Bill Reichert, Managing Director at Garage Technology Ventures, has over 20 years of experience as an entrepreneur and an operating executive. Since joining Garage in 1998, Bill has focused on seed-stage and early-stage information technology and materials science companies. He has been on the Boards of MiaSole, CaseStack, WhiteHat Security, ClearFuels Technology, ThermoCeramix, VisaNow, and Step Labs. Prior to Garage, Bill was a co-founder or senior executive in several venture-backed technology startups, including Trademark Software, The Learning Company, and Academic Systems. Earlier in his career, he worked at McKinsey & Company, Brown Brothers Harriman & Co., and the World Bank. Bill earned a B.A. at Harvard College and an M.B.A. from Stanford University. He was a founding board member and a Chairman of the Churchill Club, and a Charter Member of the Silicon Valley Association of Startup Entrepreneurs. Currently he is the Chairman of the Small Fund Roundtable of the VC Taskforce and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. Email reichert@garage.com

Bryan Meyer, Senior Manager at Mainstay Partners, has over 10 years of experience in technology and valuation.  In his role at Mainstay Partners, he provides strategic consulting to clients in technology, healthcare, and finance.  Areas of expertise include ROI analysis, customer benefits assessments, and strategic marketing, targeting B2B, B2b, and B2C.  Earlier in his career, Bryan worked at IBM, where he held positions in software design and hardware sales.  Bryan holds an M.S. and B.S. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University, and an M.B.A. from UCLA Anderson School of Management.  Currently, he is a Director on the LP Committee and the Lead Advisor for technology for VC Taskforce. bmeyer@mainstaypartners.net 

Carl Hewitt is professor emeritus after three decades on the MIT Computer Science faculty. His doctoral work involved designing Planner, the first logic programming language based on inference using plans, assertions, and goals. Subsequently Carl worked on developing the Actor Model of computation. Carl is Program Chair of Inconsistency Robustness 2011 at Stanford this summer; he also consults for companies in the Valley in addition to his academic work. For more complete information visit his homepage.

Carol Felton, founder and president of InsightCircle PR, has over 30 years of experience building, managing and protecting companies’ corporate reputations. She has provided direction and guidance that has helped take early stage technology start-ups from development of their initial positioning and market entrance through IPO, as well as re-energized established blue-chip technology brands.  Prior to founding InsightCircle PR, Carol spent 15 years with Weber Shandwick where she served as Client Relationship Leader for Agilent Technologies and headed up the Emerging Companies Group within the Technology Practice.   Earlier Carol worked at several large high technology public relations firms.  She started her career as a journalist.  Currently she is Chair of the PR Committee of VC Taskforce.  carol.felton@insightcirclepr.com. 

Cynthia Kocialski has extensive experience in the Internet, digital video, and communications as entrepreneur and technologist. For the past 15 years, she has been involved in numerous hi-tech start-up companies.  Her recent role was as COO for a medical consumer technology start-up, where she led the software development, advertising, and Internet strategy. Cynthia founded Vesta Corporation, a telecom software provider and co-founded SLI, a fabless semiconductor company providing network components.  Cynthia was the General Manager of Matrox Electronics, where she managed digital video, imaging, and graphics product development groups.  Cynthia started her career at IBM where she held various roles. Cynthia writes a blog about start-ups, is a contributor to IEEE publications, and maintains a website on Internet and communication technologies. She has an undergraduate degree in Mathematics from the University of Rochester and graduate degrees in Electrical Engineering and Systems Engineering from the University of Virginia. Cynthia can be reached at ckocialski@gmail.com.

