Laura Oliphant, PhD

An experienced CEO, board member, venture capital investor, and a member of the NACD Directorship 100 representing the highest impact directors in the United States, Dr. Laura Oliphant is passionate about bringing new technologies to market and turning around underperforming businesses. Between 2001 and 2016, Laura was an Investment Director with Intel Capital, where she received the Intel Achievement Award - Intel’s highest award - in recognition of the strategic impact of her investments. After leaving Intel, Laura served as the CEO of Translarity, an investor backed semiconductor test startup that focused on RF test applications. During her tenure, Laura brought the business to revenue and positioned the company for ongoing success. She has since lent her expertise to other companies as consultant, advisor, and board director.

Laura currently serves on the Board of Directors for public companies BE Semiconductor Industries NV (AMS:BESI) based in Duiven, Netherlands, and Aehr Test Systems (NASDAQ: AEHR) based in Fremont, CA USA. BESI is a leading provider of process equipment for the semiconductor industry with revenues of over €700M. Aehr Test Systems (NASDAQ: AEHR), is a leading maker of test and burn in systems for the semiconductor industry. Laura is also on the boards of several private companies.

Prior to Intel Capital, Laura was a Supply Chain Program Manager in Intel’s Technology and Manufacturing Group (TMG) and was the co-chairperson of the SEMATECH Metrology and Yield Management Advisory Group.

Laura received her PhD in Chemical Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley, where her thesis research was centered on candidate batteries for electric cars.

Michelle Kiang, PhD

Michelle is a technologist turned serial entrepreneur and investor, with a proven track record of bringing leading-edge innovation to commercial successes. She is Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Impact Science Ventures, an early-stage venture fund built to invest in breakthrough innovations that can solve the world’s hardest problems in climate change, sustainability, and human health.

Before her career in venture capital, Michelle was a 3-time founder of hard tech startups with successful exits. Most recently, she was CEO and Co-Founder of Chirp Microsystems, a leading provider of ultra-low-power, MEMS ultrasonic 3D-sensing solutions for consumer, industrial and automotive applications. She became VP and General Manager of the Ultrasound Sensor BU within TDK’s MEMS Business Group following Chirp’s acquisition by TDK. Her previous entrepreneurial experiences included commercializing sensor-enabled SaaS products for supply chain digital transformation, and silicon-MEMS based optical networking products as an outgrowth of her Ph.D. work. Besides building/exiting her own startups, Michelle was an executive in Strategic Planning and Corporate Development at Micron Technology and NeoPhotonics (now Lumentum.)

Michelle received the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from UC Berkeley, and is a recipient of the prestigious David Sakrison Prize for her outstanding thesis work. She received the B.S. degree from National Taiwan University, also in Electrical Engineering. She has published more than 40 technical papers and articles, and is a co-inventor of 16 issued patents.Laura currently serves on the Board of Directors for public companies BE Semiconductor Industries NV (AMS:BESI) based in Duiven, Netherlands, and Aehr Test Systems (NASDAQ: AEHR) based in Fremont, CA USA. BESI is a leading provider of process equipment for the semiconductor industry with revenues of over €700M. Aehr Test Systems (NASDAQ: AEHR), is a leading maker of test and burn in systems for the semiconductor industry. Laura is also on the boards of several private companies.

Prior to Intel Capital, Laura was a Supply Chain Program Manager in Intel’s Technology and Manufacturing Group (TMG) and was the co-chairperson of the SEMATECH Metrology and Yield Management Advisory Group.

Laura received her PhD in Chemical Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley, where her thesis research was centered on candidate batteries for electric cars.

Allan Cox

Allan is currently an advisor to several startup companies in the US and EU with a common interest in applying advances in semiconductor technologies to global markets.

He started his career in MOS process development and first product implementations and was a member of teams that developed the first EU single chip microprocessors and single board computers. Allan founded the ASIC Business and Technology Office at Toshiba and the CTO Office for LG in the US. He was a member of several boards linked to both. Allan has successfully managed startup companies as a COO and as a CEO and co-founder, targeting semiconductor product solutions.

Allan attended the University of Bath, UK and has a B.Sc. in Applied Physics. He is an avid soccer player and fan of the beautiful game, but still struggles to get his golf handicap below 14!

Amos Ben Meir

Amos has had a successful career in the semiconductor and systems industry in building and leading large engineering teams.  Prior to becoming an active angel and venture investor, Amos was an early employee or founder at 6 startups, 4 of which had successful outcomes.  

André van Geelen

André van Geelen is an experienced executive in the semiconductor and mobile markets. After Philips, JDS-Uniphase and NXP, he was part of the early high tech startup III-V Photonics and founded EPCOS Netherlands in 2007 via a spin-out from NXP. In 2014 this was acquired by Qualcomm. Since 2015, he supports high tech start- and scale-ups with their technology challenges and in finding their strategic direction and venture capital for their growth.

