Board of Directors

Gianluca Rattazzi (Chairman of the Board)
Maxiscale - Co-founder, President and CEO

Gianluca Rattazzi is the Co-Founder, CEO and President of Maxiscale. He was formerly the Co-Founder and Executive Chairman of BlueArc, a network storage leader. Previously, he co-founded as its CEO, Meridian Data: a pioneer and leader in network attached storage, P-COM: a telecom and communications equipment company, and Parallan Computers: an enterprise-class server company. Meridian Data, P-COM and Parallan Computers all achieved listings on NASDAQ/NMS. Earlier in his career, Rattazzi was president of Virtual Microsystems and held executive positions with Validec and Olivetti. He earned an MSEE and an MSCS from the University of California, Berkeley and a Doctorate in Physics from the University of Rome.

Chih-Kai (C.K.) Cheng
Harbinger Ventures – Founder and General Partner

Mr. Cheng is the founder and General Partner of Harbinger Venture, a pan-Pacific venture firm with strong ties with MiTAC and Synnex Group. Mr. Cheng currently sits on the boards of Cardiva, Envivio, General Photonics, Quintic and is actively involved with many other companies in the portfolio. His investments include Achievo, Actrans (acquired by SSTI), Alpha Omega Semiconductor, Applied Optoelectronics, A10, Centrality (acquired by SiRF), DeviceVM, Fortemedia, Plax (acquired by Comcast), Motricity, Quova,Tasman Network (acquired by Nortel), Quellan, Reactrix. Prior to Harbinger, his investment history started with the privatization of Wyse in 1990 and continued with the later investments, made for MiTAC and Synnex, in S3, VA Linux (NASDAQ: LNUX), Altigen (NASDAQ: ATGN). Mr. Cheng received his MBA from National Chiao-Tung University, Taiwan, and B.S.in Physics from National Tsing-Hua University, Taiwan.

Leonardo Chiariglione

Leonardo Chiariglione graduated from the Polytechnic of Turin and obtained his Ph. D. degree from the University of Tokyo. He has been at the forefront of a number of initiatives that have helped shape media technology and business as we know them today. Among these MPEG which he founded and chairs and the Digital Media Project of which he is the current president. Dr. Chiariglione is the recipient of several awards: among these the IBC John Tucker award, the IEEE Masaru Ibuka Consumer Electronics award and the Kilby Foundation award. Since January 2004 he is the CEO of CEDEO, a consulting company advising major multinational companies on matters related to digital media.

Kevin Dillon
Atlantic Bridge - Partner

Kevin has 18 years operating experience in the technology sector, including a total of 13 years operational experience in Paris, London and Dublin, five years in Silicon Valley, and a total of 13 years as an executive in the software industry. Kevin served as Vice President, Microsoft EMEA and helped grow the regional business from $500 million in 1991 to $9.5 billion in 2004. From 1985 through 1991, Kevin was an international tax advisor at Price Waterhouse in Europe, the U.S. and South Africa. Prior to 1985, Mr. Dillon practised law in South Africa, including serving as a Legal Officer in the South African Navy. He is a frequent industry speaker and was ICT Ireland Businessman of the Year in 2001 and elected a fellow of the Irish Management Institute in 2000. He holds various degrees in Business, Finance, Taxation & Law.

Corentin du Roy
HarbourVest Partners (U.K.) Limited – Vice President

Corentin du Roy joined HarbourVest's London-based subsidiary in 2003, where he focuses on non-U.S. direct growth equity and leveraged buyout investments. He sits on the board of Acision, Envivio, Flash Networks, Kiala, and Servista. He has also been involved in HarbourVest's direct investments in Cramer Systems (acquired by Amdocs), Betapharm (acquired by Dr. Reddy's Laboratories), Bezier, Finjan Software, and Loxam, among others. He joined the Firm from AXA Investment Managers, where he was an equity and high-yield debt research analyst focusing mainly on the telecom sector. Fluent in French, Corentin received a BS in Business Administration from Paris IX Dauphine University in 1999 and received the Chartered Financial Analyst designation in 2002.

Kenneth B. Sawyer
Saints Capital – Founder, Managing Director

Mr. Sawyer is currently a Managing Director for Saints. Before founding Saints in 2000, he was formerly the Head of Mergers and Acquisitions of Prudential Volpe Technology Group, a division of Prudential Securities. From 1996 to 1999, Mr. Sawyer was the Head of Strategic Advisory Services and Mergers and Acquisitions at Volpe Brown Whelan & Co., a privately held investment bank focused on emerging growth companies in technology and healthcare and later acquired by Prudential Securities in December of 1999. Mr. Sawyer serves on the Board of Directors, or is a Board Observer at Cleargauge, Continuous Computing, HK Systems, Travel Intelligence, Laureate Pharmaceuticals, Acsis and Alliance. Prior investments have included Sidestep, Tellme, Military.com, Vertical Networks, Scene 7, Cyber Trust, eVoice and Magnet Communications. Mr. Sawyer received his Masters of Business Administration from the Stanford Graduate School of Business. He earned his Bachelor of Science with honors in Industrial Engineering at Stanford University. Mr. Sawyer was elected as a member of Phi Beta Kappa and Tau Beta Pi honor societies. Mr. Sawyer also studied at the University of Tours in France and the Copenhagen School of Business.

Julien Signès
Envivio – Founder, President and CEO

Julien Signès is the President, CEO, and Founder of Envivio. He has been driving the strategy and execution of the company to take it from pre-revenue technology to the fastest growing company in the Digital Media technology space. Prior to Envivio, Julien was with France Telecom and Orange in Rennes, France, and San Francisco, focusing on new multimedia services and MPEG-4 technology and strategy. He actively participated in the ISO standardization process to develop the MPEG-4 standard. He has been awarded 7 patents linked to his standardization work, and received distinctions from ISO and SPIE. Julien graduated from Ecole Polytechnique and Telecom, Paris, in Software and Electrical Engineering.

David Spreng
Crescendo Ventures – Managing General Partner

David is a 17-year veteran of the venture capital business and the Founder and Managing General Partner of Crescendo Ventures. During his 17 years in the venture capital industry, David has been active in the formation and development of nearly 50 technology companies with 17 IPO's and a dozen trade-sales. He is a graduate of the University of Minnesota, a member of the board of the National Venture Capital Associations (NVCA) and a regular participant and panelist at the World Economic Forum's annual meeting in Davos. David is also involved as a board member and Chairman of the eSociety for Bay Area office of the National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship.

Thinh Tran
Sigma Designs - Co-founder, Chairman and CEO

Mr. Tran, a co-founder of Sigma Designs, has served as President, Chief Executive Officer, and Chairman of the Board of Directors since the Company's inception in 1982. Under Mr. Tran's leadership, the Company has grown from a small start-up to a multimillion-dollar public Company, weathering the many ups and downs of the industry, economy, and rapid changes in technology. Mr. Tran has played an integral role in transitioning the business from solutions for personal computer displays to solutions for consumer appliances. Prior to founding Sigma Designs, Mr. Tran was employed by Amdahl Corporation and Trilogy Systems Corporation, both of which were involved in the IBM-compatible mainframe computer market. Mr. Tran received a B.S.E.E. from the University of Wisconsin in 1974 and his M.S.E.E. from Stanford University in 1975.

 

 

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