Advisors
Comprised of industry luminaries and representatives from our partners and sponsors, the Innovate!Europe Advisory Board helps to shape the conference program, identify promising entrepreneurs, and ensuring the event delivers exceptional value.
The 2006 Advisory Board is still growing, but currently includes:
• Claudia Blumhuber, Global Finance
• Philippe Collombel, Partech International
• Sherry Coutu, Porpoise Ventures
• Giuseppe Curatolo, TLcom Capital Partners
• Niall Davis, First Ventury
• Fred Destin, Atlas Venture
• Rosemary Forsyth, The Forsyth Group
• Marc Goldberg, Occam Capital
• Bruno Giussani, Author
• Chris Grew, Wilmer Hale
• Alberto Haddad, Melcion & Co.
• Miguel Latasa, Infomática El Corte Inglés
• Simon Levene, Yahoo!
• Jonathan Medved, tenXGroup
• Loic LeMeur, SixApart
• Julie Meyer, Ariadne Capital
• Mårten Mickos, MySql
• Gil Penchina, eBay
• Chemi Peres, Pitango Venture Capital
• JP Rangaswami, DKW
• Danny Rimer, Index Capital
• Heidi Sinclair, Burson-Marsteller
Miguel M. Latasa Alzuri
Director General, Informatica El Corte Ingles
Mr. Latasa has a degree in Economic Science from Universidad Complutense de Madrid(1959-60/1963-64). He gained his doctorate from the same university (1964-65/1965-66) whileworking at S.I.E. (Sociedad de Investigación Económica - The Organisation for Economic Research) where he specialised in statistics, macroeconomics, and market analysis. Later, Mr. Latasa also obtained an advanced degree in operations management from Universidad Complutense de Madrid. In May of 1966, Mr Latasa joined Informática El Corte Inglés as a systems analyst working on the installation of the first mainframe computer system (IBM 360-40) in August of 1967. Until 1971, he participated directly in this process, assuming also the position of overall Chief of Information Studies that included the Department of Analysis and Programming, as well as Data Processing and the Department of Economic Studies and Market Analysis. In 1974 he was appointed Director of Data Processing for El Corte Inglés, a role which he carried out for the entire Group of companies until 1998. In 1986 Informática El Corte Inglés S.A. was created and Mr. Latasa was appointed Managing Director and in 1994 became Chairman. Currently, he is CEO and Chairman of the Board of Directors for both the Computer Systems and Technology divisions of Informática El Corte Inglés.
Claudia Blumhuber
Managing Director, GlobalFinance
Ms. Blümhuber founded GlobalFinance in early 1999. From her personal relationships with numerous asset managers, private equity firms and corporates, Ms. Blümhuber is widely known as one of the best-connected advisors internationally in the investment community. Over the past few years, she has led various private placement and M&A transactions and has advised institutions on private equity. Ms. Blümhuber's background is media. She was a journalist and independent film producer, and a project director at Bayerische Landeszentrale für Neue Medien (BLM), a state media agency. She also worked at Multimedia Support Center (msc) where she acted as a consultant on raising capital and brought the Massachussetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Entrepreneurship Center to Germany. Ms. Blümhuber also teaches entrepreneurship at the TU München and the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität of Munich and sits on the Advisory Board of the European Technology Forum (ETF). Ms. Blümhuber studied at the TU and LMU München, was a research fellow at Harvard and has close connectionsto the MITSloan School of Management.
Philippe Collombel
General Partner, Europe, Partech VC
Philippe Collombel joined Partech in 2001. His previous experience includes managing Internet strategic initiatives for @carrefour, a subsidiary of the leading retailer Carrefour, and for Accenture. Mr. Collombel serves on the boards of Pertinence, Netsize and Cartesis. He holds an executive degree from Northwestern University, a masters degree in Law and Economics from the University of Paris, and is a graduate of Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris.
Sherry Coutu
Chairman, Porpoise Ventures
Sherry Coutu pursues a portfolio of interests which include investing in early stage companies, holding non-executive directorships at several private companies and public companies, and serving as a trustee of two charities. In addition, she is an active member of the CambridgeAngels, vice-chair of the Prince’s Trust Technology Leadership Group, a member of the Cambridge University Development Committee and a member of the European Leadership Council of the Harvard Business School.Prior to her portfolio career, Mrs. Coutu established and sold two software companies that continue to serve the financial services industry. The first was acquired in 1997 and currently has operations in more than 70 countries,and the second was floated on the London and NASDAQ markets in 2000 and currently serves 1.7 million retailfinancial customers in the UK. She has been named by Tornado Insider as one of the Top 20 Trend Setting Women in Europe and is a past finalist for Entrepreneur of the Year with Ernst and Young and Businesswoman of the Yearwith Veuve Cliquot. Prior to her entrepreneurial ventures, Mrs. Coutu worked as a consultant with LEK consulting, Accenture, and Coopers & Lybrand Deloitte. She is married and has three young children.
