Gil Beyda, Genacast Ventures

Gil is a seasoned entrepreneur turned venture capitalist. Gil launched his first company Mind Games in 1982 to develop games for the original Apple II. Gil then started a software consulting firm with Fortune 100 clients in the U.S., Asia and Europe.

In 1995, Gil helped pioneer Internet advertising by founding Real Media, the first online ad network and ad server company. After Real Media was acquired in 2001, Gil pioneered the next wave of online advertising as CTO of TACODA, the first behavioral targeting, ad network. Following AOL’s acquisition of TACODA in 2007, Gil founded Genacast Ventures.

Steve Brotman, Greenhill SAVP

Steve Brotman is a Managing Director of Greenhill & Co, and co-founder and co-head of Greenhill SAVP. Prior to founding SAVP in 1998, Steve was the founder, CEO and Chairman of AdOne Classified Network, one of the nation’s leading classified ad web sites which was acquired by Hearst, Scripps and Advance-Newhouse.

While at SAVP, Steve was a finalist for the Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award 2000 and was named in Crain’s 2001 Tech 100. While at AdOne, Steve was selected for the 1997 Crain’s Top 25 Players Shaping Silicon Alley and the 1995 Top 40 under 40 among New York businessmen.

Steve currently serves on the boards of Mobile Commons, ReachForce, Critical Mention and Knovel (Observer) and has previously served on the boards of Medidata (Observer), DataSynapse (Observer) and UGO (acquired by Hearst in 2007).   In addition, Steve serves on the board of the MIT Enterprise Forum’s New York chapter and has served as a mentor and judge for the Columbia Business School Lang and Greenhouse Funds.

Steve received his undergraduate degree in Economics from Duke University and a joint JD/MBA degree with honors from Washington University.

Larry Chaityn, Keiretsu Forum

Larry Chaityn is Chapter President of Keiretsu Forum New York Tri-State. He is an active Angel investor and often remains actively involved in the companies in which he invests. Larry is also an Entrepreneur, having started an IT Consulting firm which he ran from its inception in 1985 through to its acquisition in 1989. Over his career, Larry has made a wide variety of business process and corporate acceleration contributions such as architecting an “Enterprise Orchestration Methodology” (EOM), crafted to ensure the success of corporations with the orchestration of the right people, utilization of the most effective business processes, and the identification of the optimum technology — all with the goal of executing clients’ business strategies. A recent participant in CEO Magazine’s “CEO2CEO Leadership Summit”, Larry frequently speaks to the CEO and CFO community on corporate acceleration with a focus on strategy execution, focused business fundamentals and the importance of customer “intimacy”. Larry holds BS & MBA degrees in Marketing from Fairleigh Dickinson University and Executive Education curriculum in Management from The University of Pennsylvania Wharton School of Business.

Brian S. Cohen, New York Angels, iFluencePR

Created iFluence PR a strategic behavioral-based communications consultancy for the new earned influence/social media community. Its focus is on understanding determinant business success factors and using qualitative customer research matched with aggressive communications.

Created Good Cause Communications, the first full-service (501c3 in process) PR firm designed to meet the needs of non-profits. Its newswire, GoodCauseNews.org will be the first free Newswire for Good Causes and PublicRelationsCares.com is the first social responsibility, volunteer program for Public Relations Professionals.

Founded GlobalComm/TSI (Technology Solutions, Inc.) in 1983. TSI was the first science and technology strategic marketing and public relations agency in New York and one of the first such specialists in the United States. In 1996, TSI was recognized as the #1 fastest growing strategic marketing agency in the United States.  Nearing 200 employees with 5 offices, he sold the company to The McCann Erickson World Group, part of the Interpublic Group of Companies in 1998.

As a hallmark of TSI’s collaborative work with hundreds companies during its 17-year tenure, it began a 14-year partnership with Sony Corporation of America in 1986. During that time, TSI provided strategic communications counsel to all Sony’s computer, business professional, and consumer products divisions introducing countless numbers of “bleeding-edge” products. In that same year, TSI began a 12-year alliance with the IBM Corporation that grew to represent more than 50 divisions, providing all levels strategic communications/media relations counsel. Brian provided ongoing media training to IBM executive management on how to talk to and develop sustainable relationships with the media and analyst communities. As a testament to the success of this relationship, TSI received the Gold CIPRA award (#1 Public Relations program) in 1998 for the IBM Deep Blue/Gary Kasparov Chess Match concept development and public relations program.

