Force.com Forty Innovation Showcase - Expert Panel
Meet the members of the Force.com Forty Expert Panel:
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| Peter Coffee, salesforce.com | |
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Peter Coffee is director of Platform Research at salesforce.com. He was formerly the Technology Editor at eWEEK, a national multimedia center of expertise in enterprise infrastructure technology and practice. He has 25 years' experience in advancing and evaluating information technologies and practices as a developer, manager, consultant, educator, and internationally published author and industry analyst. Based near Los Angeles, Coffee has written product reviews, technical analyses and opinion columns concerning disruptive forces in IT tools and practices; he has appeared on CBS, NBC, CNN, Fox, and PBS newscasts addressing Internet security, the Microsoft antitrust case, wireless telecom policies, and other eBusiness issues. He chaired the four-day Web Security Summit conference in Boston during the summer of 2000, and has been a keynote speaker or moderator at technical conferences throughout the U.S. as well as in India, China, Australia, England, Canada, Mexico and Brazil. His two books to date are the Ziff Davis Press tutorial "How to Program Java" in 1996 and "Peter Coffee Teaches PCs," published in 1998 by Que. His specific areas of research and analysis have lately included cloud computing models, application development tools and business intelligence methods. Before becoming a full-time writer and analyst in 1989, Coffee held technical and management positions at Exxon and The Aerospace Corporation dealing with chemical facility project control, Arctic offshore development, strategic defense analysis, end-user computing planning and support, and artificial intelligence applications research. He has been a prominent industry analyst throughout the life cycles of technologies including x86 and RISC microprocessors; Windows, OS/2, and Mac OS; object technologies, including Smalltalk, C++, and Java; and security technologies including strong encryption. Coffee holds an engineering degree from MIT and an MBA from Pepperdine University, and has taught in the department of computer science at UCLA and at Pepperdine's Graziadio School of Business and Management and the Chapman College School of Business. His other activities include choral and instrumental music, Boy Scout backpack expeditions and merit badge counseling, youth soccer refereeing, and community food bank coordination. |
| Byron Deeter, Bessemer Venture Partners | |
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Byron Deeter is a Partner with Bessemer Venture Partners in its Menlo Park office, after having previously been a successful entrepreneur, investor, and consultant. At Bessemer, he focuses on investments in the Software as a Service (SaaS) and Internet sectors. He currently sits on the Boards of several SaaS companies including Cornerstone OnDemand, Eloqua, Intacct, and Retail Solutions. Byron was previously an executive at IBM, as a result of its 2004 acquisition of Trigo Technologies, the Software as a Service company that he co-founded. At Trigo, Byron served as founding President & CEO, then became Vice President of Business Development as the company grew to profitability, 150 employees, and a $40+ million run-rate. Prior to Trigo, Byron worked in private equity with TA Associates where he focused on technology investing. He came to TA from McKinsey & Company, where he was involved with Fortune 500 clients in the media and technology markets, and was active in McKinsey's Innovation and Technology Management practice. Byron holds a degree with honors from UC Berkeley in political economy. He was named a California Emerging Leader Scholar and an Alumni Scholar, and was a varsity member of Cal's national championship rugby team. Byron is on the board of the Private Equity Forum of the Software & Information Industry Association and was recently named one of the ten "Thought Leaders of the SaaS Revolution." |
| Jim Goetz, Sequoia Capital | |
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Jim Goetz is a Partner at Sequoia Capital focusing on enterprise systems, cloud computing, SaaS and consumer technology enabled services investments. Sequoia Capital was an original investor in Google, Yahoo, YouTube, PayPal, Flextronics, Network Appliance, NVIDIA, Netscreen, Cisco, Oracle, and Apple Computer. Jim currently serves on the board of Admob, Appirio, Clearwell Systems, Dash Navigation, Data Connection, Jive Software, Palo Alto Networks and Widgetbox. Prior to joining Sequoia Capital in 2004, Jim served as a General Partner at Accel Partners where he led the investments in Entrisphere (ERIC), Peribit (JNPR), RGB, and Rhapsody (BRCD) and was part of the team responsible for BroadJump (MOTV), Timetra (ALA) and Topspin (CSCO). Earlier, Jim was a Founder of VitalSigns (LU) where he went on to serve as VP/GM of the VitalSoft division of Lucent. Prior to VitalSigns, Jim was the Vice President of Network Management for Bay Networks. Prior to Bay and Synoptics, he held various product and marketing positions at AT&T, AT&T Bell Labs, and Digital Equipment. Jim has a BS in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Cincinnati and an MS in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University. |
| Jason Green, Emergence Capital Partners | |