Howard Lee, Co-Founder and Managing Director at Founders Equity Partners, has more than ten years of experience in venture capital investing, and more than 20 years of experience in research, development, and marketing in emerging and established technology companies and research institutions.  He was previously Executive Director and Co-Head for US Private Equity at CDIB Capital, the largest industrial bank in Taiwan. Prior to CDIB Capital, Mr. Lee was a General Partner at Crystal Ventures, a venture capital firm focused on early-stage technology companies in both the US and Asia.  Mr. Lee was also Vice President of global venture capital firm Crimson Ventures. Prior to Crimson, he was Vice President and Co-founder of Volendam Capital Advisors, a US and European-based venture group. Mr. Lee has held management positions at Applied Materials and the US Army Research Labs as well as engineering positions at IBM and Unisys. Mr. Lee holds a BS and PhD in Electrical Engineering from Cornell University and an MBA from INSEAD. He can be reached at howard@foundersequitypartners.com

Jason T. Andrew is an avid proponent of the consumer-driven healthcare market and a frequent speaker on innovative health solutions and reform. He is a founder & partner of Stone Meadow Benefits & Insurance Associates (SMB), an innovative employee benefits consulting firm in Silicon Valley. Jason works with startups, small-medium businesses and individuals to develop alternative strategies and progressive solutions that reduce the cost of healthcare. Previously, Jason was the managing producer for Lawson-Hanks Insurance Associates, specializing in programs for nonprofits, startups, and public sector clients. He negotiated, designed, and implemented benefit plans for over 30 public entities and union clients, and created a health insurance pool that enabled over 16 safety bargaining units to reduce costs by moving away from CalPERS, the nation’s third largest insurance broker.

Dr. John R. Mashey is an ancient Bell Labs UNIX software person who has since managed software at Convergent Technologies, helped design the MIPS RISC architecture at MIPS Computer Systems, and later was VP & Chief Scientist at Silicon Graphics. Most of his career has been spent in helping turn research into products, then evangelizing them while working with marketing and sales organizations. Currently he consults on systems, software, and chips, mostly for VCs, sits on Advisory Boards of a half a dozen startups, and is a Trustee of the Computer History Museum in Mountain View. Contact info: 650-575-6347 For email, his name is "mash", located at heymash.com

John Thomas is an Engineering Manager at Google, where he works in the AdWords group. He manages a team focused on tools development, test strategy and engineer productivity. Prior to Google, he was a Senior Software Engineer at Siebel Systems (now part of Oracle) where he led a number of design and development initiatives around tools and test frameworks. Prior to Siebel Systems, John worked as a developer at StreamSage which specializes in indexing and searching audio and video media, and at SAP Labs where he worked as a developer in the Corporate Research Center focusing on VoiceXML. John has a MS in Computer Science from University of Texas at Austin, and a BE in Computer Science from University of Mumbai (India). John writes and maintains a blog about venture capitalists and entrepreneurs. He can reached at john.thomas@alumni.utexas.net

Julie Shevlin is Principal of The Noesis Group,  with over 18 years of corporate strategy and partnership business development experience in the Telecom, IT, PC and Semiconductor industries. Julie has worked in 5 early stage IT/mobile/wireless companies as well as several Fortune 50 technology companies such as Lucent, AMD, Tandem Computers and Applied Materials. Before founding The Noesis Group, she was Vice President of the OEM Software Business Unit for Avanquest Software, the 3rd largest software publisher in Europe and worked with large clients such as Motorola, Sony Ericsson, Lenovo, Dell, Orange. Julie has lived and worked in Europe and Asia and regularly contributes to the VCTaskForce. She can be reached at julie@thenoesisgroup.com

Lee Bruno is a principal at E-Cubed Ventures, LLC. He is a seasoned innovation and market researcher and brings over 18 years of deep experience in researching and analyzing emerging technology, market, and investment trends in multiple segments including cleantech, energy, and IT.  Lee’s work emphasizes identifying and assessing early stage innovations within the context of market opportunities along with patterns of leading edge enterprise formation and growth.  His consumer and business market trend analysis writings have appeared in several leading publications like The Guardian, MIT Tech Review, Stanford Social Innovation Review and The Economist.  He has held key editorial positions as Director of Special Reports at The 451 Group, an IT analyst firm and prior to that at Red Herring where he developed award winning briefings on hi-tech industry trends.  He graduated with a B.S. in Biology from San Francisco State University and a M.A. in Journalism from Boston University. He can be reached at lee@ecubedventures.com.