Brian created and instituted the RPM (Rapid Publicity Marketing) model of strategic communications. This smart/fast and tightly integrated approach to publicity gave clients a quick market edge and was designed to discover and leverage a company’s core strengths as well as mitigate their destructive weaknesses.

TSI’s client list read like an entrepreneurial who’s who list of leading technology companies in computing, communication, software, education, and entertainment all supported by an integrated matrix of professionals in research, strategic planning, media placement, video production and event management.

Additionally, Brian started Focus Technology, a focus group business providing qualitative research and beta site creation and evaluation services.  Brian provided all development and moderating support.

Before launching TSI, Brian was a founding publisher of Computer Systems News and Publisher of InformationWeekmagazine at CMP Publications.  As a graduate student, he worked on pioneering computer trade publications includingPersonal Computing Magazine and Minicomputer News from Benwill Publishing.

Brian received two Honor B.S. degrees from Syracuse University in Biology and Rhetoric/Speech Communications. He also received a Masters Degree in Science & Technology Communications from Boston University’s School of Public Communications in 1978 and currently serves on the Dean’s Advisory Board of Directors.  He also sits on the Executive Board of The People for the American Way as well the New York Angels investment group. He also actively judges numerous entrepreneur competitions including the NYU Stern School and Columbia University and sponsors his own competition at the School of Communications at Boston University where he recently received the distinguished alumni award.

Esther Dyson, EDventure Holdings

Esther Dyson is a long-time catalyst of start-ups in information technology in the U.S. and other markets, including Russia. Since selling her company, EDventure Holdings, to CNET Networks in 2004, she has taken on newer challenges in private aviation and space as well as in health care (as a director of 23andMe, a consumer genetics company). Her IT investments have included Flickr and del.icio.us (both sold to Yahoo!), and Medstory (sold to Microsoft), as well as Meetup Inc., Eventful.com, Boxbe and Voxiva. She is also an active investor in air and space, with holdings in Space Adventures and Zero-G Corporation, as well as XCOR Aerospace, Constellation Services International, Coastal Technologies Group, Dopplr.com, Airship Ventures and Icon Aircraft. She was recently honored with the Aenne Burda Award for Creative Leadership at the DLD Conference in Munich.

Stuart Ellman, RRE Ventures

John Frankel, ff Asset Management LLC.

John Frankel founded ff Asset Management LLC as an early stage venture fund because he saw a market that was not being served well by established venture funds.  There is a VC funding gap, that not only starves early stage companies of capital, but also of advice and expertise, impacting companies ability to grow and attract talent.  John Frankel has been an early-stage venture investor for over ten years, with a broad portfolio of investments.  He has worked closely with entrepreneurs in a variety of fields and has experience advising start-ups.

Mr. Frankel started his business career with Arthur Anderson & Co. in the audit and insolvency divisions.  He spent the following twenty one years at Goldman, Sachs & Co. in a variety of roles that involved technology development, reengineering, and capital markets.  His primary focus is helping early stage companies deploy lightweight disruptive business models to become the low cost player in their respective market.

Mr. Frankel was an early stage investor and director of Quigo Technologies, Inc. which was purchased by AOL in December 2007.  He has also served on the boards of Alerts.com, ClearPath Immigration, Klout, Patents.com, StrongTech, The Goldman Sachs Trust Company and Track.com, and is a member of the board of advisors of Phone.com and OrcaOne.

Mr. Frankel earned a Master of Arts from New College, Oxford where he studied Mathematics, Philosophy and Logic, and is a Fellow Chartered Accountant of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales.

Lewis Gersh, Metamorphic Ventures

Lewis is a digital media and venture investor veteran with over 15 years of experience. Prior to founding Metamorphic Ventures, Lewis was the founder and CEO of Worldly Information Network (WIN), a publisher of digital financial information to both the retail and institutional markets backed by TD Capital and in partnership with AOL. Lewis successfully grew WIN into a profitable company before its sale, but more importantly, he has experienced all the ups and downs that every start-up goes through. Lewis is actively involved with the portfolio companies including executive team development, fundraising, M&A, operational strategy, and board management.