With his background in business, strategy, technology and innovation he likes to support entrepreneurs and founding teams with their go-to market, VC funding, strategic technology choices and IP. His experiences from both major tech companies and startups help to bridge the gap between these worlds.

Andy Freeman

Andy has built systems across a very wide range, from hardware design tools and microprocessors through computation at data-center scale.  He’s discovering that the same skills work for managing products and businesses.

Chris Rowen, PhD

Chris is a Silicon Valley entrepreneur and technologist. In October 2017, he co-founded BabbleLabs - a speech science and deep learning start-up - and leads the company. Before BabbleLabs he created Cognite Ventures, a specialized analysis and investment company for deep learning start-ups. He served as CTO for Cadence’s IP Group, where he and his team developed a new processor and memory for advanced applications in mobile, automotive, infrastructure, deep learning, and IoT systems. Chris joined Cadence in 2013 after its acquisition of Tensilica, the company he founded in 1997 to develop extensible processors. He led Tensilica as CEO and later, CTO, to develop one of the most prolific embedded processor architectures. Before that he was VP and GM of the Design Reuse Group at Synopsys. Chris was a pioneer in developing RISC architecture and helped found MIPS Computer Systems. He holds an MSEE and PhD in electrical engineering from Stanford and a BA in physics from Harvard. He holds more than 40 US and international patents. He was named an IEEE Fellow in 2015 for his work in development of microprocessor technology.

Craig Ensley

Craig Ensley has led semiconductor businesses in Analog, DSP, MEMS & Sensors, Communications Networking (RF/Wireless, Optical, & Wired), Mobile, PCs, and Consumer Electronics; all with significant global presence.

Most recently he has been the CEO or President of three venture-backed companies which he repositioned to drive growth, create first profitability, and deliver superior shareholder returns. Previously he served as SVP of a public firm where he helped lead a successful $1 billion turnaround & restructuring. Prior, he was an executive helping build two businesses from pre-revenue to $300-400 million sales.

Mr. Ensley serves as a Board Director of Mentium Technologies, which delivers mission-critical Artificial Intelligence (AI) capabilities to Edge Devices.

Craig also serves on the Board (“Governing Council”) of the MEMS & Sensors Industry Group, the WW supplier ecosystem.

He is an active investor with the Santa Barbara Angel Investor Alliance.

Previously, Craig was CEO of Atomica (formerly “IMT”), where he and the team grew it to become the largest MEMS & Sensor manufacturing foundry in the U.S. Prior to Atomica, he was CEO of DisplayLink, creating an enterprise video networking firm with global leadership. Craig was President of Peregrine, which built high-volume RF & Wireless devices leading the world's transitions to 3G & 4G wireless. Peregrine invented high volume SOI (Silicon on Insulator) process technology, and took over markets previously served by GaAs.

Craig’s earlier roles were leading strategy, development, and marketing. As SVP, he was on the team to restructure Cirrus Logic from massive losses to profitability and growth. He previously helped start Crystal Semiconductor, which became the world’s highest growth analog & mixed signal DSP company. Craig’s first executive position was starting and building the communications semiconductor business of Rockwell International to achieve dominant worldwide brand and market share, and which Rockwell subsequently spun out as 3 public companies: Mindspeed, Jazz, & Conexant.

Craig served on the Boards of Directors of the Consumer Electronics Association Home Networking Division and Audio Division, and the KLRU Austin PBS Television Station.

Mr. Ensley has an MBA from Stanford University. He also has a BS in Applied Physics and a BA in Economics, both from the University of California at San Diego.

Danny Biran

Danny Biran is an experienced business and technology leader. He now serves as an advisor to several private companies.

Recently Danny served as Vice President, International Division of the Israel Innovation Authority, responsible for R&D partnerships with governments, multinational corporations, and other entities world-wide.

Danny had a long career in the semiconductor industry. Between 2005 –2016 he served as Senior VP of Marketing and Strategy, and a member of the executive staff at Altera, where he led all business units, marketing, technical services, and corporate development.

For several years during his tenure with Altera Biran served as a member of the board of directors of the Global Semiconductor Alliance (GSA).

Prior to Altera Danny was CEO of Silverback Systems, a privately-held company, and before that he held various leadership positions at LSI Logic and National Semiconductor.

Danny has a BSEE and an MBA from the Tel Aviv University in Israel.

