused on providing loans to help businesses grow. Art was previously the president of Vencore Capital, a venture debt provider that loaned over $200 million to emerging growth companies nationwide from its Lake Oswego base. Working with entrepreneurs has always been a focus for Art, and worked with hundreds while at Silicon Valley Bank, where he managed the bank’s Northwest Division. He is familiar with the financing growth and development and the fine art of creating the right mix of debt and equity capital. He is a graduate of Pacific University and has an MBA from Stanford University.
Bill Kelly is a Portland-based entrepreneur. He was co-founder and EVP of Sapient Health Network (acquired by WebMD in 1999) and co-founder and CEO of Learning.com. He has experience in publishing, Internet, education and healthcare companies, and has raised over $50 million for his startups. Bill graduated from BYU and Harvard Business School.
Bob leads Amazon Web Services global business development team working with startups, accelerators/incubators and venture capital firms. Amazon Web Services is the leader in cloud computing IT infrastructure. Prior to that he spent 12 years financing startups and technology companies and was a co-founder of Square 1 Bank. Earlier in his career he had stints in software development, systems management, project management and leading operations teams.
Brent Hieggelke is the CMO of Urban Airship, which helps the world’s top brands drive engagement through modern mobile messaging. Previously, he spent a decade helping brands optimize digital marketing initiatives in executive marketing posts at WebTrends, TouchClarity and Omniture. Most recently, Brent started and ran Second Porch, the first Facebook-integrated social vacation rental site sold to HomeAway, Inc. in May 2011. Early in his career, Brent co-founded New City, a media company in Chicago. Brent has been awarded multiple marketing awards, and is a frequent speaker at both marketing and digital conferences.
Ms. Krane currently is a portfolio advisor to Irving J Levin and his investment vehicle, Fluffco LLC. Prior to working with Irving Levin she founded and raised $4.5mm in angel capital for Poppybox Gardens, a start-up gardening retailer. Prior to that she was a consultant to the venture industry and worked as a venture capitalist for ten years at BancBoston Venturues. She has held numerous board seats and currently sits on the board of Apex Construction Systems and Clinicient.
Christiaan joined True Ventures in 2008 after almost a decade working in and around early stage technology. After graduating college, he taught history for two years in suburban New York before moving to Boston to spend six years in a variety of roles in support of local startups and in finance. Most recently prior to joining True, Christiaan was a senior analyst in the venture capital research group at Cambridge Associates and worked in network development at BrightRoll, an early True investment. Christiaan gets excited about any service or application that brings delight to its users, and he focuses his attention mainly on consumer internet, SaaS/commerce, and health and wellness companies.
Mr. Froude joined Aequitas Capital as a partner in 2011 to accelerate growth and development of the company’s Consumer Services business. Mr. Froude was co-founder, chairman and CEO of WellMed, Inc. He was responsible for raising more than $25M of venture and strategic partner capital to fuel growth at WellMed, which later was honored as one of the Inc. Magazine “500 Fastest Growing Companies” nationwide. After the company was sold to WebMD in 2002, Mr. Froude ran WebMD Health Services, which achieved a 42 percent annualized growth rate with revenues reaching $95M and staff of more than 450. He sits on the Board of Directors of Portland, Ore. based Pulse Health, LLC; and 4-Tell.
Dan Warner is the Founder and CTO of ShopIgniter, a venture-backed enterprise software company that helps brands promote and sell their products on the social web. Dan has been the tech wizard behind numerous startups and mentored several more based on his experiences. Earlier in his career Dan was the CTO for White Horse, a interactive agency where he was responsible for the web technology development of the Columbia Sportswear’s site, and many other clients including Cisco and Visa. Dan is a graduate of Portland State University.
Devin has fifteen years of management and business development experience. He started working in business development roles in the mid 1990s at Intel Capital. After leaving Intel, and after serving in business development roles at other companies, Devin served as the president of a small manufacturing business where he managed the turnaround of the business, dramatically grew its sales and profitability, and then managed the sale of the business to a private equity firm at the end of 2006. More recently, Devin has focused on making angel investments in local technology companies.
