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Advisory Board

 

 

 

  • Esther Dyson, EDventure Holdings, Chairman; Release 1.0, Editor
  • Alexander “Sasha” Galitsky, Managing Partner, Almaz Capital Partners
  • Vladimir Jacimovic, Partner, New Enterprise Associates
  • Max Levchin, Founder and CEO, Slide; Co-founder and former CTO, PayPal
  • Boris Lipkin, President and CEO, Therma-Wave, Inc. 
  • Peter Loukianoff, Alloy Ventures, Partner
  • Alexander Stepanov, Adobe Systems, Principal Scientist; Inventor of the C++ Standard Template Library
  • Rob Theis, General Partner, Doll Capital Management   

    Esther Dyson

    EDventure Holdings, Chairman; Release 1.0, Editor

     

    After graduating from Harvard in economics, Dyson began her serious career in 1974 as a fact-checker for Forbes and quickly rose to reporter. In 1977 she joined New Court Securities as "the research department", following Federal Express and other start-ups. After a stint at Oppenheimer covering software companies, she moved to Rosen Research and in 1983 bought the company from her employer Ben Rosen, and renamed it EDventure Holdings.

    Dyson is currently the chairman of EDventure Holdings, which publishes the influential monthly technology-industry newsletter, Release 1.0 ("the first good look at technology that matters"), and sponsors the industry's premier annual conference, PC (Platforms for Communication) Forum in the US (March 24 to 26, 2004). In addition to writing several issues of Release 1.0 each year and overseeing the rest, Dyson also writes a fortnightly column for the New York Times syndicate (Release 3.0), which also appears in EDventure's online newsletter, The conversation continues. Finally, she has just started a blog, Release 4.0

     

    Dr. Alexander Galitsky

    		 Alexander “Sasha” Galitsky
    Managing Partner, Almaz Capital Partners
    Dr. Galitsky is an internationally renowned entrepreneur and investor with a proven track record and executive operational experience in the US, Russia and Western Europe.
    During the past decade he founded and led as a CEO five successful companies including ELVEES, a leader in the field of multicore chip development, DSP processors and intelligent video surveillance systems and ELVIS+,a leading Russian technology company, which renames nowadays a leading Russian system integrator in the field of information security. He pioneered with ELVIS+ and Sun Microsystems in patented WiFi 4 Mps PCMCIA card technology back in 1992-1993, which was acquired later by US government in 1994; in PC based VPN and Firewall security SunScreen E+ product line in 1994 – 1996, which was acquired by Sun Microsystems in 1996. ELVIS+ became a leading Internet Service Provider in Russia since 1991and pioneered in Russian by creating own Web site back in 1993 and first industry media portal InfoArt back in 1995. In 1996, Alexander made a spin-off of ELVIS+ Internet Division into new company ELVIS Telekom and investment was brought from the leading Russian cell-phone provider Vimpelcom (Beeline) and in 2000, the company was sold to Telenor/Nextra. In 1998, n the base of his success with ELVIS+, Galitsky founded a new security company, which was focused on the Network Security Management. Company was named a Technology Pioneer by World Economic Forum in 2000 and was acquired by the Hamsard Group in 2002 (AIM:HMSD).;   He also founded and invested in Dutch based EzWIM, a leading mobile services cost management company, which is successfully growing on the European market.
    Dr. Galitsky has a successful fundraising record of accomplishment. In 1993, he negotiated the first overseas investment Sun Microsystems ever made in a Russian company. From 1996-2005, he was able to raise over $37 million from western venture capital and corporate funds for ELVIS Telekom, TrustWorks, EzWIM and SWSoft (not included).
    Prior to beginning his entrepreneurial career, Dr. Galitsky served as President and General Manager of the Soviet Space Agency. During his tenure there (1979-1992) he was one of the top technical executives responsible for the design and implementation of satellite and spacecraft software, as well as computer and data communication systems for the Soviet defense industry. His personal science and engineering contribution to national leading computer architecture, on-board software and image recognition systems was recognized by government awards and national patents. He was the youngest national program leader for projects such as on-board computer systems which was used by 85% of Soviets satellites and low-orbit 64kbps -2Mps data communication systems for the Soviet “Star Wars” response on which internet based communication was tested back to 1999-1990. From demonstration this unique capability to Sun Microsystems founder Bill Joy in October 1990 – Alexander deep friendship with Sun was started and opened for him a door to western high-tech market
    In 2003, Dr. Galitsky left the Hamsard Group and became an active participant in the venture capital community in Russia, Europe and the US. Through his Netherlands-based AV Galitsky Holdings company, he has made several investments, including Start-Telecom (www.starttelecom.ru), a leading Russian WiMAX operator (now Syntera, www.syntera.ru) , NavMaps (now TeleAtlas) – navigation maps company; S-Terra (www.s-terra.com) – leading network security vendor; SWSoft (www.swsoft.com), Parallels a leading automation and virtualization company.
    In 2004, working together with the European Venture Capitalist Association, he served as the President of the first Russian TechTour (www.techtour.com) .
    In 2005, Dr. Galitsky joined Russian Technologies as a venture partner and led the investments into SJ Labs and EverNote. In 2006, he was made a partner of the fund and led the Information & Communications Technology investment practice. In March 2007, as a board member of SJLabs, he orchestrated a successful exit from SJLabs though company acquisition by US telco company Ymax (www.ymax.com). In April 2007, he left Russian Technologies with an idea to create a new venture fund.
     In addition, he serves as advisory board member for companies like PGP Inc. (www.pgp.com), Acronis (www.acronis.com) and SWSoft. He was an advisory board member to company Magnifire (now F5, www.f5.com).
    Dr. Galitsky has authored over one-hundred international publications and over thirty patents, including in WiFi area. He has been a featured speaker at numerous international conferences, including Interop, the World Economic Forum, Catalyst, High-Tech Forum, RSA, Infosec , ETRE, SVOD and he has been interviewed and profiled in numerous publications including the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Financial Times , San Jose Mercury News, Business Week, Times and the New York Times. He has been named by independent agencies as the most influential person in the Russian IT and Internet industry during 1994-98 and again in 2000-2001. He was named “Technology Pioneer” by the World Economic Forum in Davos in 2000, where the technology achievements of his company TrustWorks were also recognized and received the award for ‘Technology of New Millennium’.

