Advisory Board

• Chandra Bodapati
  • Chandra Bodapati is the Founder & CEO of eGrabber, a leading provider of data capture productivity solutions. Prior to this he was the cofounder & CEO of ProdEx Technologies and CypherTech. Chandra prefers to start a company with a strong IP component. He has 25+ years experience in the valley, multiple patents, MBA, MSEE and BSEE.
• Michele Bolton
  • Michele Kremen Bolton, Ph.D., is a founding partner of ExecutivEdge of Silicon Valley, an executive coaching and organizational development consulting company located in Los Gatos, California.  She is a 'recovering academic' and former professor of management, having recently retired from nearly twenty years on the faculty of the College of Business at San Jose State University. Bolton has been an executive development consultant for fifteen years.  She works both with individual clients as an executive coach and with larger teams.  She conducts seminars and training and gives keynote presentations, addressing audiences of 35 to 1,100 across the country.  Her clients include start-ups and Fortune 500 companies as well as educational, government and community organizations. Bolton is quite active in the community.  She has served as an advisory board member on a venture capital firm, a business incubator, and a range of nonprofit organizations, from Big Brother/Big Sisters to Hope Rehabilitation.  In 1993, she cofounded a community mentoring organization at San Jose State University to guide women entrepreneurs, the Center to Develop Women Entrepreneurs, which won the Community Organization of the Year Award from the Silicon Valley chapter of the National Association of Women Business Owners.
• Chuck Erickson
  • Mr. Erickson is a seasoned executive with over thirty‑five years of technology management experience, and is currently serving as the Managing Director of the Software Business Cluster in San Jose, CA.  He has recently held positions of corporate President and CEO, Managing Director, and Technical Director of entrepreneurial management teams in start-up and turn‑around companies focused in the areas of innovative software and hardware development, international business and corporate operations.  He has extensive international experience in software and hardware development, marketing, and manufacturing.  Mr. Erickson holds a BSEE from Illinois Institute of Technology, has done post-graduate studies at The University of Chicago.  He has lectured at IIT, Penn State University and San Jose State University. 
• Dennis Fernandez

  • Dennis has over twenty-years experience in Silicon Valley and High-Tech Industry, as a patent prosecutor and intellectual property litigator, a venture capitalist, and an engineering manager. He specializes in developing offensive and defensive patent strategies for start-up electronics, software and biotech companies and their investors.

    Dennis serves as strategic advisor to leading venture capital firms, including Sevin Rosen, Venrock, Charles River Ventures, and Walden International. Representative clients include Marvell Technology, SiRF Technology, Ayala Corporation, Stanford University, and Northwestern University, as well as various start-up companies acquired by Cisco, Broadcom, Ciena, and Cadence Design Systems. He also serves on the Editorial Board of the Nanotechnology Law & BusinessJournal, the Board of Directors of the Association of Patent Law Firms, and the Science and Technology Advisory Council. Previously Dennis served on a consultancy with the United Nations Development Program on Asian economic development.

    Dennis is also an inventor of several U.S. and international patents in the areas of digital television, sensor networks, and bioinformatics. He has an Electrical Engineering degree from Northwestern University, a law degree from Suffolk University Law School, and is a Registered U.S. Patent Attorney. Visit Fernandez & Associates website.

• Fred Greguras

  • Fred Greguras is a partner in the Palo Alto office of K&L Gates who focuses his practice on strategic issues for global clean technology, software, internet, media and life sciences companies - with an emphasis on the start-up and emerging company stages. This includes, in particular, financings of various types, M&A and a full range of other transactions in both domestic and international marketplaces.

    In the international arena, Fred has substantial experience representing companies with a market focus on or operations in China, Vietnam and India, and in supporting investors from those countries. During his 25-plus year tenure in the Silicon Valley, he has also been a venture capitalist and a general counsel and CFO for a startup.

    He received a Bachelor of Arts in mathematics from University of Omaha, a Masters of Science in mathematics and computer science, and his J.D. from the University of Nebraska. Mr. Greguras is a member of the State Bar of California.

• Brad Maihack
  • Brad is a 30 year veteran of Hewlett-Packard's Financial leadership community. Over Brad's  career at HP he has held a wide range of senior financial management and controllership roles across a  broad range of high technology businesses, most notably as Controller and Finance Director of HP's; OpenView Management Software Business (the 13th largest software company in the world),  Internet Business Unit,  Integrated Circuit Business,  Systems Technology Group, HP3000 Commercial Systems Business, and Systems Peripheral Organization. Brad is a recognized financial & business  leader within HP and is often sought after in regards to leading significant business turnarounds and growing high profile new business ventures in the company.  He and his global  team of  Finance professionals  lead the  development and implementation financial management  strategies & processes necessary to optimize global business performance and to transform the financial management culture of the organization. Brad holds a Bachelors degree in Business Administration; Accounting concentration, from San Jose State University, he is the co-creator & co-chair of the Silicon Valley Financial Management Institute and sits on the Board's of the Silicon Valley's Financial Executive International as well as a number of other Silicon Valley professional organizations.
• Vish Mishra

  • Vish joined Clearstone in March 2002 with over 30 years of leadership and management experience in the high tech industry including software, Internet, networking and telecommunications. He is a founder and served as a board member of Telera, a cutting edge voice web infrastructure company funded by Accel and Sequoia, which was sold to Alcatel for $140 million in 2002. Vish was also co-founder of Excelan.