Dave Dwelley

Cal Berkeley BSEE ‘86

28 years with Linear Technology Corp in Milpitas, CA:

  • FAE, Los Angeles, supporting full product line

  • IC designer: high performance amplifiers

  • Started and/or managed remote IC design groups in Singapore, Santa Barbara, and Munich

  • Managed corporate product definition for six years, reporting directly to the CTO

  • Acquired by Analog Devices, left after 6 months

4 years as CTO at Maxim Integrated in San Jose, CA:

  • Managed company-wide technology and IP teams

  • Shared corporate strategy responsibility

  • Acquired by Analog Devices (again!), exited after 2 months

Skills:

  • Analog, Mixed-signal, and Power IC design-to-product

  • Creating and mentoring IC design teams

  • Technical customer interaction for new product definition and existing product support

  • Executive management with a technical focus

Goals:

  • Identify, advise, and mentor hardware design startups (IC design a particular focus)

  • Perform diligence on startup companies where my expertise adds value

Dave Millman

As CEO of BizDev.Global, Dave works with Silicon Valley startups to find their target market and accelerate sales. For more than 30 years, he has guided successful launches for dozens of semiconductor, internet, enterprise software and networking products. A popular faculty member at technology incubators, Dave’s superpower is identifying the customer market that has the most pressing need for a new product, and launching sales into that market.

Dave has led the following half-day Silicon Catalyst portfolio training workshops:

  • “Assumptions That Will Kill Your Startup: How to Find and Fix Them” (December 2016)

  • “Engaging with Customers: How to Start Talking with Prospects NOW” (November 2018)

Dave did his undergraduate work at MIT.

He can be reached at BizDev.Global.

David Samuel

David lives in London, and is deeply involved in UK startups, VC funds and accelerator programs. He is an active mentor with the Royal Academy of Engineering and the IVMS programme at Imperial College. He also serves as a non-executive on the board of directors of Kerur Holdings, a public company in the Tel Aviv stock exchange, the board of governors of the Technion Israel Institute of Technology, and the board of trustees of Hadassah UK.

He holds a BSc in Electrical Engineering from the Technion and an MBA from INSEAD in France. For his degree, he designed an ASIC chip that was fabricated on site. Subsequently, David worked his way up to senior management and board positions in various companies, from startups to public firms. His missions have ranged from turnarounds and restructurings, to business development and sales growth.

His mantra is that success comes from a culture of excellence, quick actions, and that multidisciplinary expertise is required to dislodge incumbents and disrupt entire sectors.

Doug McBane

Doug has over 25 years of experience in both the Technology and Defense related industries in key Executive Leadership roles in Engineering, Operations and Product Lifecycle Management holding operational leadership roles at Applied Materials, NXP Semiconductor, Hitachi GST, IBM and BAE Systems.

Doug has delivered industry leading technologies in both the HDD and Semi industries, successfully transitioning designs from development into high volume manufacturing on time, on cost with the right quality leveraging global supply chains supporting Tier 1 Automotive and Consumer Electronic customers. Establishing operational discipline, Doug has been instrumental in growing several multiple businesses revenue from the $250M range to over $1B+ while improving product margins through aggressive cost and yield management and navigating multiple acquisitions and integrations. Doug completed a 30-year Navy career as a Navy Captain having completed multiple command tours. He served as an aviator and later supported the Naval Air Systems Command with the development and fielding of such systems as the F-35, P-8A and E-6B. In addition, Doug held key leadership roles in the Engineering and Product Development efforts of the Army’s Future Combat System.

Doug holds advanced degrees in both Engineering and Business and has been published in multiple industry and government journals presenting unique research results and for the development and recommendation of best-in-class business practices. And currently serves as the President of DGM Technical Consulting.

Drue Freeman

The former CEO of the Association for Corporate Growth, Silicon Valley (ACGSV), Drue Freeman is a 30-year semiconductor veteran, with 17 years focused on automotive. He advises and consults for technology companies from early-stage startups to multi-billion-dollar corporations and for financial institutions investigating the implications of the technological disruptions impacting the automotive industry. Drue is on the Advisory Boards of several privately held companies in the automotive and transportation space. Previously, Drue was Senior Vice President of Global Automotive Sales & Marketing for NXP Semiconductors, he launched and served on the Board of Directors for Datang-NXP Semiconductors, the first Chinese automotive semiconductor company, and spent four years as VP of Automotive Quality at NXP in Germany. He is an Advisory Board Member of BWG Strategy LLC, an invite-only network for senior executives across technology, media and telecom, and on the Board of Directors of Sand Hill Angels, a group of successful Silicon Valley executives and accredited investors that are passionate about entrepreneurialism and the commercialization of disruptive technologies.

