Pace Lubin

 

The Seventh Annual Pace Pitch Contest
Judging Panel

 

 

Kevin Bolen, Partner, Innosight
Somak Chattopadhyay, Principal, GSA Venture Partners
Jalak Jobanputra, Director of Investments, Omidyar Network Access to Capital
Stanley S. Litow, President, IBM International Foundation
David S. Rose, Chairman, New York Angels
Lori Smith, Partner, Sedgwick, Detert, Moran & Arnold LLP

Kevin Bolen - Partner, Innosight

 

 

  [Kevin Bolen]

 

Kevin is a Partner with Innosight, where he consults with Fortune 500 firms focused on establishing a culture and discipline of growth and innovation. Kevin has balanced his career among management consulting, strategic planning, and marketing leadership roles in a variety of high growth environments. He has worked for and consulted with Fortune 500, mid-sized, and start-up enterprises in a variety of sectoring including IT software and services, consumer/retail, financial services, travel, and distribution/transportation.

Prior to joining Innosight in 2007, Kevin served as the Chief Marketing Officer of Lionbridge Technologies (NASDAQ: LIOX), a $450M global outsourcing company. Before Lionbridge, Kevin led product management and marketing efforts for several venture-backed technology firms. He began his career with IBM Global Services, spending six years in a variety of consulting and strategic planning roles.

Kevin holds an MBA in Marketing and Management from the Stern School of Business at New York University and a BBA summa cum laude in International Business from the Lubin School of Business at Pace University. His commentary and/or bylined articles have appeared in Forbes, The New York Times, BusinessWeek, Harvard Business Online, TIME, Pharmaceutical Executive, CNET and InfoWorld. He is a regular speaker at corporate, analyst and industry trade events.

Somak Chattopadhyay - Principal, GSA Venture Partners

 

  [Somak Chattopadhyay]

 

Somak Chattopadhyay is a Principal at GSA Venture Partners. Previously, he was at Edison Venture Fund, where he sourced and evaluated investments in the tech-enabled services sector and launched the firm's New York office. Prior thereto, Somak held senior marketing/business development roles at Medtower, a pharmaceutical IT software company and DealTime, a comparison shopping company that was later acquired by eBay. Somak started his career at Broadview International (now Jefferies) and was previously director of the Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA).

Somak is currently a director or observer at Ignighter, MyNines, ReachForce, and Three Stage Media. He also is on the board of numerous nonprofit organizations including MIT Enterprise Forum of New York and NYCVC. Somak is an Executive Committee member of TiE Tri-State and serves as Vice Chair of the SIIA Private Equity Forum. He holds a BS in Mechanical Engineering from MIT and an MBA from Columbia Business School.

Somak is currently a director or observer at BDMetrics, ReachForce, MIT Enterprise Forum of New York, and The Indus Entrepreneurs (Tri-State chapter). He is also Vice Chairman of the Software & Information Industry Association Private Equity Forum and on the steering committees of the NYCVC and the Mid-Atlantic Venture Association's Software Vanguard Series.

He holds a BS in Mechanical Engineering from MIT and an MBA from Columbia Business School.

Jalak Jobanputra- Director, Investments, Omidyar Network Access to Capital

 

  [Jalak Jobanputra]

 

Jalak brings more than 17 years of experience in venture capital, technology and digital media to her role overseeing mobile technology investments on Omidyar Network's Access to Capital team.

Prior to joining Omidyar Network, Jalak led technology and digital media venture investments at the New York City Investment Fund and co-founded NYCSeed, a seed fund focused on early-stage entrepreneurs. Previously, she was Principal at New Venture Partners, a $300 million venture fund, where she founded and served as interim CEO of Real Time Content and managed the incubation of several technologies including speech recognition/natural language processing, 3D displays, video surveillance, 4G wireless broadband and music recommendation software. Jalak was with Intel Capital from 1999-2003; she began her career in media, telecommunications and technology sector investment banking and served on the launch team of an online financial information startup. Throughout her career Jalak has made significant contributions to both local and global programs that support social entrepreneurs, education reform and women in business. She currently advises organizations such as Techstars, NYCSeedStart, The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE), Echoing Green and Astia. Jalak is also a recipient of the Outstanding 50 Asian Americans in Business award from the Asian-American Business Development Center.

Jalak earned an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management and graduated magna cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania with a BA in communications from the Annenberg School and a BSE in finance from the Wharton School.

Stanley S. Litow - President, IBM International Foundation

 

  [Stanley S. Litow ]

 

Stanley Litow is the President of the IBM International Foundation and IBM's Vice President for Corporate Citizenship and Corporate Affairs. He heads global corporate citizenship efforts at IBM, which contributes nearly $150 million across 170 countries. Under his leadership, IBM has developed new innovative technologies to help non literate children and adults learn to read, helped people with disabilities access the internet, created a humanitarian grid to power research on Cancer and AIDS and developed technology to increase economic growth and small business development.