Giuseppe Curatolo
General Partner, TLcom Capital Partners
Mr. Curatolo is a General Partner of TLcom Capital Partners, where he focuses on mobile network infrastructure as well as innovative applications of material science to the information technology sector. Prior to TLcom, he was a Director of Draper Fisher Jurvetson ePlanet Ventures in London, an affiliate early stage venture capital fund of DFJ, one of the oldest and most successful Silicon Valley VC funds. During his tenure at DFJ, Mr. Curatolo led the firm's European effort in wireless communications and was heavily involved indeveloping the firm's position in emerging technologies such as nanotechnology and innovative applications of material sciences. Previously he was a Vice President with Morgan Stanley Dean Witter Private Equity, where since 1998 he focused on European early-stage technology investments. Prior to joining Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, he was a Consultant in the San Francisco office of Bain and Company. While at Bain he focused on designing and implementing growth strategies for several clients operating in the telecommunication and technology sectors. Mr. Curatolo graduated in Business Administration at the Bocconi University of Milan and holds an MBA degree from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
Niall Davis
Partner-IT, First Ventury
Mr. Davis is a Partner at First Ventury, one of Germany’s leading Venture Capital firms, where he focuses on open source, enterprise software, security, Internet applications, IT in healthcare, ITinfrastructure, compilers, operating systems, wireless communication, and home entertainment systems. He is a member of the Board of webEdition, XtraMind, and Rotani and an advisor to Portalium Ventures Fund I (Israel). Mr. Davis was previously CEO of Astarte New Media AG. He also has extensive experience as a technical director and software developer, and in all commonly used IT systems and development environments. Mr. Davis holds a BA Business Systems from London Metropolitan University, London. He also completed the EVCA Institute Private Equity Management Training.
Fred Destin
Partner, Atlas Ventures
Fred Destin is a Partner in the information technology sector and joined Atlas Venture in 2004. Prior to joining the Paris team, Fred managed Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein's OM Technology Investments Fund where he focused on infrastructure software. He worked closely with management teams in the US and in Europe as Director of Inxight Software, Kasenna Inc and Vordel Ltd, among others. Previously, Fred served as Venture Manager at Speed Ventures, a seed stage technology investor funded by Permira Ventures and Soros Partners. He was also an Executive Director at Goldman Sachs in London, and has further experience with Zurich Capital Markets and J.P. Morgan. Fred holds a Masters in Financial Engineering from the University of Brussels (Solvay).
Rosemary Forsyth
Founding & General Partner, Forsyth Group
Ms. Forsyth has been the General Partner of the Forsyth Group since she founded the company in 1981. Recognising the potential growth of Information Technology within business, the Forsyth Group was the firstExecutive Search Consultancy to focus on the emerging technology market. During the 24 years since founding the company, Ms. Forsyth has developed extensive search experience across all technology sectors and conducts "C" and Board level assignments for technology companiesin Europe and the United States. Prior to founding the company, she was divisional managing director of an International Executive Search Firm. She has also been a key contributor and advisor to the investment community in relation to the establishment oftheir corporate pre- and- post IPO infrastructure. Ms. Forsyth holds a Master’s degree with honours in Psychology and an M.Litt degree in Education Psychology, both from Aberdeen University in Scotland.
Bruno Guissani
Author
Mr. Giussani is a writer and commentator, the Producer of the TEDGLOBAL conference(Oxford, 2005) and an Affiliated Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. He blogs at giussani.typepad.com. He lives in Switzerland. Mr. Giussani is a contributor to several newspapers, magazines and websites in Europe and in the United States. Most recently, his work has appeared in, among others, L'Hebdo, Weltwoche, Time, the International Herald Tribune, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal Europe, the NeueZürcher Zeitung, InfoWeek and the Sunday paper Il Caffé.
