Venture Well Forum
On March 21, 2009 we welcomed our first group of venture teams to a one day Venture Well Forum. The event took place in the Washington, DC area at the The Westin Alexandria located in Old Town Alexandria.
Nine
teams presented their businesses and engage with advisors and investors in a discussion, both in small groups and within the forum. Throughout the year, Venture Well will arrange additional meetings and support for the nine teams that make up the first year group.
We expect that as these ventures grow, participants will continue to come back to the Forum for advice and counsel and to lend advice as their ventures mature.
Venture Well Forum Agenda
| Friday, March 20, 2009: E-Team Showcase with participants from Venture Well | |||||
6:00 pm |
Smithsonian Museum of American History |
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Saturday, March 21, 2009: Venture Well Forum |
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| 8:30 | Registration | ||||
9:00 |
Welcome |
Phil Weilerstein (NCIIA Executive Director) |
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9:15 |
Short presentations from the all ten Venture Well Teams (2 minutes each) |
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9:45 |
1st Panel Discussion |
Social entrepreneurship: challenges and opportunities for creating early stage ventures |
Facilitator: Scott Kirsner (Boston Globe columnist, Author, co-founder The Nantucket Conference on Entrepreneurship and Innovation and the Convergence: The Life Sciences Leaders Forum) |
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10:45 |
Break |
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11:00 |
2nd Panel Discussion |
Stories from entrepreneurs |
Facilitated by Philip DesAutels, Microsoft |
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11:45 |
3rd Panel Discussion |
Corporate Partners, Corporate Venturing |
Facilitated by Judy Giordan, Steel City Re and University of South Mississippi (former CTO, Henkel Corporation, IFF, PepsiCola) |
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12:45 |
Lunch: Networking, advising and discussion. Three breakout rooms. Venture Well teams each present for 10 minutes and get 20 minutes of feedback. All teams stay in the room to hear each other’s presentations. Link to the list of the teams that make up the 2009 Venture Well Cohort. |
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2:30 |
4th Panel Discussion |
Financing the early stage venture |
Facilitated by Joseph Steig |
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3:15 |
Closing |
Joseph Steig |
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3:30 |
End |
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Elizabeth Bailey, Principal, Commons Capital Elizabeth joined Commons Capital in the fall of 2001 and has focused on investment opportunities in the health care, education and environment sectors. Her work spans deal sourcing, due diligence, investment recommendations, and portfolio management. Before Commons Capital, Elizabeth was a Consultant with Stax, Inc., a Cambridge, MA-based management consulting firm, where she worked with the firm’s private equity clients and their portfolio companies. Elizabeth began her career in Massachusetts state government and holds a Masters in Public Policy from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and a BA from Brown University. Return to the agenda Erich Broksas, Senior VP, Innovation & Investment, Case Foundation With a focus on technology and business, Erich is responsible at the Case Foundation for finding unique ways in which individuals, foundations, and non-profits can leverage innovative technology and business models for good. The fun part is taking what appears to be two disparate ideas and put them together to spark social change. Erich has had the pleasure of representing the Case Foundation at both non-profit and technology events and conferences and looks forward to expanding his knowledge in two dynamic and exciting spaces. Erich joined the Case Foundation in 2008 after spending the previous years in the private sector leading business development efforts in international telecommunications and technology. Originally from the beautiful Pacific Northwest, Erich is obsessed with sports and will find any way to use sports analogies to make a point. While not spending time with his family, Erich enjoys attending just about any sports event he can get tickets to, reading, and finding ways to spend money at REI and Home Depot. Return to the agenda Brian Cayce, Principal, Gray Ghost Ventures Brian leads the analysis, evaluation and execution of social venture capital investment opportunities for Gray Ghost Ventures. Brian began his career as a Volunteer in the Peace Corps in Turkmenistan, Central Asia, where he became fluent in Russian. Since then he has gained meaningful exposure to private and public sectors as well as