Board of Directors
Robert Finzi
The Sprout Group
Director
Bob joined the Sprout Group as a general partner in May 1991 when Sprout assumed management of two public venture capital funds originated by Merrill Lynch. He became co-managing partner in November 2003. Bob had joined Merrill Lynch Venture Capital, Inc. in 1984 and became a partner in 1985. Prior to Merrill Lynch, he was an associate with Menlo Ventures and served as a consultant with Andersen Consulting (now Accenture). Bob attended Harvard Business School (M.B.A., Baker Scholar, Loeb Rhoades Fellow) and Lehigh University (B.S. with Highest Honors, M.S., Byllesby Fellow).
William P. Tai
Charles River Ventures
Co-Founder and Board Director
Bill joined Charles River Ventures (CRV) in 2002 to lead the firm’s West Coast practice. He has over 15 years of experience working with startups as a venture capitalist. His portfolio of early stage projects has included 39 companies spanning a number of areas including Web services communications systems and enabling technologies. A majority (23) of the companies he has worked with have become publicly listed (16) or have been acquired (7). He was named by Forbes to its list of “Top 100 dealmakers in Technology” for 2005.
Prior to beginning his venture capital career in 1991, Bill established the semiconductor practice at Alex Brown and Sons, where he positioned public offerings for Adaptec, Atmel, Cirrus Logic, Dallas Semiconductor, Exar, and Zilog. He began his career in technology with LSI Logic.
Bill holds a B.S.E.E. with Honors in Electrical Engineering from the University of Illinois as well as an M.B.A. from Harvard Graduate School of Business. He serves as a director of Illinois Ventures and is a past officer and director of the Western Association of Venture Capitalists. As one of the names on the MaiTai Kite Camp, Bill is an acknowledged addict and maintains a blog about Kiteboarding at kiteblog.
Allan C. Thygesen
The Carlyle Group
Director
Allan is a managing director of The Carlyle Group where he focuses primarily on U.S. venture and growth capital investment opportunities. He is based in the firm’s San Francisco office. The Carlyle investments with which he has been actively involved include Air2Web, Archetype Solutions, Canesta, Indigo Systems (acquired by Nasdaq: FLIR), Rhythm NewMedia, SMaL Camera (acquired by NYSE: CY), TradeBeam and Viator.
Prior to joining Carlyle in February 2001, Allan served as the executive vice president, sales and business development of Wink Communications, Inc., a provider of an end-to-end software platform for interactive television services. He joined Wink in July 1996, and developed and led the relationships with Wink’s largest cable and satellite operator customers, broadcast and cable networks, advertisers and advertising agencies, and consumer electronics manufacturers. At Wink, Allan also served as interim chief financial officer in preparation for the company’s initial public offering (NASDAQ: WINK) in August 1999.
Prior to Wink, Allan served in a variety of executive, sales, marketing, customer service and finance management roles at Gold Disk, Inc., a venture-backed publisher of personal and corporate productivity software; at Media Vision Technologies, Inc., a multimedia hardware manufacturer and publisher of CD-ROM entertainment software; at Pellucid, a venture-backed start-up developing 3D graphics hardware, acquired by Media Vision in May of 1993; at Everex Systems, a manufacturer of personal computers and peripheral products; and at Radiometer A/S, a manufacturer of medical measuring equipment.
Allan received an M.Sc. in economics from the University of Copenhagen and an M.B.A. from the Stanford Graduate School of Business, where he graduated as an Arjay Miller scholar.
Richard M. Berkeley
Camden Partners
Director
Richard is a partner at Camden Partners, which he joined in 2002. He focuses on investments in the business and financial services, health care and education markets for the firm. Prior to joining Camden, Richard spent 19 years with Alex, Brown & Sons, Incorporated and its successor organizations, Bankers Trust Corporation and Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.
Before that, Richard was managing director and global head of the Equity Private Placements Group at Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc., where he was responsible for the origination, structuring, and consummation of private equity financings for private and public companies. During his tenure, Richard and his team members completed more than 135 private equity financings for private and public companies. He has served, or is currently serving, on the boards of directors of a number of private companies—including RealPage, Inc., WageWorks, Inc., HemCon Medical Technologies and Barton-Cotton, Inc.—educational institutions, and charitable organizations. He also served as an officer in the United States Air Force between 1974 and 1976. Richard is a former member of the board of managers of the University of Virginia Alumni Association, and he is a former president and current member of the board of directors of the Jefferson Scholars Foundation at the University of Virginia.
Richard earned his B.A., J.D., and M.B.A. degrees from the University of Virginia.
Graham R. F. Napier
President and Chief Executive Officer
Prior to joining TradeBeam, Graham was president and COO of the Fritz Companies, a $1.8 billion integrated logistics company that was sold to UPS for over $440 million in May of 2001. Before the Fritz Companies, he was vice president and general manager at Allied Signal Aerospace, where he was responsible for developing new ventures, strategic growth initiatives and supply chain services. Prior to that he served for five years at Ryder Integrated Logistics in North America and Europe. Graham’s experience also includes nine years with Lucas Industries, where he was responsible for re-engineering a number of business units in Europe, Latin America and North America.