Lewis graduated from San Diego State University in 1989 with a BA in English & Political Science and seven years later, received his JD and Masters in Intellectual Property Law from Pierce Law in 1996. During the interim, Lewis was an accomplished athlete, competing in Ironman triathlons, marathons and ultra-marathons worldwide while writing free lance articles on the events as well as doing computer work to pay the bills.

Lewis is a member of the bar of the State of New York as well as the American Intellectual Property Law Association. Lewis is also a trustee of the Pierce Law, an internationally recognized leader in intellectual property education.

Chip Hazard, Flybridge Capital Partners

Chip is a General Partner at Flybridge Capital Partners whose investment interests and experience broadly cover companies and technologies in the information technology sector.He currently represents the firm on the boards of 1-800-FREE411 (Jingle Networks), 10gen, First Best Systems, Goby,Infobright, Placemark, Reveal Imaging, and Sciformix and was previously a director at Bowstreet (acquired by IBM), mValent (acquired by Oracle) and SupplyScape (acquired by TraceLink).

Before joining the firm in May 2002, Chip was a General Partner with Greylock Partners, a leading venture capital firm he joined in 1994. While at Greylock, Chip led or participated in numerous successful investments in the enterprise information technology field including Narrative Communications (acquired by @Home), Idiom Technologies (acquired by SDL),  iPhrase Technologies (acquired by IBM), IBA (acquired by ServiceSoft/Kana), Storage Networks (IPO), Totality (acquired by MCI) and the Vincam Group (IPO in 1996, acquired by ADP). Prior to Greylock, he was with Company Assistance Limited, an investment and consulting firm in Warsaw Poland; and Bain and Company, an international management consulting firm.

Brad Hoover, General Catalyst Partners

Brad Hoover focuses on investments in early and growth stage technology businesses. Areas of special interest include wireless, financial services, and consumer internet. Brad is currently a board member of go2 Media and MocoSpace, and is involved with CCP Games, EzPrints and QuickPlay Media.Brad joined General Catalyst from The Strategy Learning Center (SLC), a start-up consultancy he co-founded. While at SLC, Brad developed a private equity consulting business, and helped veteran entrepreneurs secure funding. Prior to SLC, Brad was a Business Analyst for McKinsey & Company. At McKinsey, Brad worked primarily for Fortune 500 clients on growth, market entry, innovation, and sales strategy, in addition to performance management and procurement optimization. Before McKinsey, Brad led the development of an intranet application used by the former Arthur Andersen to project manage clients’ mergers and acquisitions.Brad graduated magna cum laude from Cornell University, with a B.S. in Operations Research and Industrial Engineering.

Jalak Jobanputra, New York City Investment Fund

Jalak has over 15 years experience in venture capital, media and technology.  Currently Senior Vice President at the New York City Investment Fund (NYCIF) where she oversees technology and digital media venture investments, Jalak spearheaded the formation of NYCSeed in 2008, a seed fund dedicated to funding early stage tech entrepreneurs in NYC, and sits on its Investment Committee and Venture Advisory Board.  She is a current investor in outside.in, Imagespan, Thumbplay, TXVia, Partsearch and Marketing Technology Solutions.

Prior to NYCIF, she was a Principal at New Venture Partners, a $300 million early stage venture fund.  At NVP, she founded and served as interim CEO of Real Time Content  (spun out of British Telecom) and was a Director of Procelerate Technologies, a SaaS workflow management tool for the aerospace industry.  She also incubated a range of other technologies, including speech recognition/NLP, 3D displays, video surveillance, 4G wireless broadband and music recommendation software.  From 1999-2003, Jalak was at Intel Capital in Silicon Valley, where she oversaw enterprise software, internet and digital media investments, including Demantra (sold to Oracle), Extricity (sold to Peregrine), Viacore (sold to IBM), R Systems (IPO), Yodlee and Zinio.  She was on the launch team of online financial information startup Horsesmouth in 1997, and began her career in media, telecom and tech investment banking at Lehman and Broadview in NYC and London.