emerging markets through his work with KPMG, CARE, a start-up social venture named Benevolink, and as an independent consultant. In addition to his corporate board service, Brian serves on the boards of local nonprofit organizations, and he facilitates a financial management workshop for at-risk homeless families in the Atlanta area. Brian graduated summa cum laude from the University of Georgia, and has earned an MBA in Finance from Georgia State University. Brian is a member of Phi Beta Kappa, and has the distinction of being a Kauffman Fellow. Return to the agenda Philip DesAutels, Philip DesAutels, Eastern US Manager of Academic Evangelism, Microsoft At Microsoft Philip works on issues of technology enablement and engaging the next 5 billion people with technology. Prior to Microsoft, Philip was founder and CTO of Ereo, an image retrieval search company. He worked as Chief Scientist for Excite@Home working on agents, community and digital television advertising technologies. As a researcher on the staff of the World Wide Web consortium at MIT, Philip led efforts around security and metadata for Tim Berners-Lee. As a Peace Corps volunteer, he served in Uzbekistan, where he lectured, established a micro-lending program, and installed part of the country‘s first email infrastructure. Philip shipped ‘big iron’ at IBM where he build an early relational ERP system as well as an expert order-management system. He was on the architecture team at John Hancock Insurance looking at how business processes should change as a result of Web technologies. Philip serves as a board member and advisor to numerous NGOs. Philip holds MS and BS degrees in Industrial and Management Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. When he isn’t working at Microsoft, Philip is a researcher at Bentley University where his research interests lie in the areas of sustainability, conscious capitalism and social entrepreneurship. Philip is married and lives with his lovely wife Michele on the outskirts of Boston. Evan Edwards, VP, Product Development and Co-founder, Intelliject Evan is Vice President, Product Development and is a co-founder of Intelliject. He is also co-inventor of Intelliject’s technology platforms. He manages all areas of the invention and design process, including the company’s intellectual property portfolio. Evan has been recognized among his peers for his expertise and work in human factors engineering (HFE) and he is actively involved with both the Human Factors & Ergonomics Society (HFES) and the National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance (NCIIA). In addition, Evan serves on the Medical Devices for Injection and Human Factors Committees for the Association of the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation (AAMI). Evan is a graduate of the University of Virginia where he earned a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering and a M.S. in Systems Engineering with a concentration on HFE. About Intelliject: Intelliject is a specialty pharmaceutical company that operates in areas where the quality and value of healthcare delivered can be significantly improved by developing drug delivery solutions tailored to the specific needs of a particular patient group. When such a therapy area has been identified we develop a tailored solution combining an efficacious and well understood medicine with a customized delivery system to provide patients a superior solution. Intelliject’s flagship product, the epiCard™, is the first significant innovation in the epinephrine auto-injector market in over 25 years. Designed by patients at risk for anaphylaxis, it utilizes the smallest, safest, and most user-friendly drug delivery system ever developed. The company was launched as a result of an Advanced E-Team award received by the NCIIA in 2000. Return to the agenda Lawrence B. Friedman, Head of External and University Relations (retired), Bayer MaterialScience Larry has held senior management and scientific roles in both university and industrial settings over a 35+ year career. Industry experience includes individual contributor as well as technical manager at both Polariod Corporation and at Bayer MaterialScience (BMS)/NAFTA, the materials business of the global company Bayer AG. As Head of External and University Relations for BMS-NAFTA, Larry was responsible for evaluating new technologies of interest to Bayer in both universities and start-up companies, developing, implementing and managing a program of collaborative research projects at universities and start-ups to determine commercial potential of these technologies, and managing the transfer of research results to technical groups in the various BMS business units. His specific technical focus areas were nanomaterials and sustainable and bio-based materials. In the former case he served as the BMS representative in a multi-company effort that established, and obtained government