Board of Directors
Michael J. Fister President and Chief Executive Officer Cadence Design Systems, Inc.
Mike Fister is President and Chief Executive Officer of Cadence Design Systems, Inc. Prior to joining Cadence, he spent 17 years at Intel Corporation, where he was most recently Senior Vice President and General Manager of the company's Enterprise Platforms Group. Fister is a graduate of the University of Cincinnati where he received a BS and MS in electrical engineering in 1977 and 1978 respectively. He spent his early years in a variety of executive and engineering management positions at Wyse, Machine Vision International, and Cincinnati Milacron. He currently sits on the Board of Directors of Autodesk Corporation and the Fabless Semiconductor Association, as well as two non-profit organizations, the National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering (NACME) and the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.
Corley Phillips, Chairman of the Board; Managing Partner, American River Ventures
Corley Phillips co-founded American River Ventures with over two decades of extensive experience in developing businesses, building sales organizations, developing marketing strategies, and creating partner programs. Prior to American River Ventures, Corley was an active seed-stage investor in 28 companies. He learned the art of entrepreneurship through a distinguished career that included serving as President and CEO of Manzanita Software Systems, an accounting software company that merged with The Sage Group (LSE: SGE) in 1994, and as President and Co-founder of Grafpoint, a communications software company that subsequently merged with White Pine Software (NASDAQ: WPNE).
Scott MacDonald is a Partner with Emerald Technology Ventures
a global leader in cleantech venture capital. Founded in 2000 under the name SAM Private Equity, Emerald is a pioneer in this rapidly emerging sector and is focused on innovative technologies in energy, materials and water. From offices in Zurich, Switzerland and Montreal, Canada, Emerald manages three venture capital funds and two venture capital portfolio mandates totaling over US$380 million. Scott has been active in the venture capital industry for the past 10 years and has focused exclusively on the global cleantech sector for the past 5 years. Scott graduated with a Bachelors degree from McMaster University and an MBA from Dalhousie University. He previously served as Chairman of RuggedCom (TSX:RCM) and is currently a Director of Solicore and SoftSwitching Technologies. He is a member of the North American Advisory Board for the CleanTech Venture Network, an industry association that brings together all stakeholders in the area of cleantech, a volunteer director of Gymnastics Canada and is an elected voting member of the Canadian Olympic Committee for the 2005-2009 quadrennial.
Rodrigo Prudencio, Partner, Nth Power
Rodrigo Prudencio is a Partner with Nth Power Venture Capital. Rodrigo works with the portfolio companies and Limited Partners to lead strategic relationships that advance early adoption of energy technologies and services. The strategic relations program he leads is responsible for over $100 million of contracts and investments between Nth Power’s Limited Partners and portfolio companies.
Dr. Raju Pandey is the company’s co-founder & Chief Technology Officer.
Dr. Raju Pandey is an Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of California, Davis. While at UCD, Dr. Pandey led the SENSES project , which was funded in part under National Science Foundation grants. Dr. Pandey has authored over 40 papers on sensor networks and distributed computing and is a patent holder in this space. Dr. Pandey holds a Ph.D. from the University of Texas, Austin, MS from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and a Bachelor in Technology from the Indian Insitute of Technology, Kharagpur.
Peter Van Deventer is the President and CEO of SynapSense Corporation.
Peter Van Deventer is an established veteran of global technology market development, with over 18 years of international business experience. Pete spent a decade at Intel Corporation in a variety of sales, marketing and operational roles, including serving on the global Sales and Marketing, Flash Memories, and Mobile Products Group staffs. He was the Director of Worldwide Sales and Marketing for the global ramp of Centrino mobile technology and was involved in greater than 100 different technology ramps. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree from Colgate University and holds an International MBA from Thunderbird, the American Graduate School of International Management.
Board Observers
Mike Goguen
Michael Goguen focuses on cleantech, semiconductor and systems investments. Prior to joining Sequoia Capital in 1996, Michael spent 10 years in various engineering, research, and product management roles at DEC, SynOptics and Centillion, and was a director of Engineering at Bay Networks (NT). Michael was also a Technical Chairman of the ATM Forum. Michael has a BS in Electrical Engineering from Cornell University and an MS in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University.
Scott Lenet
Scott Lenet is a founder and Managing Director of DFJ Frontier, a Draper Fisher Jurvetson affiliate and early stage technology venture capital fund focused on investments in the central valley and central coast of California. At Frontier, he leads fund management, fundraising and portfolio management efforts. Mr. Lenet began his venture capital career in 1992 with Geocapital Partners, where his successful investments included Netcom and Logic Works. He also has significant entrepreneurial experience in the technology industry as the founder and CEO of SmartFrog.com, acquired by Cybergold in 1999, and software experience in a product marketing role at Trilogy Software. He received his MBA in Entrepreneurial Management from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and an AB in Comparative Literature from Princeton University.