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Our advisory board members specialize in a variety of industry domains, including software, Internet, telecommunications, electronic content, academia, industry analysis, global markets, and executive management.
Ernie Ankrim, Ph.D.
Ernie Ankrim is Russell Investment's senior markets advisor, where he serves as a senior consultant to the company and helps serve as a leading voice on markets, portfolio strategies and institutional and individual investor behavior. He has been a frequent guest on CNBC, Bloomberg TV and PBS and is quoted in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Los Angeles Times and major daily newspapers throughout the country. A prominent voice on the markets, Ernie is a popular speaker at industry events. He has authored numerous research commentaries on topics as diverse as performance attribution, commodities, asset allocation and investor behavior. Many of these articles have been subsequently published in investment journals such as The Journal of Investing, The Journal of Portfolio Management, and the Financial Analysts Journal. Ernie joined Russell in 1990 as a member of the research group. In this role he helped direct the redesign of Russell's investment management business, for which he received a Russell Leadership Award. From 1995 to 2002, Ernie served as director of portfolio strategy for Russell's investment group. He was named chief investment strategist in 2003 and he retired from Russell in 2008. Prior to joining Russell, Ernie taught economics at Pacific Lutheran University where he also served as department chair for six years. In recognition of his work, alumni and faculty endowed a scholarship for economics students in his name.
Mike Brochu
Michael Brochu is a seasoned technology executive who brings over 20 years of senior-level experience and operational excellence to GMI. He most recently served as the President and CEO of Loudeye Corporation, a global leader of digital music platforms and digital media distribution services, which Nokia acquired in 2006. Before Loudeye, Mike was President and CEO of Primus Knowledge Solutions, Inc., an award-winning provider of e-service software solutions. In 1999, Brochu took Primus public, and facilitated the acquisition of the company by Art Technology Group (ATG) in 2004. Previously, Brochu served as the President and COO of Sierra On-Line, Inc., one of the world’s largest publishers of interactive entertainment, educational, and home productivity software. There, he spearheaded efforts that increased sales by more than 300 percent, culminating the sale of Sierra On-Line to CUC International for US$1.1 billion in 1996. Mike currently sits on the board of directors of ATG, Zotec Partners, and the advisory board of Seattle-based venture capital firm Voyager Capital, which is also one of GMI’s early institutional investors. Mike was named Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year in 2000.
Andy Bryant
Executive Vice President of Finance and Enterprise Services & Chief Administrative Officer of Intel Corporation. Bryant is responsible for the financial operations, human resources, information technology and e-business functions and activities of Intel worldwide. Bryant joined Intel in 1981 as controller for the Commercial Memory Systems Operation and in 1983 became Systems Group Controller. In 1987 he was promoted to director of Finance for the corporation, and was appointed vice president and director of Finance of the Intel Products Group in 1990. Bryant became CFO in February 1994, and was promoted to senior vice president in January 1999. Bryant expanded his role to Chief Financial and Enterprise Services Officer in December 1999. In October 2007, Bryant was named Chief Administrative Officer. Prior to joining Intel, he held positions in finance at Ford Motor Company and Chrysler Corporation. Bryant holds a bachelor's degree in Economics from the University of Missouri and an master's degree in Business Administration with a concentration in finance from the University of Kansas. Bryant is a member of the Board of Directors of Columbia Sportswear, McKesson Corp., and Kryptiq Corp.
Tim Buckley
Has spent his career developing startup companies into successful businesses and has held executive positions in sales and operations. Most recently from 1999 to 2003, Tim was the COO for Red Hat, the world's premier open source and Linux provider. Prior to Red Hat, Tim was senior vice president of worldwide sales at Visio Corp., where he was involved in growing the company from a startup to a public company that was later acquired by Microsoft in 1999 for $1.3 billion. Prior to Visio, Tim held executive positions at Approach, a windows database company that was sold to Lotus Development Corp; Aldus, the company that pioneered Desktop Publishing software and went public before merging with Adobe Corp.; and Decision Resources, a business graphics software company that was sold to Ashton Tate. Tim has a B.S. in Political Science from Penn State.