Erik Cleage

Erik Cleage is a veteran semiconductor executive with broad expertise in scaling businesses, marketing technology products and developing sales channels. His 30-plus year career includes periods at Altera, Advanced Micro Devices, and Fairchild Semiconductor. During his 19-year tenure at Altera, he held various management positions, including International Marketing Manager and Senior Vice President of Marketing, helping to grow the company from a pre-IPO startup to a leading multi-national, Fortune 500 company. Cleage directed all aspects of product planning, applications engineering, distribution channel management, training, promotion and merchandising, market segmentation, product positioning, customer management, demand forecasting, competitive analysis, and pricing.

While at Altera, Cleage led the development of many of the product and market strategies that have defined today’s multi-billion-dollar FPGA/PLD business. Prior to that, he held product marketing positions at Fairchild and AMD focused on memory devices.

Cleage has served as a board member and advisor at several venture-funded technology companies. He has had extensive involvement with Wall Street analysts and played key roles in several acquisitions and strategic investments.

Cleage holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University and attended the Financial Accounting for Non-Financial Executives (FANFE) program as well as the Corporate Governance Program (CGP) at the Stanford Business School.

Ho Wai Wong-Lam

Strategy, Business Development, Team Builder, Tech for Good Volunteer

Ho Wai is an engineer at heart and a strategist by profession. She is a team player, team leader and a team builder. She believes in Tech for Good - doing well while doing good.

Ho Wai is a technology and semiconductor veteran for 30+ years. She started with Philips Research in The Netherlands, and moved to US to join Philips Semiconductors, which became NXP Semiconductors. She has worked in a wide range of disciplines, from system research, signal processing, IC system architecture, characterization automation, application engineering, system and software engineering management, technical marketing, to business development and now in strategy. She was invited to be part of NXP sales management team for 2 years, followed by another 2 years being part of NXP non-automotive CTO core team for long-term innovation projects. Every 3 to 6 years, she reinvented herself into an adjacent discipline. It has never been boring! In her role as VP strategy, she (co-)led a number of M&A divestiture and integration projects. Since 2020, she represents NXP as a sponsor and a volunteer judge at Extreme Technology Competition (XTC) which is a worldwide competition for startup companies in the theme of “Technology for Good”.

Ho Wai graduated in Electrical Engineering from the University of Hong Kong, and got her master’s degree in Eindhoven, The Netherlands, through a Philips scholarship. She is (co-)author of 13 granted US and European patents, and 11 papers in peer-reviewed journals and 3 technical articles in trade journals.

Jem Davies

Jem is currently a non-executive director and advisor to several startup companies in the UK and US, looking for opportunities to use his expertise to achieve wider impact and success.

An experienced entrepreneurial senior leader, with successful track record identifying technical trends, spotting commercial disruptions, setting strategy, and building/developing leadership teams to achieve real commercial business growth, acquiring startups to accelerate that growth, when appropriate. More than two decades’ experience in the semiconductor and IP businesses working closely with the largest technology companies in Asia, US and Europe.

Originally an OS kernel hacker, Jem strayed across into hardware architecture and held various roles at Arm over a long career, including Fellow, VP of technology, setting technology strategy and roadmaps, finally as general manager of two startup businesses he founded/created inside Arm: media processing (producing the world’s #1 shipping GPU) and AI/Machine Learning.

Based in Cambridge, UK, Jem holds four patents in the fields of CPU/GPU architecture, memory systems and compression and a degree from the University of Cambridge. He enjoys gliding, diving and fireworks.

Jim Sproch

James Sproch is an independent consultant specializing in executive leadership, innovation / IP, software development, and semiconductor design for energy optimized AI machine learning applications.  Previously he was Senior Director of Research & Development at Synopsys, responsible for Electronic Design Automation software product families including semiconductor power analysis and management, low-power synthesis and optimization, Design-For-Test synthesis, Automatic Test Pattern Generation, and transistor-level static verification.  He joined Synopsys from Standard Microsystems Corporation (SMC), where he designed and implemented advanced VLSI chips for networking, graphics, magnetic disk, and peripheral controllers. James earned a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), he holds twelve issued U.S. patents, and has published several scientific and technical papers in the domain of semiconductor electronic design.

Joel Rosenberg

Global Semiconductor / IP Business Development

Joel has 35+ years semiconductor/IP experience, including global business development, sales, product line management and engineering. He has held senior management positions at ARM, Virage Logic (Synopsys), Concurrent Logic (Atmel), WSI (ST), Signetics (Philips), MMI (AMD) and Fairchild. His expertise includes Memory, FPGA, MCU, Interface, SOC, and Intellectual Property. Joel has published papers in the areas of non-volatile memory, reconfigurable FPGA design, and design security. He holds a BSECE from UC Santa Barbara & MBA from Santa Clara University.