Marc Goldberg
Managing Partner, Occam Capital
Based in Paris (France), Mr. Goldberg is a managing Partner of Occam Capital with over 20 years of experience in the software industry in the US and in Europe. He founded Occam Capital in 2004 to focus on under-served Europe IPin the Information Technology industry, and build a technology consolidation fund that would support the local innovation community, and deliver superior return to its investors. Most recently Mr. Goldberg was a General Partner of RVC, the manager of the Reuters Greenhouse Fund, theCorporate VC arm of Reuters. RVC was instrumental in some of the most profitable European transactions withID2 (sold to Sonera), MetaMerge (sold to IBM), Orchestream (LSE IPO), Fantastic Corporation (Neue Merk IPO), Tradeum (sold to VerticalNet), as the Greenhouse fund was invested in 82 companies and generated 16 IPOs and27 trade sales.Before RVC, Mr. Goldberg was involved both as an entrepreneur and senior executive in Technology and Product Management in large and small technology companies: Renaissance Software (sold to SunGard), Rational Software (sold to IBM for $2.1B), Thales-Syseca (Paris) , KMPG-Nolan Norton (Palo Alto), and Reuters (London). After more than 15 years away from France, he is now back in Paris where he lives with his wife and three children. He's passionate about Venture Capital, technology, innovation, Europe, running marathons, great food and good wine.
Christopher Grew
Partner-Corporate Department, Wilmer & Hale
Mr. Grew advises technology companies in public offerings, venture capital transactions, and cross-border mergers and acquisitions. He regularly advises high technology (particularly computer software and hardware) companies with respect to their international business operations and transactions, as well as investment banks, venture capital firms and other financial intermediaries that serve technology companies. Mr. Grew has acted for issuers or underwriters in public offerings on the following stock exchanges: Copenhagen Stock Exchange; London Stock Exchange; Nasdaq Europe (formerly Easdaq); Nasdaq; Neuer Market; NouveauMarché, SWX Swiss Exchange; and Stockholm Stock Exchange. Mr. Grew has been recognised in various legal publications, including Business XL(as one of "The Power Top 50,"the 50 most influential venture capitalists and advisors in the United Kingdom); The Insider's Guide to Legal Servicesin Digital Media and E-commerce (as one of the "Digital Dozen," the top 12 individual lawyers in E-commerce);Legal Business magazine (as a "Legal Expert" in private equity – 2001 to date); Chambers Guide to the UK LegalProfession (as a leader in E-commerce – 2000 to date); and Chambers Global, The World’s Leading Lawyers (asan leader in Communications: E-commerce – 2000 to date). Mr. Grew also has been profiled in various publications, including The Wall Street Journal (Europe) (as a "Top DealMaker: The Adviser"); Time Magazine (European edition) (as "The People’s E-Advocate") and Tornado Insider(cover story – "Chris Grew: An American lawyer in London").Mr. Grew is the editor of Full Ratchet: The Trans-Atlantic Venture Capital Review and is a frequent author on venture capital in the technology industry.
Alberto Haddad
Managing Partner, Melcion, Chassagne & Cie
Mr. Haddad is the Boston-based Managing Partner of Melcion, Chassagne & Compagnie. He advises entrepreneurs and supports them in the development of their projects over their lifetime. Mr. Haddad also serves on the advisory board of Gatetrade, a global electronic marketplace for the trading of edible oil and is amember of Mentonet. Prior to Melcion, Chassagne & Compagnie, Mr. Haddad ran his own advisory company, Technology Square Partners and acted as the CEO-US for France-based Startup Avenue.P rior to that, Mr. Haddad founded Vialusso.com, a luxury goods internet business serving the B2B and B2C communities. Before founding ViaLusso, he was a consultant with McKinsey & Company, a leading Strategic Management consulting company in their London office. At McKinsey, he spent five years advising Fortune 100 clients and technology upstarts. During his tenure, Mr. Haddad spearheaded McKinsey’s efforts in the Middle East, and established their offices in the UAE.
Loic LeMeur
Executive VP & General Manager of EMEA, Six Apart
Mr. Le Meur is a well-known French entrepreneur and founder and CEO of Ublog, one o Europe’s leading blogging tools providers and hosting services. Prior to joining Six Apart EMEA, he founded and served as CEO for several companies in France, including Tekora, anASP-driven website publisher for small businesses and RapidSite France, the first shared Webhosting company launched in France. RapidSite France was sold to France Telecom. B2L, one of the first Web agencies launched in France, with clients including Chanel, 20th Century Fox, and Mars, was sold to BBDO.