Jalak has invested, and traveled extensively, in India, Europe, Africa, East Asia and Latin America.  She is also active in supporting education reform and social entrepreneurship and serves on boards of Achievement First Bushwick Charter School (Brooklyn) and Echoing Green, and has consulted for the Big Picture and Fenway charter schools in New England as well as Jobs for the Future.  She is a member of the NYC Leadership Council for YearUp, a professional training program for urban young adults.  Jalak spent four months setting up microfinance programs and training women entrepreneurs in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania after receiving her MBA from the Kellogg School of Management in 1999.   She graduated magna cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania with a BA in Communications from the Annenberg School and a BSE in Finance from the Wharton School.   She is a member of TiE (The Indus Entrepreneurs), Advisory Board of Astia NYC, Girls in Tech, the Wharton Private Equity Network, Kellogg Entrepreneurs, and is a frequent speaker and judge at entrepreneur and venture conferences.

Baris Karadogan, Fuse Capital

Baris has been a partner at Fuse Capital since 2006. Concurrently, Baris is CEO of HIP Digital Media, a leading promotional marketing technology company in Fuse Capital’s portfolio.  At Fuse, he focuses on identifying investment opportunities in digital media with a principal emphasis on the Internet.

Prior to joining the firm, Baris worked for six years at U.S. Venture Partners, one of the leading Silicon Valley-based venture capital firms. Baris’ recent board seats/investments include: HIP Digital Media, Like.com, SpectraLinear, Minerva Networks, Redline Communications (LSE: REDL) and Aspendos Communications (acquired by Beceem Co). Before becoming a venture capitalist, Baris worked in both engineering and marketing at 3Com/U.S. Robotics, where he worked to develop the company’s networking and cable industry products. His efforts at U.S. Robotics resulted in a number of U.S. patents.

Baris holds an MBA from Stanford University Graduate School of Business, where he was an Arjay Miller Scholar, and an MS in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University. He earned a BS in Electrical Engineering from Lafayette College, where he graduated summa cum laude. He is a frequent speaker in Digital Media conferences, including Digital Hollywood, Dow Jones Conferences & Macworld. The best way to get to know Baris is to read his blog, “From Istanbul to Sand Hill Road” which focuses on high technology, venture capital, innovation and creativity.

Jay Levy, Zelkova Ventures

Jay Levy is a co-founder and principal of Zelkova Ventures.  Jay focuses most of his time in working with the current portfolio company and looking at new investments in the software-as-a-service, internet media and green tech space.

Jay launched his entrepreneurial career while in High School with his first web-services firm, providing web development services to early stage companies.  After high school, Jay moved to New Jersey to attend Rutgers University, where he studied Finance & Political Science.  While at Rutgers he helped to launch UConnections.com an internet portal for college students merging the office campus community with the dorm.   While still in college Jay went to work for Morgan Stanley working on the development of their separately managing account business.  After leaving Morgan Stanley, Jay helped to launch MPI Professionals a New York based financial service consultancy which was later acquired by a publically traded multi-national.  More recently Jay was a founding partner of Trueview Services, an online monitoring solution targeted to the small business and residential market.

Jay has been a recipient of the Crain’s top 5 Entrepreneurs to Watch in New York received the 40 under 40 Award from Westchester County.

Jay currently resides in Manhattan and in his free time enjoys playing golf, tennis and running.

McAdory “Mac” Lipscomb, RRE Ventures

Raymond Luk, Flow Ventures

Raymond (Twitter: rayluk) is the founder of Flow Ventures. He is also the founder of ArtAnywhere (www.artanywhere.com). He is an experienced entrepreneur having built and managed several startups over the last decade.  He’s played the role of CEO, investor, strategic consultant, turnaround specialist and been on the management team of both public and private software companies. Raymond is a frequent participant and guest speaker at entrepreneurial events. He is a Board member at Symtext and ArtAnywhere, and a member of the Advisory Cabinet at Project Olympus, at Carnegie Mellon University.

Dr. Howard Morgan, First Round Capital

Howard Morgan has more than 25 years of experience serving as a mentor, advisor and investor in entrepreneurial ventures.