funding for the non-profit Pennsylvania Nanomaterial Commercialization Center and, in the latter case, played a leadership role in sustainability efforts leading a team of technical staff in the development of activities that promoted green chemistry and sustainable processes within the company. Larry also has significant academic experience, teaching, conducting research, and developing and administering academic programs. Academic leadership includes Associate Director of the College of Arts and Sciences, and Associate Director of the Beckman Center, both at the University of Pennsylvania, and Assistant Chair of the Chemistry Department at the University of Pittsburgh, where he currently is a Visiting Research Professor funded by a National Science Foundation Senior Discovery Corps Fellowship focusing on research on CO2 sequestering polymers and developing curricula in the area of green chemistry. Larry received his B. S. degree in chemistry and mathematics from the University of Minnesota, and his Ph.D. in chemistry from Harvard University. He has been active in a number of professional organizations including the American Chemical Society, the Industrial Research Institute, and the Council for Chemical Research. Return to the agenda Judith C. Giordan, Managing Director, Steel City Re, LLC Judy has held executive and leadership positions in R&D and operations spanning a 25+ year career. Currently, Judy is Managing Director of Steel City Re, LLC, an intangible asset services firm; Vice President and co-founder of Visions in Education, Inc., a strategic and human capital services provider to universities, start-ups and non-profits; a member of the Board of Directors of start-up companies; and Professor of Practice in the College of Science and Technology of the University of Southern Mississippi – from which she has just completed a detail to the National Science Foundation as Program Director for the IGERT Program. Previous executive positions include Vice President and Global Corporate Director of Research and Development at International Flavors and Fragrances, Inc.; Vice-President Worldwide Research and Development for the Pepsi-Cola Company, the global beverage arm of PepsiCo, Inc.; Vice President Research and Development, Henkel Corporation, the North American operating unit of the Henkel Group, and co-founder and managing partner of 1EXECStreet a successful San Francisco based boutique executive search firm. She has also held management and technical contributor positions at Polaroid and ALCOA. In addition to her business and university responsibilities, Judy is active in academic, professional and industrial organizations. Current and previous positions include: Member of the Board of Directors of the American Chemical Society, the Industrial Research Institute, and the Educational Foundation of the Commercial Development and Marketing Association; Member of the Conference Board Advisory Board for Technology Conferences; Member of the Board on Chemical Sciences and Technology of the National Research Council; Member of the Math and Physical Sciences Advisory Board and Member and Chair of the Waterman Award Committee of the National Science Foundation; Chair of the Education and Outreach Committee of the Intangible Asset Finance Society. Judy has held Visiting and Adjunct professorships at North Carolina State University, Rutgers University and Dartmouth College and has served as a Member of the Board of Advisors of the University of Maryland College Of Life Sciences and the Institute for Strategic Business Markets at Penn State’s Smeal Business School. Her research interests and grants focus on women and diversity in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) and STEM intensive entrepreneurship and economic development. Judy is the author of over 200 articles, presentations, and seminars in the areas of career development, intellectual property monetization, market and operational strategy development and implementation, organizational and technology leadership, diversity, polymer chemistry, flavor and fragrance technology, and electron spectroscopy. She contributes articles and editorials to magazines and journals including Research and Technology Management, e-Plant, Chemical Specialties and numerous international technical journals and web sites. In addition, aspects of Judy’s work and activities have been featured in publications including Working Woman, Chemical Week, Chemical Specialties, and Chemical and Engineering News. She has also been included in numerous internationally and nationally based Who’s Who Publications, as well as books, studies and articles on topics including women and diversity, technology and career development. Return to the agenda Bart Houlahan, co-founder, B Lab Bart, along with Jay Coen Gilbert and Andrew Kassoy are founders of B Lab, a standards body that is proving that companies can “do well”while “doing good.” B