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Jason is a founder of Emergence Capital and has over a dozen years of experience in the venture capital business as a General Partner with Emergence, a General Partner with USVP and as an associate and Kauffman Fellow with Venrock, the venture capital arm of the Rockefeller family. Earlier in his career, Jason served as VP of Muzertechnika, the largest private computer and Telecommunications Company in Eastern Europe. Prior to this, he served as a strategic consultant with Bain & Company and with the investment firm of Welsh, Carson, Anderson, and Stowe. Jason has led successful early-stage venture investments in past companies such as DoubleClick (DCLK), aQuantive (AQNT), Visual Networks (VNWK), SuccessFactors (SFSF) and Ask Jeeves (ASK) and currently serves on the boards of private companies such as Lotame , TouchCommerce , Kidzui , Goodmail Systems and Maxplore . Jason is Chairman Emeritus and on the Board of the Center for Venture Education and the Kauffman Fellows Program, the leading educational fellowship in venture capital. Jason also serves on the Advisory Board of Arthur Rock Center of Entrepreneurship at Harvard and on the Steering Committee of the West Coast Research Center. Jason is a Founding Board member of Endeavor, a non-profit serving the needs of entrepreneurs in emerging markets. Jason graduated cum laude with a B.A. in Economics from Dartmouth College and an M.B.A. from Harvard with Distinction. Upon graduation, Jason was selected for the Charles Williams Fellowship at Harvard Business School for post-graduate research in Entrepreneurship and Finance. Jason is married with two children. The most unique trivia about Jason is that he is a twin married to a twin. |
| Mark Gorenberg, Hummer Winblad Venture Partners | |
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Mark Gorenberg, Managing Director, joined Hummer Winblad Venture Partners in 1990. Founded in 1989, Hummer Winblad Venture Partners was the first venture capital fund to invest exclusively in software companies. Hummer Winblad is now in its sixth fund and over 19 years has managed $1.2B and invested in 112 early stage software companies with 51 liquidity events to date. Mark has served as a board member for start-up and public software companies, including AdForce, HomeGrocer, NetDynamics and Scopus Technologies. Currently, he serves as a Director of Omniture (NASDAQ: OMTR), Aria Systems, Cenzic, Infopia, Kwiry, ontheFRONTIER, Replay Solutions and Sonatype. Mark is also a member of the Board of Trustees for Massachusetts Institute of Technology Corporation and The H. John Heinz III Center for Science, Economics and The Environment. Prior to joining Hummer Winblad Venture Partners, Mark managed a number of new media areas and was a member of the original SparcStation I team at Sun Microsystems. He received a BSEE from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, an MSEE from the University of Minnesota, and an MS in Engineering Management from Stanford University. |
| Jeff Kaplan, THINKstrategies | |
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Jeff Kaplan is the Founder and Managing Director of THINKstrategies (www.thinkstrategies.com), a strategic consulting firm that helps IT enterprise decision-makers with their sourcing strategies; solution providers with their marketing strategies; and venture firms with their investment strategies. Kaplan is also the founder of the Managed Service Showplace® (www.msp-showplace.com or www.thinkmsp.com) and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) Showplace® (www.saas-showplace.com or www.thinksaas.com) free, online directories. THINKstrategies' online directories provide an easy-to-use listing of SaaS solutions by application and MSPs by service category, and extensive information and insight about industry best practices to help organizations fully leverage the growing array of SaaS solutions and managed services. Prior to forming THINKstrategies, Jeff served as Vice President of Marketing and Business Development at InterOPS Management Solutions, an Internet Operations Management Services Provider. Before joining InterOPS, Jeff was Director of Strategic Marketing at International Network Services (INS) and subsequently Lucent Technologies, which acquired INS. Jeff also spent thirteen (13) years as a leading industry analyst at IDC, Dataquest and META Group. Jeff is a frequent speaker at industry conferences and contributing columnist for BusinessWeek, Mass High Tech Journal, Financial Times of London, NetworkWorld, Business Communications Review, ComputerWorld, InfoWorld, InformationWeek, Managing Automation, the Web Hosting Industry Review and Services News on topics ranging from utility computing, managed services, outsourcing strategies, IT operations and service level management (SLM). Jeff serves as the Site Guide for ITworld's Utility Computing web portal (www.utilitycomputing.itworld.com) and is the Outsourcing Expert for TechTarget's SearchCIO (http://searchcio.techtarget.com) and SearchSMB (http://searchsmb.techtarget.com) web portals, as well as the Offshore Outsourcing Best Practices (OOBP) Association, and SmartFundIT.com. Jeff is also a Senior Advisor to Triple-Tree, LLC; a Senior Consultant with Cutter Consortium; a member of the SaaScon advisory board, the IT Services Marketing Association (ITSMA), the Software-as-a-Service Executive Committee of Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA), and Massachusetts Technology Leadership Council. He has also served on the board of directors of AMR Research. He has a BA in Urban Planning from Rutgers University and MBA from Boston College. |
| Bob Ridout, R.R. Ridout Advisement |
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Bob Ridout was VP and Chief Information Officer of the DuPont Company for more than ten years. He held several executive positions in Information Technology in addition to assignments in field sales, manufacturing and customer service since joining the firm in 1968. He was a member of the prestigious Research Board, and has served on Microsoft, HP, AT&T, Lotus and IBM customer boards. He is also on the Board of Directors for Christiana Care, Delaware's hospital system and the Supervisory Board of Cordys, a business process management company, based in the Netherlands. Ridout is a recognized leader in outsourcing, having overseen several large projects including moving IT operations to Accenture, CSC and Satyam. He was named I.T. Executive of the Year for 2000 by the Lattanze Center for Excellence, recognizing his leadership role in eBusiness. He was also named CIO of the Year in 2005 by UBS for DuPont's coordinated SAP program. Robert Ridout was an actively involved leader in chemical industry cyber security initiatives and he served as an advisor on the strategic use of IT to the United States Department of Homeland Security. He earned a B.S. in Mathematics from the College of William and Mary and served as a Captain in the US Marine Corps. |
