James Phillips is a twenty year veteran of the software industry. He started his career writing software for the Apple II and the TRS-80 microcomputer platforms. In 1984, at age 17, he co-founded his first software company, Fifth Generation Systems, which was acquired by Symantec in 1993 forming the foundation of Symantec's PC backup software business. Most recently, James was co-founder and CEO of Akimbi Systems, a Mayfield company acquired by VMware for $60 million in 2006 after two years of operations with $11 million invested.
Book-ended by these entrepreneurial successes, James has held executive leadership roles in software engineering, product management, marketing and corporate development at large public companies including Intel, Synopsys and Intuit and with venture-backed software startups including Central Point Software (acquired by Symantec), Ensim and Actional Corporation (acquired by Progress Software.
James is the CEO of NorthScale, and currently serves on the board of directors of Teneros and as an advisor to a number of privately-held software companies.
He holds a BS in Mathematics and earned his MBA with honors from the University of Chicago.
John has spent the better part of his career at the intersection of technology and consumer products. John has started, built and rebuilt companies in the entertainment software and mobile spaces, all of which are around and thriving today.
Early in his career, Spin was a key member of the early restart team at Activision, now the #1 independent game publisher, then more recently in the turnaround and sale of Eidos, where he ran Studios.
Between extended stints in the gaming industry, he's started and sold a wireless enterprise software company which has grown through M&A to be known as MBlox, the world's largest mobile messaging network. To the best of his recollection, he has an engineering degree from Yale.
John is Vice President of Worldwide Sales of Sylvan Source, a venture backed water company in Sunnyvale, CA. Mr. Van Dyke has had a successful career as an entrepreneur and investor.
John began his venture in vesting in 1989 both individually and along side Hambrecht & Quist. He has invested in over 100 venture projects, primarily software and telecom. He is a board member of Zephyr-Tec, WebPackaging Corp. and Voice Access Technologies. In the past ten years he has also served as interim CEO and CFO for several companies.
Have been active for many years in Young President's Organization and World President's Organization. He served many years as Chairman of the Board of Walking Shield American Indian Society in Orange, Ca., the largest foundation in the country to benefit Native Americans. He was also the first Chairman of the Iowa Lottery Commission and a former Mayor of Sioux City, Iowa.
Mr. Van Dyke graduated from Dartmouth College and earned an MBA degree from the University of Chicago.
Peter Yared is the Founder & CEO at wdgtbldr, a venture funded, stealth startup. Peter was most recently the Founder and CEO at ActiveGrid, a commerical open source company delivering the LAMP stack to the enterprise. Previously, he was CTO of Sun Microsystems' Liberty Network Identity initiative.
Peter was also CTO of Sun Microsystems' Application Server Division. Before its acquisition by Sun, Peter served as CTO of NetDynamics, which pioneered the then-leading J2EE application server. Earlier, he was Founder and CEO of JRad Technologies, an enterprise Java company acquired by NetDynamics. Additionally, Peter was Chief Architect of client/server products at object-oriented tool maker Prograph International and the architect of several mission-critical systems deployed by U.S. government agencies and the GED Testing Service.
Peter holds a BS in Computer Science from the University of Maryland.
Ido is a seasoned executive with over 20 years of senior management experience in enterprise software. Ido held executive roles at Mercury Interactive, including Vice President of Technology Strategy and Vice President of Product Marketing. At Mercury, he was responsible for the company's technology roadmap, and for evaluating new technologies and business opportunities for Mercury. Under his leadership, Mercury acquired Kintana, Appilog, Performant and Allerez, and launched Topaz, the first Application Performance Management solution for real-time monitoring of a user’s experience on the Web.
Ido was a Venture Partner with Thomas Weisel Venture Partners, where he focused on enterprise software. Ido holds an MBA, Magna Cum Laude, from Tel Aviv University . He earned his BS, Cum Laude, in Computer Engineering from the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology.