Simon Levene
Managing Director of Corporate Development, Yahoo!
Simon Levene oversees Yahoo! corporate strategy development and transaction activities worldwide. Prior to Yahoo!, Levene was Vice President of Business Affairs at AOL Time Warner, where he led joint ventures, investments and M&A activities internationally, and supported the effort to turn AOL Europe profitable.
Jonathan Medved
tenXGroup
Mr. Medved was a founder and the Executive Vice President of Marketing and Sales at MERET Optical Communications Inc. (Santa Monica, CA) between 1982 and 1990. MERET, a pioneer in fiber optic transmission for high resolution video, was acquired by the AMOCO Corporation (NYSE: AN) in 1990. Following his involvement at MERET, Mr. Medved came to Israel. He was part of the founding management team at Accent Software (Nasdaq:ACNTF), a leader in multi-lingual software where he served as Executive Vice President of Marketing and Sales in 1993-1994. Mr. Medved founded Israel Seed together with Neil Cohen, starting up in his garage in 1994. He led investmentsand later served on the Board of Directors of several Israel Seed Companies including: Compugen(Nasdaq:CGEN) and Business Layers (acquired by Netegrity, Nasdaq:NETE).
Julie Meyer
Founder and CEO, Ariadne Capital
Ms. Meyer has 17 years of experience with high-growth technology businesses in Europe and the United States, bringing to life industry standards and mobilising a generation around the promise of pan-European, Internet-enabled businesses. Ariadne Capital (www.ariadnecapital.com),her fourth venture for which she is the seed investor and chief executive, is a global investment and advisory firm, which invests in early stage private companies and advises later stage private and public companies undergoing significant growth or change. As Chief Executive, she is responsible for the overall general and financial management of the firm. In 1998, Ms. Meyer established First Tuesday, the largest global network of entrepreneurs, which ignited the Internet generation in Europe. She drove the expansion of First Tuesday to 100+ cities and 500,000 registered users worldwide- with no marketing spend. First Tuesday was sold for $50 million in July 2000 to Jerusalem Global Ventures. Named a “Global Leader of Tomorrow” by the World Economic Forum, Ms. Meyer was awarded Entrepreneur of the Year Award in October 2000 by Ernst & Young U.K., has raised more than $100 million of capital for start-upsin Europe [lastminute.com, ArcCores, WGSN] in addition to overseeing the documented $150 million of seed capital found for start-ups through First Tuesday. Ms. Meyer earned an MBA from INSEAD and a BA degree from Valparaiso University.
Marten Mickos
Chief Executive Officer, mySql
Mr. Mickos brings a strong track record of leadership in global high-tech companies to MySQLAB. Prior to joining MySQL in 2001, he was CEO at MatchON Sports, which he grew to become the twenty-fourth "hottest e-business" in Europe within nine months of its inception. Mr. Mickos was also previously the CEO at Intellitel Communications, where he was instrumental in transitioning the company from a development lab to a commercial software vendor. He has also directed worldwide sales efforts at several technology companies.
Gil Penchina
Vice President, eBay International
A long-time eBay employee, Gil Penchina has served in a number of executive positions at eBay. Currently based in Europe, Mr. Penchina directs eBay’s presence in Southern Europe, and oversees the company’s expansion efforts in Eastern Europe. In the past year he was responsible for launching websites in Hong Kong and Singapore, and facilitated the company’s entry into India. Penchina also played a role in eBay’s entry into the South Korea and China markets.
Prior to joining the international division, Penchina was vice president and general manager of eBay.com’s home and collectibles business. In this role he was responsible for marketing, product development, seller outreach and business development for several of the company’s most popular shopping categories.
Penchina came to eBay in 1998, first working in business development and then running the mergers and acquisitions department. In 2001 he was named vice president of business development where he built business and marketing relationships for eBay with a number of the top brands in the U.S.A including Microsoft, AOL, Disney and Yahoo.
A native of Amherst, Massachusetts, Penchina holds a B.S. in Industrial Engineering from the University of Massachusetts and an M.B.A. from the Kellogg Graduate School of Business.