Diane serves as a Venture Partner with Voyager and focuses on software and digital media investments in the Pacific Northwest, particularly Oregon. With over 30 years of technology company experience in leading marketing, strategy and business development, Diane works with startups in the enterprise software, Internet/mobile/social, and security software industries throughout the West Coast. Diane is a Board observer of Elemental Technologies and Act On Software, and on the Board’s of TiE Oregon, OEN’s Entreprenuers Foundation Committee, and the Portland Seed Fund.
Dino Vendetti is an entrepreneur, geek, and early stage investor in software, web, and mobile start-ups. He’s currently Managing Director with Formative Ventures in Menlo Park and founder of Bend based tech accelerator Founders Pad. Previously he was a Partner at Bay Partners, Vulcan Ventures, and was an operating executive at several tech companies including Qualcomm. Dino earned his MSEE and MBA degrees from the University of Washington.
Drew is a fan of entrepreneurship and a glutton for punishment when it comes to helping start-ups do great things. He is also an entrepreneur himself and is a founder of ActionSprout.com (a Facebook App that helps nonprofit organizations tap the full power of Facebook’s Open Graph to engage supporters). Drew also supports local startups as a member of the Oregon Angel Fund and has a particular soft spot for companies that ascribe to lean startup methodologies. He also serves on the board of MeridianApps.com (a Portland based mobile-software company that helps location-based businesses engage with their visitors).
Eric leads strategic design and innovation programs at Ziba. He integrates user research, design planning, and technology to help companies envision new offerings and new ways of engaging their consumers. For nearly twenty years, Eric has helped lead award winning research and design innovation programs in consumer goods, durable products and healthcare. His clients have included MSR, Clorox, Nike, Phillips Healthcare, Intel and P&G. Eric has worked with startups and Fortune 500 companies across a diverse range of categories including many market firsts such as the Clorox ReadyMop, M-Systems’ DiskOnKey (the first mass market USB flash drive), and Calypso Medical’s GPS for the Body. He is experienced at working with diverse design development teams, balancing the urgency of time-to-market with the uncertainty of the product innovation process. Eric has spoken at conferences and written articles on the topics of design, innovation, and sustainability. He currently serves as a mentor for the Portland Seed Fund, helping early startups sharpen their story and value proposition. He holds nearly 30 patents and earned degrees in Mechanical Engineering from MIT and Stanford.
Eric Rosenfeld is a founding partner of the Oregon Angel Fund and has led over 30 local equity investments in startups since 2004. With over 100 participating investors, the angel fund invests $4M annually in the most promising startups in Oregon and SW Washington. Previously, Eric co-founded Capybara Ventures, was a principal owner of Second Story Interactive Studios, and director of corporate business development for Mentor Graphics. Eric also worked as a technology and industry analyst for SRI International and was a research fellow at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. In addition to serving on several portfolio company boards, Eric is a board member of the Catlin Gabel School, president of the Oregon Jewish Community Foundation, and past chair of the Oregon Entrepreneurs Network.
George DeCarlo is the Founder and CEO of Woobox, which provides a suite of viral applications used to grow and engage fans through social promotions. In less than two years, George has grown Woobox to be one of the most popular providers of Facebook applications to brands, serving over 200 million Facebook page app visits a month. George frequently advises top brands and agencies on what works and what doesn’t with social promotions using insights from hundreds of thousands of Woobox campaigns. Prior to Woobox, George founded the Internet services company Dotster in 1999, the same year he graduated from the University of Portland with a degree in Electrical Engineering. George also advises and invests in numerous startup companies.
For 20 years, Gerry has served as a Managing Director with OVP Venture Partners, the most experienced venture capital firm in the Pacific Northwest, focused on early-stage startups. Previously, he was co-founder of Mentor Graphics Corporation where he served as President as the company grew to over $400M in sales. He is the author of Take the Money and Run! An Insider’s Guide to Venture Capital (Smashwords and Lulu Press, 2011). In 2012, Gerry was appointed by Governor Kitzhaber to the Oregon Growth Board, where he serves as co-chair.