Joel currently has Leadership and/or Advisory Roles with the following organizations:

  • IPbiz2biz SM - Managing Director (Global IP business development company)

  • CamverTech - Managing Partner (Global IP licensing company)

  • Iprova - Business Development Consultant (AI-based invention acceleration company)

  • Advisor – Silicon Catalyst (Semiconductor Incubator)

John East

Retired CEO of Actel and former senior vice president at AMD. Serves on several public and private companies boards in the United States. Prior to that, Mr. East held various engineering, marketing, and management positions at Raytheon Semiconductor and Fairchild Semiconductor. He has served on the boards of directors of Adaptec and Zehntel, and MCC and Single Chip Systems. He holds a BS in Electrical Engineering and an MBA from the University of California, Berkeley. Based in San Jose, California.

Keith Lobo

Keith’s career includes twenty-two years in the Semiconductor industry. He helped build and run three landmark startups, LSI Logic (now part of Broadcom), Chips & Technologies (now part of Intel), and Quickturn Design Systems (now part of Cadence.) He was directly involved in two IPOs with Morgan Stanley, and has completed five successful M&A deals during his career. He also spent over ten years in early stage venture capital, most of that with Fremont Group – San Francisco where he was a General Partner in their VC fund. Keith has served on over two dozen boards, and been a Trustee of the $2.9B Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation in Madison WI, where he was also involved in helping establish a technology accelerator/incubator at UW - Madison. He has been an invited speaker at the World Economic Forum in Davos, and at the Harvard Business School. His companies have twice won the annual Instat Kachina Award for best financially managed company in the Semiconductor Industry. The most fun thing he has ever done was a tour at sea observing flight operations on the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Nimitz “somewhere” in the Pacific Ocean.

Kurt Petersen

Kurt Petersen received his BS degree cum laude in EE from UC Berkeley in 1970. In 1975, he received a PhD in EE from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dr. Petersen established a micromachining research group at IBM from 1975 to 1982, during which he wrote the review paper “Silicon as a Mechanical Material,” published in the IEEE Proceedings (May 1982). This paper is still the most frequently referenced work in the field of micromachining and micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS). Since 1982, Dr. Petersen has co-founded six successful companies in MEMS technology, Transensory Devices Inc. in 1982, NovaSensor in 1985 (acquired by GE), Cepheid in 1996 (now a public company on NASDAQ: CPHD), SiTime in 2004 (acquired by MegaChips in 2014), Profusa in 2008 (still private), and Verreon in 2008 (acquired by Qualcomm in 2010). In 2011, Dr. Petersen joined the Silicon Valley Band of Angels. The Band is an angel investment group which mentors and invests in early stage, high-tech, start-up companies. Today, he spends most of his time helping and mentoring such companies. Dr. Petersen has published over 100 papers, and has been granted over 35 patents in the field of MEMS. In 2001 he was awarded the prestigious IEEE Simon Ramo Medal for his contributions to MEMS. Dr. Petersen is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and is a Life Fellow of the IEEE in recognition of his contributions to “the commercialization of MEMS technology”.

Mamoon Rashid

Mamoon is a highly accomplished Executive with over 30 years of experience in semiconductors & technology as a business value builder. He is known for leading business turnarounds, growth and M&A initiatives worldwide. 

He has a history of navigating complex, high-stakes problems by building strong teams, leading through collaboration, and implementing solutions that ensure profitable growth. Mamoon has transformed several under-performing technology businesses into highly successful growth engines impacting thousands of employees and millions of revenue dollars across large enterprises. He led Sanyo Semiconductor’s business turnaround and successful integration into ON Semiconductor.

Mamoon was a key contributor at ON Semiconductor for sixteen years, scaling the company from $1B to $5.5B in revenue. He spent seven years at Intersil/Harris Semiconductor and three years at Semtech.

Mamoon’s mix of experience scaling business, market penetration and global understanding of how to establish collaborative relationships gives him a well-rounded view on how to innovate, adapt to new environments, and serve customers that are on the leading edge of technology. 

Mark Ross

Mark has been at the center of the Silicon Valley business and technology world for years working for companies like Xerox PARC (Palo Alto Research Center), NeXT, Sun Microsystems, Cisco Systems, Cypress Semiconductor and Dell. Mark was directly responsible for shipping five systems for the communications and computation markets that contributed over $1 billion in revenue each.

At Cisco, he pioneered the development and use of ternary content-addressable memories (TCAMs) in communications systems, and developed the world’s first Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) network interface controller (NIC) and first multichannel GbE switch. At Cypress as an EVP and CTO, Mark led technology development across lines of business and two Cypress acquisitions in the image sensor space.