Lab determines which companies are “B”certified—B Corporations are a new type of corporation that are purpose-driven and create benefit for all stakeholders, not just shareholders. In just over a year, there are already over 140 Certified B Corporations, from over 30 diverse industries, representing $1B in collective revenues and $6B in capital under management. Sustainable Harvest, for instance, is a certified B Corp. Prior to B Lab, Bart Houlahan was CFO, COO and President of AND 1, a $250M basketball footwear, apparel and entertainment company. As the principal operator of the business, Bart joined AND 1 in its second year, when revenues totaled just $4M. Over the course of the next 11 years, Bart helped to finance, operate and scale the business to $250M in brand revenues with distribution in 85 countries world wide. AND 1 undertook a leveraged recapitalization in 1999 with TA Associates, and eventually was sold in May, 2005, to American Sporting Goods out of Irvine, CA. Before AND 1, Bart was an investment banker with Stonebridge Associates, BNY Associates, and Prudential-Bache Securities, specifically focused on providing corporate finance and merger and acquisition services to small-cap businesses ranging in size from $20M to $500M. Bart grew up in Chicago, is a graduate of Stanford University, and now resides in Devon, PA with his wife Chrissy and daughters Molly, 15, and Carly, 13. Return to the agenda Paul Hudnut, Colorado State University Paul teaches entrepreneurship classes at the CSU College of Business. He is also Co-Director of CSU's Global Innovation Center for Energy, Health & Environment. Paul is a visiting instructor in entrepreneurship at the Bordeaux Business School and Bainbridge Graduate Institute. His background and interest is in building companies, technology transfer, and intellectual property in the bioscience, energy and information services industries. He is particularly interested in business models that emphasize an entrepreneurial approach to global issues of environment and health (blog LINK). Paul is a founder and Director of Envirofit International, Ltd., which was a TechAward laureate in 2005 and was recently recognized by Stanford Social Innovation Review for its innovative approach for commercializing environmentally friendly technologies in the developing world. He also serves as a board member of New Belgium Brewing Co., Inviragen and CaringFamily. Prior to joining CSU, Paul was an executive at Heska Corporation, U S WEST Marketing Resources and PR Pharmaceuticals. He earned his BA from Colorado College, his law degree from University of Virginia and completed the Program for Management Development at the Harvard Business School in 1991. Return to the agenda Donald Jones, VP, Business Development, Qualcomm Health & Life Sciences Don serves as vice president of business development for Qualcomm Incorporated. He is responsible for leading Qualcomm’s expansion of wireless technologies into the consumer health, healthcare and medical device markets. Prior to joining Qualcomm, Don spent 22 years developing and growing healthcare enterprises. He has served as chief operating officer of MedTrans (now American Medical Response) the world’s largest emergency medical services provider, as founder and chairman of EMME, Mexico’s largest member-based health service; and as senior vice president of marketing and business development for HealthCap, a venture capital backed startup, and at the time, the second largest provider of women’s healthcare in the United States. Don has extensive experience in mergers and acquisitions, having been involved in over 130 acquisitions. In 2000, the Journal of Emergency Medical Services (JEMS) named Jones One of the 20 Most Influential People in EMS. Don is on the Boards of the Alliance Healthcare Foundation, the American Telemedicine Association and is the founding board member of the Wireless Life Science Alliance. Don hold a US patent in the use of cell phones in incentive programs. Don holds bachelors’ degrees in biology and bio-engineering from the University of California, San Diego, a Juris Doctorate from the University of San Diego, and an MBA from the University of California, Irvine. Return to the agenda William Kramer, President, The Global Challenge Network Bill is president of The Global Challenge Network, LLC, a consulting and executive education and training company. He is also a Partner Consultant at AccountAbility21, a global think tank and consultancy. In addition, he is Senior Associate of the IESE Platform on Strategy and Sustainability, Barcelona, Spain. From 2001 to mid-2007, he worked with World Resources Institute in a variety of posts, including Director of Education and Training for the Markets & Enterprise Program, Deputy Director of the Development through Enterprise project, and Senior Fellow. During his WRI tenure, he was involved in all aspects of the Institute’s work on