Nechemia (Chemi) J Peres
Managing General Partner and Co-Founder, Pitango Venture Capital
In 1996, Mr. Peres co-founded the Pitango Venture Capital partnership. In 1992, he founded andmanaged the Mofet Israel Technology Fund, an Israeli venture capital fund publicly traded on theTASE (Tel Aviv Stock Exchange), which invested in such companies as VocalTec (NASDAQ: VOCL),Orckit Communications (NASDAQ: ORCT), Precise (NASDAQ: PRSE), Alvarion (NASDAQ: ALVR), Netro Corporation (NASDAQ:NTRO) and others. Prior to Mofet, he was VP Marketing and Business Development at Decision Systems Israel (DSI), and a Senior Consultant to Israel Aircraft Industries (IAI). Mr. Peres served as a pilot in the Israeli Air Force for 10 years. He holds a MBA degree and a Bachelor of Science degree in Industrial Engineering & Management from Tel Aviv University and continues to be involved by serving on the Board of Directors of Ramot, the commercial arm of the Tel Aviv University that focuses on Technology Transfer, and he is Chairman of the Advisory Board of the Faculty of Management. Mr. Peres currently serves on the boards of numerous Pitango portfolio companies, including Go Networks, MercadoSoftware, Provigent, RichFX, and Voltaire. He previously served on the boards of several publicly traded companies, such as AudioCodes (NASDAQ: AUDC), BackWeb (NASDAQ: BWEB), Magic Software Enterprises (NASDAQ: MGIC)and Aladdin (NASDAQ: ALDN). Mr. Peres is one of the founders of the IVA(Israel Venture Association). Additionally, he serves on the Board of the Israeli Ministry of Industry and Trade (MOIT) Seed Fund, Koor Industries, one of Israel's leading conglomerates(NYSE: KOR).
JP Rangaswami
Global Chief Information Officer, Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein
Mr. Rangaswami has been Global CIO at Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein (DrKW) since early 2001. He read Economics and Statistics at St Xavier's College, University of Calcutta, specialising in developmental economics. Originally a financial journalist, he has worked with technology infinance since 1980 with a number of large multinationals before joining DrKW in 1997. He was originally responsible for managing the Euro, Minimum Requirements, and Year 2000 programmes globally, and was later appointed CEO of the in-house technology incubator. Three such ventures were spun off in 2001, and hecontinues to chair Yolus (a risk management infrastructure play) and openadaptor (the DrKW-sponsored contribution to the opensource community), amongst others. He is an Advisory Board member of CAL-IT and a Charter Member of TiE UK, along with memberships of the IoD, theACM and the IEEE. He is a regular speaker at industry events, particularly on innovation and opensource.Mr. Rangaswami was named “CIO of the Year” by Waters Magazine in 2003, and “CIO Innovator of the Year” by the European Technology Forum in 2004. He works closely with start-ups and early-stage companies, seeking to use technology as a key differentiator in capital markets.
Danny Rimer
General Partner, Index Ventures
Mr. Rimer joined Index Ventures in 2002 and established the firm’s London office. His investment interests include Internet infrastructure software and services. He currently serves on the boards of Fon, MySQL, Oanda, Sourcelabs, Spot Runner, Video Island, and Zend. He was previously adirector of Betfair, KVS (now Veritas), Mediasurface (AIM: MSR), Neoteris (now Juniper), and Skype (now eBay). Prior to joining Index, Mr. Rimer was a general partner of The Barksdale Group, where he invested in a dozen companies including CrossGain (now BEA), myCFO (now Bank of Montreal), Ofoto (now Kodak), and TellMe. Prior to The Barksdale Group, Danny was Managing Director in Hambrecht & Quist’s (now JPMorgan) Equity Research Group and wasresponsible for the firm’s Internet practice. At H&Q, Mr. Rimer was the underwriting analyst for companies including Amazon, CheckPoint, CNET, Netscape, and Verisign. He also sponsored direct investments in over 20 companies. Mr. Rimer holds an A.B. from Harvard College.
Heidi Sinclair
CEO, Europe, Burson-Marsteller
Ms. Sinclair is a highly respected 20-year communications and marketing veteran who is in her second stint with Burson-Marsteller. She is currently CEO for Europe, with oversight for 12 Burson-Marsteller operations and 15 affiliates across Europe and Russia. Ms. Sinclair is a member of Burson-Marsteller’s Executive Board, and is also Global Client Leader for SAP, Burson-Marsteller’s largest client. She has recently been nominated as Trustee for the Computer History Museum. Ms. Sinclair graduated from Stanford University with an A.B. in English. She is a four-time Young Entrepreneur award winner and a former member of the Software Publisher’s Association Business Board of Directors. A Seattle native, she now lives in Madrid with her husband and three children.
