AmBAR Board/Founding Council
Board Of Directors
Founding Council
 | Anna S. Dvornikova Anna is a Founder and CEO of Entana Corp., an entrepreneurship and venture advisory firm that focuses on providing business strategy, planning, fundraising, and positioning services to the early-stage technology start-ups, as well as angel financing. Anna serves on the Advisory Boards and the Board of Directors of several technology startup companies. She is the author of many articles on entrepreneurship, angel and venture financing. Anna is the President of AmBAR, a non-profit business association of Russian-speaking professionals in the Silicon Valley with over 2,000 members. She is also a founder and the Chair of the SVOD Technology Investment Conference, a premier industry gathering which facilitates networking between Russian-speaking technology entrepreneurs and venture capitalists, angel investors and other technology experts. Previously, Anna was a Co-Founder and the VP of Business Development at BKP Security, a government IT security company. Prior to that, she was a Foreign Advisor at the international law firm of Coudert Brothers. Anna has her J.D. from the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO) and her Master of Laws degree from Boalt Hall School of Law, University of California, Berkeley. |
 | Stas Khirman Prior to founding Skyrider, Mr. Khirman founded Narus, a global leader in software and technology for the telecom industry and government agencies, where he helped designed the world’s most scalable network transaction analysis system. He had previously served as the networking group leader at VDOnet, a pioneer in internet video. |
 | Natasha Krol, Natasha Krol is a Managing Partner at Alexander and Krol, an Executive Search firm specializing in the US and Eastern European Technology Markets. Prior to that, she was a Senior Client Partner with Korn/Ferry International’s Global Technology Market, based in the firm’s Silicon Valley office. He clients included companies like Google, HP, Audatex, TransUnion and others. Ms. Krol has more than twenty years of experience in the development and application of information technology. Previously, Ms. Krol was a Founding Member, Vice President and Service Director of Advanced Information Management Strategies for the META Group (now Gartner), the leading provider of information technology research, advisory services and strategic consulting in Stamford, CT. Her clients included senior executives in Global 2000 companies, as well as the venture capital community. She was also instrumental in establishing company subsidiaries throughout Europe, South Africa and Asia Pacific. She began her career as a Marketing Officer in the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade in St. Petersburg, Russia. Ms. Krol holds an M.S. degree in Linguistics from St. Petersburg University. Ms. Krol has served on the technical advisory board for American Express, and has been a featured keynote speaker at more than 50 international conferences. |
 | Alexei Kudriashov Prior to founding SperaSoft, an offshore software development and outsourcing services company, Alexei was a Channel Development Manager with the Software Marketing Group, Sun Microsystems. He was responsible for business and channel strategy and management in driving adoption and deployment of Sun's business productivity suite worldwide. Previously, Alexei founded Martak International, Inc., a manufacturer's representative and export company, distributing hi-tech and medical equipment overseas. He received an M.S. in Management and Business from MIT, Sloan School of Management and M.D. from Volgograd Medical Academy, Russia. |
 | Andrey Kunov, Ph.D. Andrey is an entrepreneur focusing on technology startups. He is a co-founder of the US-Russia Technology Symposium LLC (Global Technology Symposium), "ABusiness" business magazine in Kazakhstan, and "3DMission" technology startup in California. Andrey is also interested in economic and political research on the issues related to Russia and Eastern Europe. Previously, he served as an Associate Director of the Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies, Stanford University. Before that he worked as a senior economist at the Institute for Open Economy, Moscow, Russia. Prior to that he was a researcher and academic coordinator at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Stanford University. Andrey received his PhD in political science from Stanford University, MA in international economics from the University of Newcastle (UK), MA in transition economics and politics from the Central European University (Hungary), and BA in philosophy from Kazakh National University (Kazakhstan). |
 | Leonid Litvak, Ph.D. Before joining Microsoft Leonid founded IOnKey Systems, an early-stage technology company where he was responsible for operations and product management. Prior to that he co-founded CallTheShots, an internet infrastructure company acquired by Akamai Technologies and worked for Financial Engines and Morgan Stanley. Leonid holds B.S. from Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology and M.S. and Ph. D. in Applied Physics from Stanford University. |
 | Julia Pogodina, Julia Pogodina is a business attorney with over 10 years of legal experience and is qualified to practice law in California and Russian Federation. She is the Principal at IBCI (International, Business, Corporate and Intellectual Property) Law Group and is "of counsel" at Intellectual Property Law Group. Ms. Pogodina specializes in business, corporate, international and intellectual property law. She represents domestic and foreign companies in various corporate, legal and business transactions, including structuring and negotiating cross-border deals. Besides legal, Ms. Pogodina also has an extensive business experience. She was the Director of the Moscow's North-Western Branch of Miel Real Estate Agency, major real estate agency in Russia, where she managed legal, financial, and sales activities. Prior to Miel she worked for Trud Joint Stock Company, where she handled a variety of legal and business matters including international business transactions and real estate. |