CEO of Storycode, a mobile app platform. Previously VP Business Development Webtrends, an analytics and optimization company.
Jenn is a co-founder and Director of Product Development at Upstart Labs. She has ten years of software product management, product marketing and user experience design experience. Most recently, she was a director of professional services at StepChange Group, now Dachis Group, developing social media marketing initiatives for large enterprises.
John is a co-founder and CEO of journey gym. Before co-founding journey gym, he co-founded wired.MD in 2000 with his brother Mark Friess. The company was taken from concept to completion through being acquired and fully integrated in 2008 into the industry leading patient education company, MediMedia Corporation, for 2.5 times the funds invested in the company. In 2000 John co-founded, sits on the board of, and is the Executive Director of Starve Ups, an exclusive grass roots entrepreneurial organization only for founders of early stage start ups in Oregon and Washington driving the movement of “peer mentoring” as the missing link in successful start ups.
As Senior Vice President and General Manager of OpenSesame, Josh manages general operations and oversees product development for the OpenSesame elearning marketplace. Josh co-founded the internet services agency PopArt in 1997 and, under his leadership, the company quickly became the fifth fastest growing technology firm in the state. At PopArt, Josh created an employee-focused workplace that was named the third best place to work in the state by Oregon Business magazine in 2003. Josh also co-founded Portland-based technology company Eleven Wireless, which provides on-demand software to centrally manage broadband networks for hospitality providers.
Luke founded Puppet and Puppet Labs in 2005 out of fear and desperation, with the goal of producing better operations tools and changing how we manage systems. He has been publishing and speaking on his work in system administration since 1997, focusing on development since 2001. He has developed and published multiple simple sysadmin tools and contributed to established products like Cfengine, and has presented on Puppet and other tools around the world, including at OSCON, LISA, Linux.Conf.au, and FOSS.in. His work with Puppet has been an important part of DevOps and delivering on the promise of cloud computing. He serves as a board member for the Software Association of Oregon.
Maciej Skierkowski, aka “Ski”, is the Director of Product at AppFog, which makes developers lives easier by providing a leading platform-as-a-service tailored for startups and enterprises. Prior to AppFog he was a key contributor to Windows Azure at Microsoft. He is a Lean Startup advocate for early stage and growth companies. His focus is on bringing new products to market focusing on the developers through building of the ecosystem and expanding into enterprises.
Manoj Garg is a founder of Virtual Information Executives, LLC (VIE). He is currently the Managing Partner and CIO at VIE. He brings over 25 years of senior executive leadership skills and technology management experience with domestic and international operations to clients. Other past roles have included Director of IT at Portland State University, CIO at WebEx and 10 years Senior IT leadership at Xerox Corporation. He holds an MBA in Finance from University of Rochester and an MS in Computer Science from University of Pittsburgh. He also enjoys angel investing, assisting non-profits, teaching, and playing music.
Marty Kagan has been leading the development of products and services in the web caching, content delivery, and application acceleration space since 1996. Prior to co-founding Cedexis, Marty was Vice President of Engineering at Jive Software and Akamai Technologies, Director of Technology for Akamai International, and part of the original Cache Engine skunk-works team at Cisco Systems. He has co-authored 9 patents.
Mike is the managing director of Intel Capital’s Consumer Internet Sector and is a member of Intel Capital’s investment committee. Mike joined Intel Capital in 1999. Prior to Intel Capital, Mike was Vice President and Partner of Orca Capital, a boutique investment banking firm providing corporate financial solutions to Pacific Northwest-based, emerging growth companies. Before that, Mike managed investments at Jones Lang LaSalle, a global provider of diversified real estate and investment management services. Mike is on the board of Betaworks and is a board observer for FlowPlay, iControl and Spatial Photonics. Mike invested in and managed successful exits for numerous companies including Phoenix New Media (IPO on NYSE), Parade Technologies (IPO on GreTai in Taiwan), OpenFeint (acquired by Gree, Inc.), Oplus (acquired by Intel) and Mediabolic (acquired by Macrovision). Mike has a BA in Quantitative Economics from Stanford University and is a graduate of Harvard Business School’s executive program.