Howard was Professor of Decision Sciences at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and Professor of Computer Science at the Moore School at the University of Pennsylvania from 1972 through 1985. He has been a Visiting Professor at the California Institute of Technology and the Harvard Business School. During his academic career he served as an editor of Communications of the ACM, Management Science, Transactions on Office Information Systems and Transactions on Database Systems. His research on user interface technology, and on optimization of computer networks led to his bringing the ARPAnet to Philadelphia in 1974. As a result of this early participation in the internet, he advised many corporate and government agencies on the uses of electronic and voice mail, implementing it throughout the Wharton School in the mid 1970s.

From 1983 to 1989, he served as President of Renaissance Technologies Corp. in New York, where he supervised venture capital investments in high technology companies. He was a founding board member and technical advisor of Franklin Electronic Publishers, one of the first manufacturers of personal computers. He has been an active consultant and speaker to users and vendors in the information systems area for more than 30 years, and has worked with many of the Fortune 100 companies and numerous government agencies.

Since 1989, he has been President of the Arca Group, Inc., nurturing early stage companies and taking them from seed stage through initial public offerings.  He also serves as a Director of Idealab, where he was a founding investor in 1996.   Dr. Morgan serves on a number of public company Boards, including Franklin Electronic Publishers and Internet Brands, Inc. He is also Chairman or a member of the board of numerous private companies including Energy Innovations, Evolution Robotics Retail, snap.com, MagicWorks LLC and Math For America. He has also served as CEO of Kentek and Franklin during various turnover or transitional periods. In 1997, he was named Delaware Valley Entrepreneur of the Year. Howard is a respected author and a frequent speaker at major industry conferences.

He received a Ph.D. in Operations Research from Cornell University in 1968, and a B.S. in physics from City College of the City University of New York in 1965.

Cem Sertoglu, Young Turk Ventures

Young Turk Ventures was founded in 2005 by Cem Sertoglu. Cem is an entrepreneur and investor with extensive experience building internet businesses in Turkey and the US.  He is currently the founder and Managing Partner of Young Turk Ventures.  Prior to YTV, Cem was a General Partner at iLab, Turkey’s largest internet investment firm, where he was in charge of new internet investments. During his tenure at iLab, Cem was instrumental to the acquisition of a minority stake in GittiGidiyor. Cem has also held a Venture Partner role at Golden Horn Ventures and was a co-founder and CEO of Mondus, a Turkish social network. In addition, he is an investor in Grou.ps, YemekSepeti.com, Wikimart.ru and CivicSolar.

Prior to his move to Istanbul in 2005, Cem served as the CEO of SelectMinds, which he co-founded in 1999. SelectMinds is the leading provider of enterprise social networking solutions. Before SelectMinds, Cem was the Vice President in charge of U.S. operations for Farmer & Co., a strategy consulting firm based in London, that specializes in helping professional service firms improve their strategies and operations.

Cem holds an Economics degree from The University of Texas at Austin. He has been a frequent speaker and contributor on industry topics in leading business publications. He has also had an article published in Harvard Business Review.  Cem is a member of the Istanbul chapter of YPO.

Baris Aksoy, Intel Capital

Baris Aksoy is a venture capitalist at Intel Capital focusing on consumer internet, social media, location based services, and advertising and ecommerce infrastructure investments.

Prior to joining Intel Capital, Baris worked at University Venture Fund, an early stage venture capital firm, where he was involved in equity investments in the internet and digital media sectors. Earlier, Baris held product management and development roles at Calix, an early stage startup developing next-generation access systems. During his tenure at Calix, he focused on digital media delivery systems and oversaw development of key features of the IPTV consumer experience. Earlier in his career, Baris started and grew the West Coast sales office for Alcatel’s semiconductor subsidiary.

Baris holds an MBA from the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania and a BSc in Electrical Engineering from Istanbul Technical University, Turkey.

