Advisory Board
Greg Pickrell is a partner in the Corporate & Securities Technology practice group in Pillsbury’s Palo Alto office and is co-leader of the firm's China practice. Greg has been a corporate and securities lawyer for over twenty-five years, with a focus on the representation of high-technology companies. Greg is particularly knowledgeable in transactions involving Asia, particularly China and Japan. His clients have reflected the growth of Silicon Valley and range from typical startups to the Fortune 500/world 100 companies. Greg started his legal career in Silicon Valley with the firm of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich and Rosati, which he left to found Coudert Brothers’ first Silicon Valley office. He also has served as managing partner of that firm’s Tokyo office. Greg frequently speaks and writes on his various areas of practice including venture capital financing and international transactions. Greg received a J.D. from University of Michigan Law School and a B.S. in Physics from Iowa State University.
Mark Reed is recognized as one of the leading Sales and Marketing business advisors and executive coaches in the US, stemming from both Executive Management positions with General Electric, InFocus Systems, Lightware Inc., EnvoyGlobal.com, Cord Communications and Webtrends, as well as several successful strategic sales and marketing consulting engagements with rapidly growing firms and early stage start-up companies including PacStar, Symantec, NetIQ, Cascade Microtech, Qsent, Extensis, info USA, and SAP America. Mark currently serves on the boards of several companies and non-profit organizations, and is the President of the High Ground Group LLC (www.highgroundgroup.com), a nationally recognized consulting firm focused on enhancing leadership effectiveness and company performance. He also serves as a guest lecturer on the topic of High Performance Leadership in The Graduate School of Management at George Fox University.
Jeff Heywood has more than 20 years of finance experience in the technology sector and is currently CFO of Propel Software Corporation, a market leader in Internet acceleration client-server software. Prior to Propel, Jeff was Controller/CFO of Private Label, Inc., a leading high-tech contract manufacturer where he managed worldwide finance and operations, and set up manufacturing operations throughout Asia. Before Private Label, Jeff was CFO of StarQuest Software, Inc., a global provider of network software specializing in Internet infrastructure solutions for Cisco and IBM enterprise platforms. At StarQuest, he helped raise venture funding and played a critical role in successfully managing the eventual acquisition of StarQuest by Level 8 Systems, Inc. Jeff also worked for many years as controller of Adobe Systems, Inc., the world leader in graphics software, and has held several other financial positions in the software industry. Jeff received an MBA, a BS in Accounting and a BA in Science from San Jose State University.
Dave Ferretti has more than 20 years of direct, OEM and channel sales and business development experience in software solutions for consumer, SMB and enterprise customers. He is presently Senior Vice President of Worldwide Sales at StoredIQ, a provider of enterprise-class solutions for the management of unstructured information found in files and email. Prior to StoredIQ he was Vice President of Channel Sales for Evault, a software/services division of Seagate Technology. Before Evault Dave served as Director of Worldwide Sales for the DocuShare Business Unit of Xerox Corporation (NYSE:XRX), where he grew revenues for the content and records management software business an average of 36 percent annually. Prior to Xerox Dave has held senior-level sales, business development and engineering positions with Netegrity, Adobe Systems, IMR Alchemy, Array Technology and Loral Aerospace. Dave received a BS in Business Administration and Information Systems from the University of Colorado at Boulder.
Noritaka Nobukawa has more than 20 years of international business development, strategic alliance, product marketing and sales experience in the consumer electronics, wireless semiconductor and software industries. Noritaka is Vice President of Business Development, Asian Pacific at Radiospire Networks, a developer of chip-based wireless HD connectivity solutions for home theater and gaming products. In 2002 Noritaka co-founded Figure 8 Wireless, and led the company to a successful merger with Chipcon, a Norwegian semiconductor company in 2005. Prior to co-founding Figure 8 Wireless, Noritaka was Director of Business Development at Widcomm and helped make Widcomm’s Bluetooth technology a de facto standard in Japan. Prior to Widcomm, Noritaka managed Adobe’s license technology business in the Asian market. Prior to Adobe Noritaka held product marketing and sales positions at Sony and help them capture over 90% of the professional video and audio equipment market in Asia. Noritaka received a BS in Electronic Engineering from Keio University in Japan.
Ajit Shah has a combined twenty four years of experience as an entrepreneur, operating executive and venture capitalist. As an entrepreneur, Mr. Shah has co-founded six companies across multiple markets including personal computing hardware, software, medical devices and the Internet. He has served as an operating executive in private and public companies and has seven years of venture capital experience, 5 years as a general partner at Worldview Technology Partners and two years as an EIR/VP at Sierra Ventures. While at Worldview, Mr. Shah led investments in enterprise software, enterprise hardware, semiconductors, and the Internet. While at Sierra Ventures, Mr. Shah contributed to investment opportunities in enterprise software, Internet advertising and medical devices. Mr. Shah’s venture relationships span across numerous premier firms including NEA, Greylock, Sequoia, Oak and Menlo Ventures, Mr. Shah holds a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from the University of California at Berkeley, a Master of Science in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University and a joint Ph.D. in Bioengineering from the School of Medicine at University California in San Francisco and College of Engineering at University of California, Berkeley.