Manijeh Moghis is President of CommTec Consulting, a wireless and telecom consultancy firm. She has over 20 years of leadership in advanced communications and wireless where she built, led and managed P&L of multimillion dollar global businesses in large and start-up companies. Previously, Manijeh held the positions of the COO and board member at Migo Software Group where she led the entire company operations worldwide, prior to that she was the COO and board member at OnMobile, where she built and led the company’s global operations, as the Vice President of marketing and product management at SimplySay and Wireless Online, she was responsible for marketing and product positioning and evolutions, as the General Manager at Fujitsu Americas Wireless, Manijeh managed P&L of the CDMA mobile phones and WCDMA/3G infrastructure business unit. During 14-year tenure at Nortel Networks, she held a wide range of senior management positions. Manijeh@moghis.com

Matthew Fix is a Principal at Vodafone Ventures, a $200M fund focused on the mobile and digital media space. Matthew has invested in and is an active board member of Amobee, Evolution Robotics, GameGround, and Caringo and also invested in SNAP-in (acquired by Nuance), Perfecto Mobile, OBS Medical, and dotMobi (acquired by Affilias). Prior to joining Vodafone Ventures at the end of 2006 he was at Intel Capital, with a focus on software, open source, and Internet/digital media. Investments include Financial Engines (IPO), Datallegro (acquired by Microsoft), Spike Source, Black Duck, BayPackets (acquired by Genband), and Incesoft. LinkedIn Profile

Matt Weeks is a serial entrepreneur and corporate start-up/spin-off disruptor and innovator.  A consummate deal guy and connector, he serves on a variety of boards and advises a number of startups and established companies in the areas of competitive strategy, market entry, M&A and IP /productization across technology, social, mobile, financial services and retail/consumer.  Currently Matt serves as CEO/Co-founder of Mobile startup WorkersCount, a new direct-to-consumer social service at the intersection of human capital management and corporate brand management/protection.  Matt has served as CEO, CMO, CRO and founder or co-founder of 8 previous companies, including executive leadership at a number of global public companies.  Active in the SF/Bay Area venture and startup community, Matt is co-executive producer of two highly successful annual conferences; GeoLoco and SocialLoco in San Francisco.  He serves on the National Board of the USC Marshall School of Business, and is emeritus chairman of the SF Bay Area Marshall Alumni chapter.  He holds a BA in English Literature from Amherst College and an MBA in Finance and New Venture Management from USC's Marshall School of Business and the Grief Center for Entrepreneurial Study where he was a Dean's Scholar. You can reach Matt at (650) 520-8808 or write matthew.c.weeks@gmail.com.

Meredith L. Warshaw, Ph.D. is a life science professional with a doctorate in neurophysiology and endocrinology.  She has credentials from Northwestern University, University of Illinois Medical School at Chicago, UCSF and Stanford University.  Dr. Warshaw has published in peer reviewed journals, presented in national and international scientific meetings and is the recipient of numerous scientific awards.  In addition to her background as a research scientist, Dr. Warshaw more recently founder and CEO of FUTURE Brain Cancer Institute in Palo Alto.  She brings biotech and Life Sciences expertise to VC Task Force.  Dr. Warshaw may be reached at mlwarshaw@gmail.com or 650.269.3156.

Miki Saxon is founder of 10 yr. old RampUp Solutions and co-creator of Option Sanity™, the first and only values/culture-based incentive stock allocation program that maximizes motivational stock, while creating a laser focus on the company's goals. Economical software-as-a-service drives performance, predicts dilution, one-click reports save time, provides an audit trail for assurance & security, and much more. In addition, she is an expert at clarifying, rewriting and improving executive summaries, website content, presentations, marketing materials, etc., as well as writing Mapping Company Success for her company and occasionally contributing to Technorati. You can reach Miki at 360.335.8054 or email miki@RampUpSolutions.com