Before joining IBM, Stanley served as the Deputy Chancellor of Schools for New York City, the nation's largest school system. Prior to his service with the City's public schools, he founded and ran Interface, the non profit "think tank" and served as an aide to both the Mayor and Governor of New York.

Stanley's articles and essays have appeared in numerous books and publications including the Yale Law Review, Annual Survey of American Law, Brookings Papers, the American Academy of Sciences, the Journal for the Center for National Policy, the New York Times and Newsday.

Stanley is the recipient of the Council on Foundation's prestigious Scrivner Award for creative philanthropy and awards from the Anne Frank Center, Martin Luther King Commission, Manhattanville College, Federation of Protestant Welfare Agencies, Coro Foundation, Helen Keller Services to the Blind, New Visions for Public Schools and the Women's City Club. He has served as an adjunct faculty at New School University, the City University of New York and Long Island University.

He helped create and chairs the Global Leadership Network and serves on the board of Harvard Business School's Initiative on Social Enterprise, Independent Sector, Citizen's Budget Commission, and the After School Corporation

David Rose - Chairman, New York Angels

 

  [David Rose]

 

David S. Rose is an entrepreneurial executive and investor with extensive experience in high technology and communications, angel investments, finance and government. He was named by Inc. magazine to the 1998 Inc 500 list as CEO of one of the fastest growing private companies in America. Red Herring magazine has described him as "a patriarch of New York's Silicon Alley" and Crain's New York Business named him one of the City's 25 most influential technology executives.

During the course of his career, Mr. Rose has supervised the creation of an intellectual property portfolio of issued patents appraised at over $100 million and negotiated both domestic and international corporate acquisitions. He was a prime author of the new data messaging protocols for the personal communications industry, and lectures frequently on issues relating to the development of the international information infrastructure.

In 1997 he was honored as a finalist for Ernst & Young's Entrepreneur of the Year Award in the New York New Media category; in 1984, Time magazine profiled him in its "Computer as Man of the Year" issue; and he has been the subject of numerous interviews and articles in print and electronic media. He is a member of the Technical Committee of the Personal Communications Industry Association as well as the Council of Communications Advisors.

Mr. Rose is Chairman of the Board of the New York Angels, Inc., the leading angel investment consortium in the New York region. Through his investment fund, Rose Tech Ventures, he provides capital and management expertise to promising early stage companies. On behalf of his own technology firms he has personally raised tens of millions of dollars in venture, strategic and institutional capital.

With over two decades of hands-on experience in founding, managing and funding diverse companies, Mr. Rose is actively involved in mentoring and advising other entrepreneurs and corporate executives. Dubbed by BusinessWeek "The Pitch Coach" for his ability to help entrepreneurs perfect their fundraising skills, he was a Founding Member of the New York New Media Association and is a frequent guest speaker at graduate business schools including Harvard, Yale, Columbia and NYU. He is also a mentor and judge of Yale University's annual business plan competitions and has judged the annual Students in Free Enterprise national finals. As a regular lecturer for New York's Industrial Technology Assistance Corporation he has taught the Venture Financing and Deal Negotiation section of the FasTrak Tech courses since 1997.

Lori Smith, - Partner, Sedgwick, Detert, Morgan & Arnold LLP

 

  [Lori Smith,]

 

Lori Smith, a partner with the firm's Corporate Practice Group, represents foreign and domestic companies in various industries, including technology, media, financial services, food and beverage, sports, textile, fashion, specialty chemicals, and drug and medical device. She has more than 25 years of experience acting as outside counsel with regard to all aspects of corporate and commercial transactional work, corporate governance matters and negotiation of commercial agreements. Ms. Smith has significant experience representing emerging technology companies and investors, and advising companies at all stages of development ranging from start-ups to public companies.

Ms. Smith has represented public and private companies in the structuring, negotiation and implementation of equity and debt financings and private equity transactions; private placements; acquisitions and mergers; strategic alliances; joint ventures; and licensing, manufacturing and distribution arrangements. She also advises companies with respect to the various issues that need to be addressed in anticipation of and planning for a public offering, sale or merger.

In addition, Ms. Smith advises clients on all aspects of business operations, including board of directors and shareholder issues, negotiation of shareholders' and voting agreements, and transitional issues in connection with the transfer of management and control from one generation to the next.

Ms. Smith is an active member of the MIT Enterprise Forum, serving on the global and New York chapter boards. In addition, she is a member of the New York Advisory Board of Astia, a non-profit organization that promotes entrepreneurship among women. In 2008 and 2009, Chambers US named Ms. Smith as one of New York's leading lawyers in the technology industry.

Ms. Smith frequently speaks at events focused on the New York technology and investment community. She recently moderated a panel discussion on the current state of angel and venture capital investment at the 2009 Astia Doing it Right Conference. She also served as a panelist at the April 2009 MIT Enterprise Forum symposium, which focused on mergers and acquisitions, IPOs and other alternative strategies for liquidity in the current economic environment.

Ms. Smith earned her JD with high honors from Duke University School of Law where she was the senior-editor of Law and Contemporary Problems. She received her BA, magna cum laude, from the University of Rochester.