Mark designed full custom chips, ASICs, system level products, and ran the foundry and tooling interface group for a fabless semiconductor company. He has worked in six startups, two as a founder and two as a principal leader, and saw five of the six go public or be acquired. He is on the board of Agiga Tech, and is and has served as an advisor to a number of startups.

Mark holds B.S. and M.S. degrees in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University.

Michael Joehren

System architect and technical marketer Michael Joehren spent more than two decades working in technical marketing and system architecture in various positions in Philips Semiconductors, NXP Semiconductors and Dialog Semiconductor, both in Germany and the US. He is involved in various aspects of mixed mode circuit systems, MEMs, various forms of device packaging and lately in high-frequency power converters as well as standard specifications such as MIPI-I3C, Jedec DDR5-DIMM and USB-PD3.0. Michael holds an electrical engineering degree from University of Dortmund, Germany and is the author/co-author of nine patents, with several more pending.

Misha Burich

Currently an advisor and angel investor, after retiring as a high-technology executive in semiconductor and EDA industries, most recently at Altera Corporation (now part of Intel) where he was the CTO and Senior Vice President. In addition to thirteen years at Altera, he was a Vice President of R&D at Cadence and Mentor. He was a co-founder of three startup companies, including Silicon Design Labs/Silicon Compiler Systems, acquired by Mentor in 1990. After receiving his MS and PhD degrees in Electrical Engineering from the University of Minnesota in 1978, he worked for six years at Bell Labs Research in Murray Hill, New Jersey.

Ned Wingreen

Ned Wingreen is the Howard A. Prior Professor in the Life Sciences at Princeton University. He is a member of the Department of Molecular Biology and of the Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics, where he is Director of Graduate Studies of the QCB Graduate Program. He is also Associate Director of the Princeton Center for Theoretical Science, and associated faculty in the Department of Physics. Ned received his Ph.D. in theoretical condensed matter physics from Cornell University in 1989. He did his postdoc in mesoscopic physics at MIT before moving, in 1991, to the NEC Research Institute in Princeton. At NEC, he continued to work in mesoscopic physics, but also started research in biophysics which grew into a general interest in problems at the interface of physics and biology. Ned joined Princeton University in 2004. Ned's current research focuses on theory and modeling in microbiology, cell biology, and immunology. He is a fellow of the American Physical Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Paul Colestock

Paul Colestock is currently the founder and managing director of the Exploratory Design Group at GLOBALFOUNDRIES focused on innovative approaches to digital, analog, RF and millimeter wave IC design and the underlying technologies that enable the future. This work relies heavily on collaboration with industry, academic research, and early stage idea entrepreneurs and is a participating member of with an eye on leveraging this work to drive next generation technology and design solutions including identifying the critical roadblocks that need to be addressed meet these challenges. To date, this includes active participation in the Stanford SystemX initiative and University of Texas at Dallas TxACE program. Paul is also an industry and academic advisor for University of South Florida’s Wireless and Information Systems effort, NC State college of ECE which includes work with their Centennial Campus Technology Incubator program among others. He has extensive cross-ecosystem semiconductor related experience and has held leadership positions driving innovation in product design, manufacturing, EDA, and strategy at GLOBALFOUNDRIES, Agilent Technologies, Cadence Design Systems, Jazz Semiconductor, Silvaco International and semiconductor startups Hesson Labs and Napali Technologies.

Paul also proudly served six years in the U.S. Navy. He received BS/MSEE in Electrical Engineering from the University of South Florida and was a PhD candidate at the University of Texas Austin before leaving the university to start his first official company in 1998.

Ram Ofir

Ram Ofir is an accomplished CEO and General Manager with over 28 years of experience in semiconductors, consumer electronics, and communication. He lead AMIMON Inc, a semiconductor innovator in wireless video, as the CEO through a business turnaround and a recent successful sale to a UK based public company.

Prior to AMIMON, Ram drove vision, strategy and execution at Zoran Microelectronics as a General Manager of the “Home” Division. Through 7 years as a GM, he has initiated and sponsored 4 acquisition of technology companies relevant to various product lines for the division, and drove products and teams integration to a successful $200M business.

From 2000 to 2005, Ram Led corporate R&D organizations, including Zoran major IC design center in Israel and WW with over 1200 engineers, developing multiple generation of solution for multimedia products, video and communication. He started his professional career as a Chip Design engineer at National Semiconductor in 1989.

Richard Ord

Richard runs his own business consultancy, established 15 years ago in the UK. The practice advises early-stage companies on strategy, business development and marketing to help them achieve their ambitions for growth.

“Once a start-up has got a product demo, passport and a presentation ready to take their innovation to market, that’s when they call on me……. If I’m honest, a year earlier would have been better!”