Bruce Chizen
Former Adobe Systems, Inc. Chief Executive Officer Bruce Chizen’s customer-focused vision transformed Adobe into one of the world’s largest and most diversified software companies in terms of revenue, global reach and breadth of products. As the CEO from 2000 to 2007, Chizen tripled Adobe's revenue and turned a company known mainly for its popular design products into one of the most significant forces in the software industry. Under Chizen’s leadership, Adobe acquired Macromedia, Inc. in 2005, in a transaction valued at approximately $3.4 billion. This acquisition brought together some of the industry’s strongest software brands and most ubiquitous technologies, and accelerated Adobe’s strategy to provide a powerful software platform that scales from mobile devices to enterprise servers. With this platform, Adobe gained access to more desktops and end users than any other technology vendor. In addition to growing Adobe’s leadership in design and publishing software, Chizen led the company’s expansion into new markets, including enterprise, knowledge worker and consumer. During Chizen's tenure, Adobe consistently ranked near the top of Fortune Magazine's annual report on the “100 Best Companies to Work For.” Prior to becoming CEO, Chizen was executive vice president of worldwide products and marketing. At Adobe since 1994, he was previously vice president and general manager of both the professional graphics division and Adobe's consumer division. From 1980 to 1983, he worked in Mattel Electronics’ merchandising group, helping grow it to a $500 million business. In 1983, Chizen joined Microsoft Corporation eventually becoming the company’s eastern region sales director. In 1987, he joined Claris Corporation, a subsidiary of Apple Computer, Inc., as a founding senior manager and later held positions as vice president of sales and worldwide marketing before becoming vice president and general manager of Claris Clear Choice. Chizen holds a bachelor’s degree from Brooklyn College, City University of New York. Chizen currently serves as a Venture Partner at Voyager Capital and as a Senior Adviser for Permira Advisers, LTD. He also serves on the boards of Elemental Technologies, Oracle Corporation, NDS, LTD, and Synopsys, Inc. as well as a number of non profit boards.
John DeFeo
President and CEO and a Director of CoCo Communications based in Seattle, Washington. Mr. DeFeo has been a member of the Voyager Advisory Board since its inception. He is a seasoned CEO with more than 28 years of broad senior management experience in strategic planning, marketing, customer care, six Sigma methodologies, manufacturing, and product/business development. Mr. DeFeo’s experience touches nearly every facet of the telecommunications and medical device industries, including start-ups, managing hyper-growth, restructurings, global partnerships, turnarounds, and mergers and acquisitions. He has extensive experience in complex capital financings, having raised more than $1 billion in private, venture, and public markets. Under his leadership, U.S. West NewVector’s cellular business grew from start-up to profitability, with one million subscribers, $1 billion in revenues, and covering over 60 domestic markets with 3,000 employees. NewVector’s market cap was valued at $8.5 billion when it was sold to AirTouch. He has managed negotiations and formed alliances with some of the most recognized global corporate partners, including Ericsson, Fluor Daniels, Harris, Hyundai, Lucent, MCI Corp., Motorola, Nortel, and Sony Corp. Mr. DeFeo has been recognized for his effective management style and leadership skills on multiple occasions, including three U.S. West Chairman Awards. He has both electrical engineering and business degrees from Temple University.
Fran Dramis
Fran Dramis is the CEO of F. Dramis LLC, a technology consulting firm. He provides support and advice to high technology businesses associated with Web 2.5 and above products, as well as IT infrastructure management services. Mr. Dramis currently serves on the public company board of Netezza (member of Audit committee), and on the private company boards of Damballa, Virima, Urjanet and US Oncology (Chair of Technology Committee). In addition, he is on the advisory boards of NanoLumens, Voyager Capital, Diabetech and Medify, Inc.. He served previously on the private boards of IOCOM and RealOps Inc., as well as on the public boards of WebMethods, Inc., Avocent Corporation (Chair of Nominating & Governance committee, member of Audit committee and member of Strategy & Acquisition committee) and Ditech Networks (Chair of Nominating & Governance committee, member of Compensation committee). Mr. Dramis was formerly the Chief Information, Ecommerce and Security Officer for BellSouth. Before joining BellSouth, Mr. Dramis founded CIO Strategy, Inc., an information technology consulting firm. At that firm, Mr. Dramis led technology transformation efforts at Citibank, Coopers and Lybrand, NASD and Bankers Trust. Prior to CIO Strategy, Mr. Dramis was managing director and CIO at Salomon Brothers. Mr. Dramis also served as president and CEO of Network Management Inc., and president and chief operating officer of Telic Corporation. Early in his career, Mr. Dramis worked with AT&T, including Bell Labs, rising to the position of executive director of information product management. As one of the country's top IT leaders, Mr. Dramis has been recognized by a variety of publications as a top CIO. Mr. Dramis is the author of several articles on change and leadership and is a regular speaker at technology and leadership forums.