 | Attorney/Corporate Law, Cooley Godward Kronish LLP Before joining Cooley Godward Kronish LLP, Marina Remennik has worked for Heller Ehrman law firm since in 1998. Ms. Remennik has worked with a number of transactional practice groups on projects such as public offerings, mergers and acquisitions, and private financings. Her practice also includes general corporate and securities law counseling. She received her J.D. from Boalt Hall School of Law, University of California, Berkeley and B.A. in Psychology, from University of California, Berkeley. Ms. Remennik is an Associate Editor of the Berkeley Journal of International Law. |
 | Vera Shokina, At SVB Vera is responsible for building relationships with early stage technology companies and is in charge of a diversified portfolio of loans to technology startups. Prior to joining Silicon Valley Bank, Vera was a portfolio manager with GE Capital and a trader with Goldman Sachs. Before coming to US in 1998, Vera was a relationship manager with Citibank Moscow where she managed a portfolio of loans and traded Russian equities for institutional foreign investors. |
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Founding Council
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 | Sergei Burkov,Ph.D. Sergei was the first Head of Google’s Moscow R&D Center, managing development of products and technologies for both local and international markets. In less than 2 years Google Russia dramatically improved its Russian language search quality, launched over a dozen products, tripled its traffic and increased its market share from 10% to 27%. Before joining Google Sergei co-founded and led three startup companies. Dulance, Inc. was the next generation Long Tail shopping search engine (acquired by Google). Invincible Data Systems pioneered transparent disk and e-mail encryption (acquired by VASCO Data Security). Bilbo Innovations, Inc. invented and brought to market STEP ON IT! computer pedals. Dr. Burkov is a former research physicist who held appointments at top American universities, including Cornell University and the University of Wisconsin. Dr. Burkov obtained Ph.D. in theoretical physics from the Landau Institute for Theoretical Physics and M.S. in physics with Honors, from Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology. |
 | Alexei Andreev, Ph.D. Prior to joining Harris & Harris Group, Mr. Andreev was an associate with Draper Fisher Jurvetson, a venture capital firm, from 2002 to March 9, 2005. In 2001, he was a summer associate with TLcom Capital Partners, a London-based venture capital fund backed by Morgan Stanley. Before joining DFJ, Alexei spent three years with Sputnik Funds, the largest private equity group in Eastern Europe. At Sputnik, he evaluated investment opportunities, financially restructured portfolio companies, and served on the board of the regional cellular provider, Techinfo Communications. After the Russian financial crisis of 1998, Alexei became the CFO of Renaissance Insurance, undertaking crisis management on behalf of Sputnik Funds. Before starting his business career, Alexei was a researcher at the Center of Nanotechnology (ISAN) of the Russian Academy of Sciences where he focused on the electronic and optical properties of quantum dots and multi-layered nanostructures. Alexei graduated from Moscow Steel and Alloys Institute with a B.S. and Ph.D. in Solid State Physics (cum laude), and has an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business. He was a recipient of the Scholarship for Outstanding young scientists from the Russian Academy of Sciences. |
 | Igor Plotnikov, Ph.D. Prior to founding Interacta Inc, Dr. Plotnikov worked as Director of Engineering at Cisco (NASDAQ:CSCO) specializing on network security after the acquisition of his second startup MI Secure. Before he served as VP of Engineering at F5 Networks. He joined F5 (NASDAQ:FFIV) as a result of its acquisition of uRoam, Inc. a pioneer in the SSL VPN market. Before co-founding uRoam, Dr. Plotnikov worked for Netscape Communications on key products like CoolTalk and Netscape Conference. Prior to Netscape, he held the position of scientist at InSoft, which was acquired by Netscape in 1996. Early in his career, he was a co-founder and chief engineer at Stoik Software, Ltd., a private Russian company dedicated to image processing software development. He received his physicist-engineer diploma with honors from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology followed by a Ph.D. in Physico-Mathematical Sciences from the Institute in 1988. |
| Oleg Koujikov Prior to joining TIME Capital Partners, Mr. Koujikov served as Director of Venture Funds at Troika Capital Partners. Before he was a Head of Corporate Development at the IBS Group Holding and servesed as director on the board of NewspaperDirect. Prior to that he was with Intel Capital investing in the early stage technology companies. His deal experience includes investments in Authentica, Musicmatch (YHOO), Nextpage, Relativity, Stratus, and Zone Labs (CKP). He served as a board observer at Zone Labs and Relativity. Before Intel Capital Oleg was with Merrill Lynch and spent few years in various operating roles with the early stage and middle market companies. He holds an MBA from the Wharton Business School is a member of the executive committee of the Wharton Private Equity Network. |