He began his career with Texas Instruments in the home computer boom (and bust), then established the wireless business at VLSI Technology, developing the world’s first GSM standard product chipset, and then rode the explosion of Bluetooth at Cambridge Silicon Radio.

The imaginatively named “Richard Ord Consulting Limited” is based near Cambridge, trading as "The Silicon Eye”, and working with companies in semiconductors, renewable energy and power. He’s a graduate of Pembroke College, Cambridge, and now applies that depth of experience to drive business growth.

Rich Page

Rich was one of the first four Apple Fellows and Co-Founded NeXT Computer with Steve Jobs. He has over 2 decades of experience building some of the most significant development teams and new businesses in Silicon Valley.

Rick Bahr

Rick Bahr is presently an adjunct professor with Stanford University, assisting research centers in the EE & CS departments. Previously, Rick was the executive director of Stanford University’s SystemX Alliance. Prior to Stanford, Rick could be spotted as Sr VP of Engineering at Qualcomm, chartered with driving Wi-Fi technology. Rick joined Qualcomm through the 2011 Atheros Communications acquisition, a Wi-Fi product company he joined in 2000 to head engineering. Prior to Atheros, Rick held multiple leadership positions in companies such as HP, Prime, Apollo and SGI (where he last was responsible for both MIPS processor and Cray supercomputer hardware engineering). Rick’s first 2 decades of professional life were devoted to processor design and architecture. The last decade and a half to communications. 

Rick holds a BS and MS in Electrical Engineering, both from MIT.

Rupert Baines

Rupert is a seasoned start-up entrepreneur and CEO.  He has founded a number of technology companies and been involved in three successful exits. Most recently he was CEO of UltraSoc (sold to Siemens July 2020). He is now CMO of Codasip, RISC-V processors.

Sagar Pushpala

Sagar previously served as Vice President of Business Development at TSMC. Prior to that, he was CEO of TSI Semiconductors, a niche, specialty analog mixed-signal foundry focused on technologies and manufacturing services serving emerging market products. For the past 25 years, Sagar has held executive and senior-level operations, engineering, and technology management positions at such analog mixed-signal companies as Intersil, Maxim, National Semiconductor, Saratoga Semiconductor, and AMD.  Previously an Operating Partner at Khosla Ventures, Sagar continues to serve in board and advisory roles for many system and medical device companies. In addition, he has held board positions in various industry consortiums, including the Global Semiconductor Alliance (GSA) and the Fab Owners Association (FOA).

Sagar’s mix of experience from technology development to manufacturing gives him a well-rounded view on how to innovate, adapt to new environments, and serve customers that are on the leading edge of technology. Even on the weekends, you’ll find Sagar in coffee, lunch, and wine settings, learning about new businesses and how they operate. Sagar thrives on working with customers of all sizes, helping them explore new breakthrough technologies and achieve operational excellence.

Sagar holds a Bachelor of Technology degree in Chemical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology in Madras, India, and a Master’s of Science degree in Chemical Engineering from The University of Kansas, USA.

Steve Glaser

Former SVP, Corporate Strategy and Marketing, Xilinx (2011-2018)

Managing Director, Copia Growth Partners (advisory/consulting)

Executive-in-Residence and/or Advisor for:

  • Plug & Play Incubator/Accelerator

  • Berkeley Skydeck Incubator/Accelerator

  • Silicon Catalyst Incubator/Accelerator

  • Embedded Vision Alliance

  • Several Start Up Companies

  • San Jose State Lucas College and Graduate School of Business (Dean’s Advisory Board member)

BS in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, UC Santa Barbara MBA, University of British Columbia

Steve brings a unique combination of deep strategic skills and experience, a passion for emerging technologies, markets and business, and an ability to create simple but impactful perspectives and positions in communications.

Most recently, Steve spent 7 years as Senior Vice President of Corporate Strategy and Marketing at Xilinx, a company that plays a significant role in enabling a very wide range of emerging technologies and applications.

Steve helped define and drive a strategic transformation at Xilinx from a hardware centric component provider to an increasingly software centric applications enabler. This included the establishment of growth drivers aligned to 5 industry megatrends; AI/Machine Learning, Cloud Computing, 5G, Vision Systems, and Industrial IoT.

Steve was responsible for all corporate strategy, market development, market research, and ecosystem development, as well CEO, employee, investor and corporate communications. During Steve’s tenure, Xilinx increased its market value from approximately $7B to $19B.

Prior to Xilinx, Steve served in strategic and senior executive roles driving industry initiatives, strategy, technology direction, M&A, investments and marketing for multiple leaders in design automation (including Cadence), ASICs (VLSI Technology) and communications (Hughes Space and Communications Group).

As part of these roles, Steve has also invested in small companies and served on multiple small company boards with successful exits.