    Alexander is an Advisory Board member of Stockholm Challenge and Board Member of Independent Software Development Forum (www.isdef.org).

    Vladimir Jacimovic

    Partner, New Enterprise Associates

     

    Vladimir joined NEA in 2005. He focuses on investments in information technology, including software, communications and technology-enabled services. Currently he is on the Board of Directors of Compiere and Pentaho and serves as an advisor to Sugar CRM. Since starting his venture career with Robertson Stephens Venture Capital in 1996, Vladimir was involved in investments in over 20 companies, including Cendura (acquired by Computer Associates), CenterRun (acquired by Sun), Equinix (NASDAQ EQIX), IMLogic (acquired by Symantec), Metapath (acquired by Marconi), OnDisplay (acquired by Vignette), Saba Software (NASDAQ SABA). Previous board memberships include, among others, AmberPoint and NewScale. Before joining NEA, Vladimir was a Managing Director at Crosslink Capital, a fund established after a management buyout from Robertson Stephens. Previously, he was a Management Consultant with McKinsey and Company in San Francisco and Milan, Italy. Prior to that, Vladimir worked at Intel and Ingres.  Vladimir received his MBA from Harvard Business School and a BS in Computer Science from the University of San Francisco.

     

    Max Levchin

    Founder and CEO, Slide; co-founder and former CTO, PayPal

     


    Max Levchin cofounded PayPal in late 1998. It was acquired by eBay for $1.5B in 2002, only six months after going public in February. At PayPal Max was a member of the board of directors and chief technology officer, responsible for the areas of technology development, network and information security, and the fight with transaction fraud and identity theft. Prior to PayPal, Max cofounded and ran NetMeridian Software and SponsorNet New Media, which built some of the early Internet marketing services and tools.

    Since leaving PayPal late last year on the fourth anniversary of its founding, Max has founded Slide, a media-sharing startup, and is currently its CEO.

    Originally from Kiev, Ukraine (then part of the Soviet Union), he moved to Chicago, Illinois in 1991. Max graduated from University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign in 1997 with a degree in Computer Science, specializing in computer security and music. 

    Boris Lipkin

    President and CEO, Therma-Wave, Inc.

     

    Boris Lipkin joined Therma-Wave in February 2003 as its President and CEO. Prior to joining Therma-Wave, Mr. Lipkin served as Senior Vice President of ASML Holding NV. Prior to ASML's acquisition of Silicon Valley Group (SVG), Mr. Lipkin served in various capacities at SVG including President of the Track Division, and corporate Vice President of Human Resources, Procurement and Supply Chain Management. Before joining SVG in 1995, Mr. Lipkin was Vice President and General Manager of the Thin Films Division of Varian Associates from 1992 to 1995 and Senior Engineering Manager for the Equipment Technology Group of the Micro Electronics Division of IBM from 1978 to 1992. Mr. Lipkin has an electro-mechanical engineering degree from the Polytechnic Institute in Kharkov, Ukraine.

     

    Peter Loukianoff 

    Alloy Ventures, Partner 

     

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

     

    Alexander Stepanov

    Adobe Systems, Principal Scientist; inventor of the C++ Standard Template Library

      

    Prior to joining Adobe, Alex was Vice President and Chief Scientist at Compaq. Before Compaq, Alex was working on technology directions as VP and Chief Architect at AT&T Laboratories and as CTO of Server and Supercomputer Business Unit of SGI. Alex spent 25 years doing research at Hewlett-Packard Laboratories, Bell Labs, and other organizations. In 1995 for his work on Standard Template Library he shared (with Linus Torvalds) the first Dr. Dobb's Excellence in Programming Award.

     

    Rob Theis
    General Partner, Doll Capital Management 

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

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

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

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