Monica is the CEO, Chairman and Founder of Zapproved. Prior to founding Zapproved, Monica had over 15 years with blue-chip companies such as Intel and IBM. Monica holds an M.B.A. from University of Portland and a B.S. in Computer Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University. Monica is a speaker and active member in the entrepreneurial community in Portland, and she is also a member of the board of the Software Association of Oregon. She was recognized by the Portland Business Journal in 2010 as an Orchid Award winner for achievement for women in business.
Nitin Khanna is the CEO of MergerTech Advisors. Prior to MergerTech, Mr. Khanna was the founder, Chairman and CEO of Saber Corp. He grew it to $120MM and 1500 employees by December 2007 and eventually sold the company for $460MM to EDS. He is a strong member and supporter of the Portland entrepreneurial community. He conceived and then received the backing of the City of Portland for his Portland 100 idea to promote top tech, apparel and beverage companies in the city, and is an angel investor and mentor of over 15 companies in the area.
Nitin Rai is the President ot TiE Oregon. Nitin has over 25 years of experience in the high tech industry. He is currently President & CEO of First Insight Corporation, a Hillsboro, Oregon based software company which he founded in 1994. First Insight leads the eye-care industry in electronic medical records, practice management and e-commerce products for independent optometrists and ophthalmologists with its flagship product – Maximeyes. Nitin has Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from Dalhousie University, Halifax, Canada. Prior to founding First Insight, he worked as a Sr. Software Engineer at Mentor Graphics and two software startups in Silicon Valley and Seattle. Nitin is a visionary and an entrepreneurial leader. His broad range of experience includes technology development, capital raising, sales, marketing, and finance and operations management. Nitin has raised over $20 million in both angel and venture investment for First Insight. His interest in the entrepreneur eco-system is not just limited to mentoring/advising and investment but extends to becoming a user and customer of some of the entrepreneurs he has mentored or invested in.
Pete Grillo has been active in Portland-area technology firms for over 20 years. In May of 2007, Pete formed Iterasi, Inc. to build business applications for archiving Web Content and Social Media. In 1997, Mr. Grillo founded WeSync.com, a venture-backed web and wireless data synchronization company. WeSync.com became widely recognized for its’ innovation and advanced technologies, which lead to its acquisition by Palm, Inc. in February 2001. Mr. Grillo currently serves as member of the Board of Directors of Urban Airship and Concero; as an advisor to the Board of Directors of Kryptiq Corporation, and serving as a mentor and advisor to a number of emerging Portland-area technology firms.
Peter Csathy is a digital media and technology specialist, and is currently the CEO of Sorenson Media, Inc. Peter was the CEO of online video technology company SightSpeed (acquired by Logitech). He then held the title of President & COO of digital music pioneer Musicmatch, Inc. (company was acquired by Yahoo!); and COO of Real-Time media search company eNow (company was acquired by AOL). Before becoming an entrepreneur, Csathy spent a decade as a senior business executive with major media companies such as Universal Studios and New Line Cinema. He began his career as a media/entertainment attorney representing motion picture and music clients. He recently served as the only video solutions expert on a Cloud Commission that made recommendations to President Obama. He is a frequent guest blogger on Huffington Post, TechCrunch and elsewhere, including his own “Digital Media Update” blog. He also serves as a board member of the Epilepsy Foundation of San Diego County and is a mentor of the Founder Institute. Peter is a graduate of Harvard Law School (J.D.) and the University of Minnesota (summa cum laude).