Steve Lamont

Steve specializes in helping startup founders tell their story effectively; to potential investors, business partners, and customers. He helps hone a pitch as well as develop the other go-to-market tools needed for success. He strives to align the value proposition and messaging to the right target markets, then build the best, phased marketing strategy for the business. His background is mostly in marketing and strategy for high tech companies. Part of his career was in strategy consulting (McKinsey and Accenture) for global high tech and communications clients. The other portion was serving as lead marketer for companies that include McCaw Cellular Communications and NextWave Broadband. He has worked in a range of industries including cellular telephones, broadband data, satellite data, cloud telephony, software as a service, and cloud services. For the past 13 years he has worked in startups in a range of roles - including entrepreneur, CEO, board member, advisor, and angel investor.

Steve holds a B.Sc. degree in Computer Science from the University of Toronto, and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

T. W. Kang

T. W. Kang is Managing Director of Global Synergy Associates, a management consulting practice focused on enhancing global competence of multinational high technology firms.

He has had the rare experience of serving on the corporate boards of four companies spanning Japan, China and the U.S. He served on the board of directors of NEC Electronics, a multi-billion dollar semiconductor firm in a manner which was exceptional for a Tokyo Stock Exchange First Section listed company: a director who is foreign, independent, industry-insider, and hands-on. In addition to regular fiduciary and governance duties, he aggressively and constructively promoted and developed alliance opportunities.

As a board member of gEM Services, he enabled the formation of a power semiconductor module manufacturing joint venture with Mitsubishi Electric in Hefei, China. As a prior step to this milestone, he successfully negotiated and executed the transfer of an entire Mitsubishi power module production line to gEM's facility in Shanghai.

He has also served on the board of directors of Synaptics where cracking the Japanese market contributed to their successful IPO, and at SiPort which was successfully acquired by Intel.

Kang's consulting practice is based on his unique tri-cultural fluency and three decade business experience in the U.S., Japan, Korea and China. He has counseled his clients on global best practices that include strategic perspective alignment between Asia and the West, cross-cultural organizational structure execution risk minimization, cross-cultural corporate governance, and synthesis of geopolitical and historical factors in strategic formulation.

From 1979-1990, he held various management positions with Intel Corporation involving marketing and product planning of microprocessors and system products, and strategic planning including partner selection and management in Japan and Korea. His most recent position with Intel was System Group General Manager for Intel Japan.

He has lectured widely on issues relating to the Pacific Rim through invitation by the American Chamber of Commerce, the Ministry of Economics, Trade and Industry of Japan, JETRO, Keidanren, and the Executive Training Program of the European Community. He has appeared as guest commentator on Cable News Network, NHK (the Japan Broadcasting Corporation) and KBS (the Korean Broadcasting System).

He earned his bachelor's degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an MBA from the Harvard Business School. He has also guest conducted the San Jose Symphony Orchestra, the Korean Symphony Orchestra, and the NHK Symphony Danyu Orchestra in a series of benefit concerts.

Tom Eby

Prior to becoming an Advisor and Angel investor, Tom spent almost 40 years in the semiconductor industry, most recently at Micron Technology where he was GM of their largest and most profitable business, the Compute & Networking BU. Prior to Micron he ran BUs and also had senior executive roles in Strategy & Business Development and Sales & Marketing at Spansion and AMD. He has also served on the Boards of Directors of both private and public companies. Tom has a BS in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from Princeton University. He splits his time between San Francisco and London.

Wally Rhines, Ph.D

Dr. Walden (Wally) Rhines is a highly accomplished technology pioneer and business value builder in the semiconductor, EDA software, and electronics industries. He is known for leading business turnarounds, growth and M&A initiatives at Mentor Graphics Inc. and the worldwide Semiconductor Group at Texas Instruments Inc., and he is a recognized industry expert. Wally has held board director roles at four publicly traded semiconductor companies, and board advisory and leadership roles with the US government, non-profits. and universities. He is an IEEE Life Fellow and recipient of multiple awards. Over the course of his career, Wally led and contributed to commercialized products at Mentor Graphics and Texas Instruments, including the development of the first digital signal processors, speech synthesis chips used in the Speak & Spell learning aid and the Calibre family of physical verification software. An inventor of the Gallium Nitride blue light emitting diode, Wally’s and his co-inventor’s work was cited by Shuji Nakamura as fundamental to his Nobel Prize award.

Currently, as CEO Emeritus at Mentor, a Siemens Business, Wally advises governments, hedge funds, communications, computer, consumer electronics, and automotive companies, among others, on industry, customer, and technology dynamics. He is also a keynote speaker and panelist at global business, economic, industry, and engineering events, providing unique industry and customer insights for business strategic planning and development.