Lara Aldag

Ms. Aldag is the founder of TAG, an advisory firm specializing in business and product development, brand expansion, and marketing campaigns for technology and new-media start-ups and growth stage companies. TAG creates efficient, strategic solutions for startups looking to develop their business strategy and raise additional sources of capital. TAG has worked with over 15 companies in developing and executing business and commercialization strategies, refining product and technology projects, creating strategic partnerships and digital media campaigns, and leading capital raising initiatives.

Previously, Ms. Aldag was a Partner at Electranet Capital, a long-short equity investment fund, where she focused on the firm’s clean energy and technology investments and managed the firm’s marketing initiatives and business partnerships. Ms. Aldag has been a member of Credit Suisse’s Technology Mergers & Acquisitions Group, where she advised internet, software, and new-media clients in leveraged buyouts, acquisitions, growth driven scale projects, and sale auctions processes. During her tenure, the group completed over $20 billion in transaction value. Ms. Aldag began her career in the Strategy Finance group at Intel, where she was responsible for developing a cost allocation model for the D2 facility in Santa Clara.

Ms. Aldag sits on the advisory board of Rising Tide Capital and Hugebrow (Human Genome Browser), is director of strategic partnerships for Amstel Valley Ventures, and is involved with Keiretsu Forum, Opportunity International and Lend for Peace.

Ms. Aldag holds a B.A. in Economics from Stanford University with additional studies at the London School of Economics.

Prof. Jonathan Askin

Jonathan Askin is a Professor at Brooklyn Law School, teaching Telecom, New Media and Internet Law.  Jonathan is also the Founder and Director of the Brooklyn Law Incubator and Policy Clinic, designed to represent and advocate on behalf of Internet and new media startups and causes.  Jonathan is also a communications, Internet and media attorney and consultant, representing clients on strategic business development and policy advocacy.

Jonathan is a recognized advocate, lobbyist and thought-leader for the competitive telecommunications, new media and Internet industries.  He has sat on the boards of many recognized industry bodies and plays prominent roles in many of the associations on the forefront and intersection of policy and technology.

Jonathan is an honors graduate of both Harvard College and Rutgers Law School, and clerked for the late Chief Justice Robert Wilentz of the New Jersey Supreme Court.

Jonathan Axelrod

Jonathan Axelrod is a technology and media entrepreneur. Jon is currently working on a new venture, which remains in stealth mode, and is also an active start-up adviser and angel investor. Most recently, he was Co-Founder and Co-CEO of MusicGremlin, Inc, a venture-backed start-up which was sold to Sandisk, inc. in 2008. MusicGremlin was a pioneer in the delivery of digital media content to connected devices. The company developed an end-to-end software and services solution enabling push media delivery to wireless devices, which  also provided consumers an innovative way to access and legally share licensed content. The company filed numerous patents and was recognized with multiple innovation awards around its product and service.

Previously, Jon was Co-founder and President of Music123, a first-mover musical instrument e-commerce company that became one of the largest musical instrument retailers in the country.  Founded in 1999, Music123 grew from start-up to a profitable market leader in less than four years.  The company was sold 2003 and is currently a brand of Guitar Center, remaining one of largest e-commerce retailers in the category.  Jon started his career as a consultant at McKinsey & Company where he focused on e-commerce and financial institutions.  He holds an A.B. in Social Studies magna cum laude from Harvard University.  He currently serves on the Board of Overseers of Beth Israel Medical Center in New York City.

Steve Cheney

Steve is an entrepreneur with a rich technology background across consumer, mobile, infrastructure and web industries.

A Silicon Valley native, Steve spent the majority of his career at Integrated Device Technology, marketing Linux-based reference platforms to engineers, GMs, and CEOs at Apple, Cisco, Intel, Google, Sun, HP, Nokia, Foxconn and hundreds of other OEMs/ODMs worldwide.

Steve has also worked as an M&A investment banker at Morgan Stanley, as a part-time associate at Investor Growth Capital, and in educational roles both independently and at Kaplan. Earlier in his career he founded an independent software business which developed custom productivity solutions for construction and law firms, and co-founded a ten-person construction firm which served thousands of residential clients.

Steve currently contributes for TechCrunch, and his writings have appeared in national publications including CNN and The Wall Street Journal. He has a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of California at Santa Barbara and an MBA from Columbia University with an emphasis in finance and strategy.