pro-poor business strategies. Bill is co-author of The Next Four Billion: Market Size and Business Strategy at the Base of the Pyramid (WRI/IFC, Washington, D.C., 2007). He served as a director of the seminal conference on business engagement in low-income markets, “Eradicating Poverty through Profit: Making Business Work for the Poor,” held in San Francisco in December 2004. He is a frequent contributor to the blog nextbillion.net, and the author of numerous articles and studies, including The Role of the ICT Sector in Expanding Economic Opportunity (JFK School of Government, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 2007). Prior to joining WRI, he founded The Knowledge Initiative, Inc., a non-profit organization examining the relationship between new knowledge creation, economic development, and individual well-being. Through his NGO he did extensive project field work for three years in South Africa, Côte d’Ivoire, Kenya, and Central Europe. Bill’s work in the non-profit arena followed a 30-year career as an entrepreneur, principally in the book industry. He owned and managed Sidney Kramer Books, for over 50 years the world’s leading bookstore for politics, economics, and area studies. He founded Kramerbooks & afterwords, the original bookstore/café, in Washington, D.C. During his business career, he created multiple enterprises in retailing, wholesaling, and publishing that served professionals and general readers, worldwide. During the dot-com era, he was a principal in several companies that created web-based applications for colleges and universities, including web portals, e-procurement, digital printing and publishing, and course management tools. Bill has taught sustainable development at the University of Maryland Graduate School of Public Affairs, and been a frequent lecturer at colleges and universities around the world, including Harvard University, the University of Chicago, Georgetown University, INSEAD, IESE, and ESADE, among others. He has led executive education seminars on business engagement with low-income communities in the United States, Europe, and Japan, and has served as a keynote speaker and panelist at numerous meetings and conferences, including for the World Bank, the European Academy for Business in Society, Women’s World Banking, the IIT Design Research Conference, the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, and others. As a consultant on development issues, Bill has worked with global companies, NGOs, and think tanks. Return to the agenda Scott is a journalist who writes about innovation, innovators, and their impact on the world. His work appears regularly in Variety and the Boston Globe, and he has also been published in Wired, Fast Company, Newsweek, The New York Times, The LA Times, BusinessWeek, and the Hollywood Reporter. He edits two blogs: Innovation Economy, which focuses on the entrepreneurial scene in New England, and CinemaTech, which covers emerging technologies and trends in the movies. Scott has helped to start three conferences dedicated to supporting start-ups and entrepreneurship, the oldest of which is held on Nantucket every May. Scott is the author of several books, including "The Future of Web Video" and "Inventing the Movies," which will be the topic of his talk at the NCIIA Annual Conference on Thursday, March 19. The book tour to support "Inventing the Movies" has taken him to Google, Netflix, the Sundance Film Festival, Disney, MIT, and Industrial Light & Magic, George Lucas' special effects firm. Return to the agenda Patrick Maloney, Senior Program Officer, The Lemelson Foundation Patrick joined The Lemelson Foundation in February 2008. Prior to that, he worked in northern California with mission-driven investors and donors in emerging technologies. He has also worked for a number of technology start-ups. He began his career with Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation and the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, an organization that was the recipient of the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize. Patrick holds an MBA from UC Berkeley and a BS in International Politics from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. John May, Founder and Managing Partner, New Vantage Group John is the founder and managing partner of New Vantage Group, a Vienna, VA firm that innovatively mobilizes private equity into early-stage companies and provides advisory services to both funds and private investors. John’s experience in private equity capital over the last 20 years ranges from venture capital fund management to angel investing. John has been at the forefront of the angel investor movement. In 1991, he co-founded the Investors' Circle, a national non-profit group of 125 family and institutional investors working to grow the social venture capital industry. Additionally, in 1996, he co-founded and became executive director of the Private