Nick Mikhailovsky is co-founder of POIdo, a location-based advertising startup, as well as founder and CEO of NTR Lab, a bespoke software development company in Russia, and its subsidiary, NTR Lab-US, Inc. His technical background is in the areas of straight-through processing, information system architecture, credit risk estimation systems, and information retrieval systems. Nick was co-author of the Russian translation of ISO 15504 (international CMM equivalent). As CEO, he leads NTR’s business development and manages Information Retrieval and Artificial Intelligence related projects. Nick holds a MS in Math. Email nickm@ntrlab.ru

Paul Schnitzler, Ph.D. (EE) Consultanting—Product: Concept to Customer. Helped large and small companies reduce time-to-profit, as well as development and production costs, while delivering products customers want. Currently: Instructor in M.S. Engineering Management of the University of South Florida; Professor (Entrepreneurial Studies) Northwestern Polytechnic University (CA); and visiting Professor, New Venture Development at Fudan University, Shanghai, PRC. Phone: 813-994-2297 paul@paulschnitzler.com.

Richard Leto - seeking opportunity. CFO of four technology based companies, one public. IPO preparation, funding and M&A success while visualizing and implementing strategies for increased profits within large and small organizations. International experience as expatriate in Asia and European assignments (US and EU citizen). Co-founded Beach Head Group to explore consulting opportunities, looking to join a growth opportunity and accelerate the business plan. Richard received his MBA from the Haas Business School at UC Berkeley (working full time) following a BS in Finance & Accounting at Boston College. Cell 650.302.0065 or rich@beachheadgroup.com

Rose Mortilla is a Vice President at YES PARTNERS, a retained executive search firm specializing in helping U.S. companies to expand locally and internationally and International companies to expand in the U.S. She has 20 years experience in the domestic & international Executive Search and Recruitment Industry and has been recruiting high caliber senior level executives in the hi-tech, life sciences, financial services and FMCG industries on three continents. Rose prides herself on the strong professional relationships she maintains with her clients as well as her candidates worldwide. She specializes in understanding corporate cultures, advising her clients on market and salary trends and providing talent that fits the best. Rose has a degree in Sociology and speaks besides English also French, German, Japanese and Korean. Contact: tel: 650-726-8733 x703 rose@yespartners.com 

Shrikant Lohokare, co-founder and managing partner of Tech2Biz Ventures (committed to providing technology commercialization and business expertise enabling research based startup success and investor value) is a senior executive, entrepreneur, innovator, consultant with broad leadership experience in technology R&D, commercialization, global product management, marketing, business strategy and growth.  He has been principal partner covering clean tech and alternate energy at 21Ventures and was CEO and Board Advisor for NanoSilicon Solar, Inc.  Shrikant has to his merit a PhD in Physics from the University of Illinois, a MS in Chemical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology and executive management training from Stanford.  He has performed pioneering R&D in catalysis, semiconductor and nano-materials processing, published several scientific papers, presented at international conferences and holds multiple US patents.  He can be reached at shrikant@tech2bizventures.com.

Spencer Hsu is a Sr. Sales and Marketing specialist at ReadyTech, a cloud computing provider for enterprise businesses focused primarily in their training division. Spencer is an active stock trader and always loves to discuss investment strategies. He graduated from UC Davis with a Biotechnology degree and is currently attending Santa Clara University part-time to obtain his MBA in Marketing and Finance. Spencer is always looking at new opportunities so feel free to drop by and say hi at sphsu04@gmail.com or connect through Linkedin.

Stephen Ho, VP of Capital Market with Real Estate Capital Partners, a commerical real estate investments company in Texas. Stephen also serves as a real estate agent in the larger Silicon Valley area and its 2nd ring cities. Stephen has over 30 years of combined experiences in commercial and residential real estate investments. Previously he was in the Electronic measurement systems design with startups, Perkin-Elmer, HP (Agilent); later switched career to Diagnostic software design with Sun Microsystems. Stephen graduated from National Taiwan University, with interests in Photography, Piano Restoration, Hiking, and Gardening. Contact: stephenho88@gmail.com, The soonest we can start anything is Now!