Calvin Chu, Columbia Technology Ventures

Prior to joining Columbia Technology Ventures, Calvin was previously co-founder of Mobile Crossing (acquired 2007), an innovative Silicon Valley-based handheld computer company specializing in global positioning systems (GPS), tourism, agriculture, survey and military applications.  He has also taken part in Optimal Networks (acquired 2000, Compuware) and FlyteComm. Since relocating from the Bay Area to New York City, Calvin has joined the budding startup culture of NYC’s Silicon Alley.  He’s a strong believer in close collaborative ties to
the local entrepreneur community as a basis for technology transfer to startup companies and Columbia led spinouts.  In addition to startup companies, Calvin consulted for large  corporations like Goldman Sachs, PSE&G and Williams Energy.

At Columbia Technology Ventures, Calvin oversees Columbia University’s computer technology intellectual property portfolio.  The portfolio consists of nearly 1000 distinct pieces of IP representing over a decade of innovation from one of the nation’s top research institutions.

Joseph Daniels, Loeb & Loeb LLP

Joe Daniels is a partner in the corporate and securities groups at Loeb & Loeb LLP.  Joe represents startup to mature public companies, private equity and venture capital funds, and investment banks involved in high-growth sectors such as information technology and new media.   He has represented companies, VCs and strategic investors in over $1 billion of private equity and debt financings.  He has advised company management and top investment banks handling over $5 billion of merger, acquisition and disposition transactions, and raising over $3 billion in initial and follow-on public offerings of equity and debt.  He also regularly represents private equity firms in leveraged buy-outs, and companies in obtaining secured lines of credit, equipment financing, and other loans.  Joe has represented clients in the asset protection, biotech, clean tech, digital media, health care, financial services, semiconductor, software, and telecommunications industries.

Atil Erken

Atil is an investor and senior executive specializing in consumer web and health care, with substantial managerial and entrepreneurial experience. Currently he is the COO of Cadit Health, a health care technology platform designed to empower patients to take control of their own health care and to enable health insurance companies to effectively engage with their members. Before Cadit, Atil held various operational, business, and corporate development roles; worked for Crossix, which uses its patent pending technology to help pharma & publishing clients optimize marketing programs, and was a member of the senior management team at HealthCentral, a network of health sites reaching over 10M monthly unique visitors. Atil also worked for Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive and Accenture’s strategy practice, and completed his MBA at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business. Atil lives in NYC and enjoys running marathons, diving and traveling.

Brian Hutchings, Gunderson Dettmer

Brian is a corporate partner at the New York office of the law firm Gunderson Dettmer. His practice focuses on the representation of private and publicly held emerging growth companies and venture capital and private equity funds that invest in those companies. Brian specializes in all areas of corporate, securities and partnership law, including the formation and financing of companies, public offerings, debt transactions, corporate governance and investor-side financings of all stages. Brian’s work with companies spans the entire corporate life-cycle, including strategic decisions and coaching prior to incorporation, general corporate representation and counseling, venture capital financings, initial public offerings and mergers and acquisitions.

Brian’s fund practice also includes the structuring, formation, organization and operation of venture capital and private equity funds and their general partners and related management company entities. Brian advises funds on all aspects of their operations, including the preparation of offering materials, the fundraising process and negotiations and communications with investors. He regularly counsels clients on compliance with Investment Company Act of 1940, the Investment Advisers Act of 1940, and ERISA, as well as other statutes and regulations applicable to venture and private equity funds.

Prior to joining the firm, Brian worked as an attorney in the New York office of O’Melveny & Myers LLP. He earned a J.D., magna cum laude, from Villanova University School of Law and earned a B.M., summa cum laude, from James Madison University. Brian is admitted to practice law in the State of New York.

Tommy Michelle Jenkins, Chief Operating Officer, GIT and Executive Director, GIT NYC

Tommy is focused on enabling each person to be free to pursue her dreams and in turn to have the opportunity to inspire others. To help realize this universal need, she is thrilled to be working with the intelligent leadership and cutting-edge ideas within the Girls in Tech network. Tommy works with the GIT founder and its leaders to communicate and to realize all our strengths through enabling, empowering and engaging in innovative programs, communities and networks. A New York City native, Tommy is inspired by the strength and passion of GIT leaders all over the world.