Frank Gill
Frank Gill, a former senior executive from Intel Corporation, joined Voyager’s Advisory Board in early 2004 and is based in Portland, Oregon. He has been instrumental in referring attractive investment opportunities, assisting with due diligence on investment opportunities, and working with several of Voyager’s portfolio companies. Mr. Gill began his career at Intel in 1975, and over the course of 23 years held a variety of sales, marketing, product development, and manufacturing leadership positions, retiring from Intel as an Executive Vice President in 1998. In 1988, he served as the Senior Vice President in charge of worldwide sales and marketing operations and became General Manager of the Intel Systems Group in 1990 and the Internet and Communications Group in 1995. He currently serves on the boards of Voyager backed Elemental Technologies and Kryptiq and one other private company, Payless Long Term Care Pharmacy Inc. He formerly served on the boards of Inktomi, McAfee.com, Sequent Computer Systems and Tektronix. Mr. Gill holds a B.S.E.E. degree from the University of California at Davis.
Naren Gupta, Ph.D.
Dr. Gupta is currently a Managing Director with Nexus India Capital. Previously, he served as Vice Chairman and Director for Wind River (NASDAQ: WIND) based in Alameda, California, till its acquisition by Intel Corp. in 2009. Wind River is the global leader in device software optimization (DSO) and embedded device operating systems. Prior to becoming Vice Chairman for Wind River, Dr. Gupta co-founded Integrated Systems, Inc. (ISI), where he was President from ISI´s formation in 1980 to 1994, as well as CEO from 1988 to 1994. He was elected a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers in November 1991. Dr. Gupta also serves on the boards TIBCO Software (NASDAQ: TIBX), Red Hat (NYSE:RHT) and a number of privately-held companies and non-profit organizations. Dr. Gupta holds a B.S. degree from IIT, Delhi, an M.S. degree from the California Institute of Technology, and a Ph.D. degree from Stanford University, all in engineering. He has been named aDistinguished Alumnus by IIT, Delhi as well as Caltech.
Promod Haque
Managing Director of Norwest Venture Partners, a venture capital firm with over $2 billion under management based in Palo Alto, California. He was named by Forbes magazine as a Midas Investor from 2002 to 2006. Haque focuses on investments in enterprise software and communications technologies. He was an early investor and a board member of Cerent Corporation (acquired by Cisco), Siara Systems (acquired by Redback Networks), OnDisplay (acquired by Vignette), and Winphoria Networks (acquired by Motorola). He seeded Extreme Networks in 1996. Other notable investments and previous board seats include Tivoli Systems (acquired by IBM), Forte Software (acquired by Sun Microsystems), Kiva Software (acquired by Netscape Communications), Information Advantage (acquired by Sterling Software), Resonext Communications (acquired by RF Micro Devices), Showcase Corporation (acquired by SPSS) and ZettaCom (acquired by IDT). Prior to Norwest Venture Partners, Haque spent 18 years in various operational roles ranging from product development, marketing, COO and CEO at various public and private companies — Dimensional Medicine, Inc., Emergent Technologies, Siemens International, and Thorn EMI. He received a B.S. degree in electrical engineering from the University of Delhi, India. He holds a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Northwestern University and an M.B.A. from Northwestern’s Kellogg Graduate School of Management, where he serves on the advisory board.