    Vish prides himself in being a mentor capitalist who sits or has sat on boards of many venture-backed companies such as Abeama, Cofix, Onjibe, PostMedia Group, Quantros, Ramp Networks (sold to Nokia), SloMedia, Verano, and Xalted IP Networks. His prior experience includes founding VP of Operations of Excelan and VP Novell and EVP of iPlanet (a unit of Sun Microsystems and AOL), and CEO of four start-ups: Info-Objects, Mindworks, IntelliMatch and Ace Software.

    Vish holds a BS in Electrical Engineering from the Institute of Technology at Benares Hindu University, an MS in Electrical Engineering from North Dakota State University and MBA work from the University of Minnesota. He is a very active Director and Charter Member of TiE who has dedicated himself to the growth of the organization since its inception.

• Farzad Naimi

  • Farzad Naimi is a co-founder of LiteScape and brings 19 years of successful Silicon Valley startup leadership to LiteScape. Farzad is responsible for leading the LiteScape team and managing its strategic direction. Farzad started his high-tech career at a start up, Centex Telemanagement, as the head of Engineering and Technology, and led Centex to its IPO, which preceded its subsequent acquisition by WorldCom. Farzad continued his career as Executive Vice President and COO at Prestige International, Japan's largest Customer Relationship Management organization that later had a successful IPO in Japan. Farzad also participated in a successful start up, VisaNet do Brazil, funded by Visa International and four major banks in Brazil. VisaNet do Brazil has become the largest e-Commerce and retail banking group in Latin America and seventh most profitable company in Brazil. Farzad has been the co-founder and chairman of several other companies including Genesys Labs, a leader in delivering real-time customer interaction solutions to medium- and large-sized businesses. Farzad was a member of adjunct faculty at Golden Gate University where he taught MBA courses in School of Industry and Technology for 15 years.

• Punita Pandey

  • Punita Pandey is the Chairman and CEO of netCustomer. Punita founded netCustomer in 1999 leveraging her experience in software development, management consulting, and IT services. Under her leadership, netCustomer has become a leading provider of advanced applications support services leveraging a 24x7 global delivery model. Prior to founding netCustomer, Punita worked with Healtheon/WebMD, Deloitte Consulting, Tandem Computers, McDonnell Douglas, and Tata Consultancy Services. During the formative years at netCustomer, Punita evangelized the concept of higher quality and lower cost customer support leveraging 24x7 India operations. The netCustomer case is taught at the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University and at several leading universities around the world. Punita is a frequent speaker at the Stanford Business School, the Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley, San Jose State University, and other universities in the U.S. and India.
    Punita brings extensive knowledge in high-tech services, global delivery models, and enterprise applications market. She gained deep entrepreneurial experience from founding and growing netCustomer and brings a unique perspective in leveraging diverse skill sets, cultural diversity, and global execution to innovate as a company and as a professional. Punita holds a bachelor's degree with honors in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from BITS, Pilani, India and a master's degree in Business Administration from the Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley.

• Michael Rose

  • Mr. Rose currently serves as Senior Vice President of United American Bank, N.A., a San Mateo, California based business bank focused on early and mid-stage companies. He is responsible for all aspects of business development, marketing, underwriting and portfolio management.  In addition to his duties at United American, Mr. Rose is Managing Partner of Montage Capital, LLC, an independent venture debt fund focused on financing emerging growth businesses. 

    Prior to United American and Montage, Mr. Rose spent two years as Senior Vice President for Legacy Bank, N.A., a Campbell, California based bank.  From 1994 to 2002, Mr. Rose served in positions of increasing responsibility at Silicon Valley Bancshares (Nasdaq: SIVB), most recently as Senior Vice President and Director.  During his tenure, he held various lending, investment banking and private equity positions.  Mr. Rose was a Director of Silicon Valley BancVentures L.P. (SVBV), a $56 million equity fund investing in information technology and life science companies across the United States.  He was responsible for all aspects of fund management, including deal sourcing, marketing and positioning, all phases of due diligence, portfolio management, and limited partner reporting and correspondence.  

    Mr. Rose earned his Bachelor of Science degree in Finance from San Jose State University (San Jose, CA).  He is also a graduate of the Venture Capital Institute (Atlanta, GA) and the Prudential Securities Associate Training Program (New York, NY).  Mr. Rose is an active member of Rotary International (Los Gatos, CA) and is an Advisor to the Silicon Valley Center for Entrepreneurship (San Jose, CA). 

• Chester Wang

  • Dr Wang is the general partner and co-founder of Acorn Campus, a $85 million Incubator/venture fund, and a founding member of Acorn Angels.  Dr. Wang graduated from Tsinghua University in Taiwan and later got his Ph.D. in physics from University of Oregon.  He had been a college professor taught computer science, co-founded Pacific Rim Electronics, a wholesaler and distributor of semiconductor chips, also a co-founder of CMC, a software company for computer numerical machines.  He has been instrumental in developing numerous residential, commercial and industrial properties in Silicon Valley. He had co-chaired the New Realty Task Force with then Mayor Susan Hammer of San Jose, a city with over $1 billion annual budget and 6,000 employees, to re-engineering City's budgeting and operation.  He currently serves on the board of AcornSoft, Altigen Communication, International Business Incubator, American Leadership Forum  and Chinese Bible Society.