Investors Network, an angel network sponsored by the Mid-Atlantic Venture Association, which he led until 2002. John is chair emeritus of the Angel Capital Association (formerly a program of the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation), is a lead instructor for the "Power of Angel Investing" seminars, and is co-author of two books, Every Business Needs an Angel (Crown Business: 2001), and State of the Art: An Executive Briefing on Cutting-Edge Practices in American Angel Investing (Darden Publishing: 2003). John holds a Masters in Public Administration from the Maxwell School of Syracuse University and a Bachelor of Arts from Earlham College. He is married, has two adult children and resides in McLean, Virginia. Return to the agenda Unforseen circumstances prevent Paul from attending the Venture Well Forum Paul is the founder of Colorado-based non-profit International Development enterprises (IDE)—is dedicated to developing practical solutions that attack poverty at its roots. Before establishing IDE, Paul practiced psychiatry for 23 years in Colorado. To better understand the environments influencing his patients, Paul would visit their homes and workplaces. After a trip he made to Bangladesh, he was inspired to use the skills he had honed while working with homeless veterans and mentally ill patients in Denver to serve the 800 million people living on a dollar a day around the world. Employing the same tactics he pioneered as a psychiatrist, Paul spent time “walking with farmers through their one-acre farms and enjoying a cup of tea with their families, sitting on a stool in front of their thatched-roof mud–and–wattle homes.” Paul’s ability to respond with innovative solutions–such as the $25 treadle pump and small farm drip–irrigation systems starting at $3—helped IDE increase poor farmers’ net income by $288 million annually. IDE received a $14 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates foundation in 2006. In 2004, Paul received Ernst & Young’s “Entrepreneur of the Year” award in the social responsibility category. And Paul was named one of the Scientific American “top 50” for his leadership in agriculture policy in 2003. Return to the agenda Pamela Roach, CEO, Breakthrough Group Pam provides critical advice to clients making strategic, product and market decisions. She has led Fortune 100 business segments in global marketplaces and delivered top and bottom line growth. At Honeywell, Pamela created successful e-business strategies and produced a leading edge electronic solution to information management, sales and training needs. Pamela is a graduate of Harvard University and Columbia University Business School. Return to the agenda Joseph Smith, Vice President, Emerging Technologies, Johnson & Johnson Joe is currently Vice President, Emerging Technologies for Johnson & Johnson in the Corporate Office of Science and Technology. His background includes an undergraduate degree in Electrical Engineering (EE) from Johns Hopkins University, a Master’s degree in EE from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), a PhD in Medical Engineering and Medical Physics from the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology, and an MD from Harvard Medical School. He completed his medical internship and residency at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, and completed his cardiology and clinical electrophysiology training at Brigham and Women’s hospital, the Krannert Institute of Cardiology in Indianapolis, and Washington University in St. Louis. From 1991 through 2000, he held academic positions at the School of Medicine (Cardiology) and the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis and served as Associate Director of Cardiac Electrophysiology at Barnes Hospital. From there, he went on to found the Arrhythmia Institute in Fairfax Virginia, a center of excellence in clinical cardiac electrophysiology and clinical research. From January 2003 through December of 2006 he served as Senior VP and Chief Medical Officer of Guidant /Boston Scientific – Cardiac Rhythm Management, where he provided senior scientific and medical leadership in research and development, new product planning, clinical trial design and conduct, healthcare and reimbursement policy, and medical education. He joined Johnson & Johnson in 2007 as Vice President, Microelectronic Technologies for Cordis Corporation, a Johnson & Johnson company. He has published in the areas of cardiac electrophysiology with special interest in ICD technology, catheter ablation, atrial fibrillation, and quantitative analytical techniques in biomedical signal processing, has been a consultant to many companies involved in the advancement of innovative medical technologies, and holds a number of patents in the area of signal processing and catheter and defibrillator design. Return to the agenda |
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