Jeremy Jaech
President and CEO of Verdiem, Jeremy has founded and led two successful and market-creating software companies in the past 20 years. Jaech was co-founder of Visio Corporation, the developer of the first mass-market business drawing and diagramming software, and served as its President, CEO and Chairman of the Board from 1990 until its acquisition by Microsoft Corporation in 2000. Post acquisition, Jaech served as Vice President of the Business Tools Division at Microsoft until June 2000. Prior to founding Visio Corporation, he co-founded Aldus Corporation, the first company to create design software for graphics arts professionals using personal computers and laser printers. At Aldus, Jaech was the technical leader for the original development of PageMaker and went on to serve as Vice President of Engineering, managing Aldus' product development. Aldus was acquired by Adobe in 1994. Jaech serves on the Board of Directors of Seattle-based companies Trumba, Cozi Group, and Doyenz, and for San Francisco-based MindJet. He holds a BA in mathematics and an MS in computer science from the University of Washington.
Keith Krach
After earning his degree in industrial engineering from Purdue as a General Motors Scholar and an MBA from Harvard University as a GM Fellow, Keith Krach worked at GM where he became the youngest-ever vice president at the age of 26. After 10 years with GM, Krach headed out to Silicon Valley to join the founding team of Rasna Corporation. Krach helped lead Rasna to be recognized as #3 on the Inc. 100 list of Fastest-Growing Companies and was sold in 1995 to Parametric Technologies for $500 million.Krach co-founded Ariba in 1996, serving as CEO and Chairman of the Board for 7 years. During his tenure as CEO, Krach took Ariba public, ultimately achieving a market capitalization of $34 billion. In honor of his accomplishments in e-business, Ernst & Young named Krach the 2000 National Entrepreneur of the Year, the same year in which he was honored at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, with the Technology Pioneer Award. Keith Krach is currently the Chairman of the Board of Trustees at Purdue University, Chairman of the Board at DocuSign Corp and is also CEO of 3Points, Inc., an investment holding company.
Ed Lazowska, Ph.D.
Bill & Melinda Gates Chair in Computer Science & Engineering at the University of Washington (UW) in Seattle, Washington. Dr. Lazowska helps advise Voyager on the future direction of technologies and with investment sourcing. Dr. Lazowska joined the UW faculty in 1977. His research and teaching focus on the design, implementation, and analysis of high performance computing and communication systems. He served as the Chair of Computer Science & Engineering at UW from 1993 to 2001, and subsequently led the $42 million fundraising effort for UW’s Paul G. Allen Center for Computer Science & Engineering. In recent years Dr. Lazowska has served as the Chair of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s Information Science and Technology Study Group, Chair of the National Science Foundation’s Advisory Committee for Computer and Information Science and Engineering, and co-Chair of the President’s Information Technology Advisory Committee. He is a member of the Technical Advisory Board for Microsoft Research, and a board member or technical advisor to a number of other organizations. He received his A.B. from Brown University and his Ph.D. from the University of Toronto.
Roger McNamee
Managing Director and Co-Founder of Elevation Partners. Prior to Elevation, Roger was a co-founder of Silver Lake Partners, the leading private equity fund focused on technology and related growth industries. He was a member of Silver Lake’s Investment Committee and was involved in all aspects of that partnership. Prior to Silver Lake, Roger was a co-founder of Integral Capital Partners. Integral is a leading technology investor in late-stage venture and public company investments. Founded in 1991 by Roger, John A. Powell, and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Integral pioneered the crossover investment strategy, which seeks maximum capital appreciation by making investments in expansion-stage private companies and growth-stage public companies in the technology and life science industries. Prior to founding Integral, Roger managed the T. Rowe Price Science & Technology Fund and co-managed the T. Rowe Price New Horizons Fund, which was at that time the largest emerging growth fund in the U.S. Roger serves as a trustee of Bryn Mawr College, an overseer of the Amos Tuck School of Business Administration at Dartmouth College, a director of the Rex Foundation, Move, and Forbes Media LLC. Roger holds a B.A. from Yale College and an M.B.A. from the Amos Tuck School of Business Administration at Dartmouth College.
Steve Singh
Steve Singh currently serves as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer for Concur. Mr. Singh has served as Chief Executive Officer since February 1996, and was appointed to Chairman of the Board of Directors in October 1999. Prior to joining Concur, Mr. Singh was General Manager of the Contact Management Division at Symantec Corporation. Mr. Singh is also Chairman of the NBTA Foundation Board, serves on the board of directors for RighNow Technologies, AdReady, Washington Roundtable and is a member of the Voyager Capital Advisory Board.