Tommy enjoys supporting innovation that progresses industry and community. She is passionate about the sweet spot between community and social good. With a B.S. education in computer science and visual design, she has further explored the classical liberal arts, marketing, medical and analytical research and writing, and political strategy. She focuses on business and investment.

Eric Lerner, Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel LLP

Eric concentrates his practice in corporate and securities law, including start up, early and later stage private and public capital formation and related transactions. He is experienced in a broad variety of general contract, finance and commercial business matters, particularly those involving the creation, financing and growth of entrepreneurial ventures. These diverse representations have involved businesses engaged in social networking and media/advertising, online retail, interactive radio, interactive multichannel entertainment and advertising content, business services outsourcing, educational content and specialty products for the disabled, and music industry trade publications, among others.

He also represents public companies, including in corporate governance and stock exchange listing standards matters and has represented participants in significant management buyout, joint venture, corporate partnering and strategic alliance transactions; issuers and underwriters of securities in both public offerings and private placements; and purchasers and sellers in mergers and acquisitions, including public reverse mergers. These transactions have involved companies engaged in such businesses as industrial product distribution, interactive entertainment and other media properties, online/catalog distribution, nutritional supplements, consumer electronics, defense contracting and apparel manufacturing. His clients include large established companies (public and private), emerging growth companies, hedge funds, venture capitalists, “angel investors” and investment banks.

Basak Ozer

Basak is a seasoned entrepreneur with 15 years of experience in internet, mobile and consumer electronics space. Most recently she was at Quattro Wireless (acquired by Apple) and Tele Atlas (acquired by Tom Tom) as VP Product and MarketingShe helped Tele Atlas, a location based application and digital mapping company, achieve a global footprint, and drove a differentiated product roadmap which fueled the company’s tremendous growth. Tele Atlas became one of the first success stories within location-based space, powering internet, mobile, in-car navigation, and handheld GPS applications. At Quattro Wireless, Basak was part of a team which shaped the dynamics of the mobile advertising space in its infancy stages. She was instrumental in conceptualizing and launching a product suite which maximizes returns for both the publishers and advertisers.

Prior to joining the start-up world, Basak spent 8 years at Honeywell, where she ran regional and global P&L’s ranging up to $100M in annual revenue. She also took part in a venture team, evaluated technology firms within consumer electronics and automotive space against Honeywell’s product roadmap gaps and made acquisition decisions.

Basak has an Electrical Engineering degree from Istanbul Technical University and MBA from Michigan State.

Dilawar Syed

Dilawar is President & Chief Executive Officer of Yonja Media Group, a leading emerging markets internet media company, where he is responsible for the company’s strategic vision and the execution of its global business. Founded in 2003, Istanbul and Silicon Valley-based Yonja Media Group operates Yonja.com, Turkey’s first and largest local social network. Under Dilawar’s leadership, Yonja Media is rapidly expanding its portfolio of products in mobility and location based services, social gaming and online education. The company recently launched a regional advertising and payment network business. Yonja Media Group is backed by Tiger Global Management and leading Turkish investors.

Prior to joining Yonja Media Group, Dilawar was at Yahoo! where he was head of strategy and global business operations for Yahoo!’s Platform Division; at SAP where Dilawar launched the company’s Customer Relationship Management solution; and at Siebel Systems where Dilawar grew Siebel’s platform product line to a multi-million dollar business globally. Dilawar started his career as a management consultant with Deloitte Consulting and Ernst & Young in the firms’ financial services, energy and communication industry practices.

Dilawar has played a leadership role in driving entrepreneurship and broader civic efforts in Silicon Valley.He served as the President of entrepreneurship organization OPEN Silicon Valley. In 2008, Dilawar served as member National Finance Committee for Obama for America. Gov. Howard Dean appointed Dilawar as National Co-Chair of the Democratic National Committee’s South Asian American Leadership Council. Dilawar is Board member of the the Korematsu Institute for Civil Rights and Education. Dilawar holds an MBA from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and a BA inEconomics and Computer Science from the University of Texas at Austin.

Jacob Brody Standard Start