Richard A. Lazar is a long-time Portland serial entrepreneur. He currently serves as President and CEO of RDI Labs, a pioneering search technology company. In addition to his executive role, Richard currently serves on the boards of CafeGive, Inc., and the Technology Association of Oregon. He is also a mentor for the PDX11 Mentoring Network, the Oregon Technology Business Center and the Portland Seed Fund. Previously, Richard was the founding CEO of a venture-backed electronic discovery technology company (Fios, Inc.) serving Fortune 100 enterprises that grew to a market value of over $100M, the founding CEO of an angel-backed healthcare/geographic information system software company (Atrus, Inc.) and the founder and CEO of an angel-backed healthcare software company and winner of Angel Oregon 2010 (DeltaPoint, Inc.). Richard holds a Juris Doctor degree (Cornelius Honor Society) from Lewis & Clark Northwestern School of Law and a Bachelor of Science degree in Public Affairs from the University of Oregon.
Rick Turoczy serves as general manager of PIE (Portland Incubator Experiment), a startup accelerator run in partnership with Wieden+Kennedy, the largest privately held advertising agency in the world. He also runs Silicon Florist, the only publication dedicated to covering the Portland tech and startup scene. With nearly 20 years experience in marketing roles at startups — from early stage through IPO — Rick has helped companies focus on defining what they do and what they want to communicate, enabling them to distill those ideas into words and images that customers and employees understand, respect, and embrace.
Scott is an experienced leader of technology companies across a range of stages of development. Most recently (from 2002-2011) he was President and CEO of RadiSys (nasdaq: RSYS) where revenues were increased from $200M to $400M through significant strategic change and globalization. Prior to RadiSys Scott joined Chorum Technologies as its seventh employee and its President and CEO. Chorum was an early-stage, venture-backed telecom startup where revenues grew from zero to over $100M. Scott began his career at AT&T/Lucent where he spent 15 years leading a number of businesses including as VP/GM of Lucent’s multibillion dollar Optical Networking Group. Scott has a BS in Engineering from the University of Wisconsin, Madison and a MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Business.
Scott Kveton is the co-founder and CEO of Urban Airship, which helps the world’s top brands do great things in mobile. Kveton is widely recognized as an expert on mobile app strategy and cloud infrastructure, and was named a Top 10 Mobile Mover for 2012 by VentureBeat.Previously, Kveton built technology, developed business strategy and led engineering teams with companies including Amazon.com, Rulespace, JanRain and Vidoop. He also co-founded the Open Source Lab at Oregon State University.
Since January 2012, Scott Sandler has been Fund Manager at the Oregon Angel Fund, where he focuses on deal flow and due diligence. Prior to focusing on angel investing, Scott was CEO of EDA startup Novas Software and held marketing and management roles in several other tech startups. He began his career as an engineer at Intel in the mid ‘80s.
Skip Newberry serves as President of the Technology Association of Oregon, an organization that supports Oregon’s technology industry by promoting, connecting and advocating for technology companies and professionals. Previously, Skip served as economic development policy advisor to Portland Mayor Sam Adams, where he worked primarily on Gov 2.0 projects and initiatives to support entrepreneurs and the local software industry. Skip is a recovering intellectual property and corporate attorney and entrepreneur.
Tom co-founded Rogue Wave Software, Inc, in 1989 in Corvallis, Oregon, becoming its Chairman, President, and CEO. In 1996 the company did an Initial Public Offering on the NASDAQ exchange (sticker RWAV), followed in 1997 by a secondary offering. When he left in 1998, the company had grown to nearly 300 employees and revenues of over $44M. Since then, he has been an active angel investor and board member of both for-profit and not-for-profit organizations.
Wade is the Executive Director of the Willamette University Angel Investment Fund and accompanying class that was ranked by Inc. Magazine as “The 10 Best Entrepreneurship Courses in the Nation.” Wade teaches classes in entrepreneurship, new venture launch, and venture investing at Willamette University’s Atkinson Graduate School of Management and serves on a number of company boards. Wade started his first company in college which grew to become the first Apple Computer Value Added Reseller in the U.S. In addition to a number of top management roles at technology firms, he was the CEO of an ecommerce company which was acquired in 2000.
