Advisory Services

 

Mark Goros - Advisory Board Member - Advisor Board Member & Director, US Venture, Corporate VC & High Tech Executive Expertise

Mark Goros has over 30 years experience in High-tech executive management, corporate venture capital and early stage venture capital experience.

Mark was one of the co-founders of Broadvision and one of the early team-members at Oracle and has been at several other high tech companies including Sybase and Gain Technology where has served in nearly every role from CEO, sales, business development, operations and technical, to sales, to CEO. He has also led the Corporate Venture Capital effort at Broadvision and helped execute two IPO's and three M&A transactions.

Mark also serves as a General Partner at Equip Ventures. At Equip, he has invested and assisted in the development of a number of new startups, including Caringo, where is currently serving as the CEO, and advised on several secondary transactions with Equip's Advisory Group.

 

Gilles Samoun - Advisory Board Member & Director, UK & West European Venture - Communications & Security Technology Expertise

Gilles Samoun is a senior high-tech executive and investor with a deep background in engineering, management, sales and marketing, largely with VC-backed fast growing companies both in Europe and Silicon Valley. Throughout his career, Gilles has created and led several companies through significant challenges to turn them into global industry leaders. As a serial entrepreneur, Gilles currently serves on the Boards of several technology companies both in Europe and US.

Most recently Gilles Samoun was Chairman & CEO of Solsoft SA, a Trans-atlantic software vendor of security management solutions. Gilles was brought in by the company's venture capitalists to turn it around, reposition its offering and reorganize its engineering and sales teams to win new markets. In the course of 36 months, Gilles established it as the global leader in Security Policy Management and led the organization through its acquisition by ExaProtect in September 2006.

Gilles came to Solsoft from Benchmark Capital, , where he served as Entrepreneur in Residence in their London office. Prior to Benchmark, Gilles was the founder and CEO of Qualys, provider of on-demand security vulnerability management which he led to a successful M&A exit.
Before founding Qualys, Samoun was the CEO of MediaPath Technologies, a LAN caching software company which was acquired as well. Previously, he spent 5 years at Verity (VRTY), a leading provider of software solutions powering business portals, where he served as General Manager and Vice President for Europe.

Mr. Samoun holds a degree in Physics from Orsay University, and a Masters in Computer Science from Paris Jussieu University.

 

Itzhak Reichman - Advisory Board Member - Executive Management & Buyout Expertise

Itzhak Reichman has over 20 years experience as a senior executive with a combination of General Management, Buyout and M&A experience.  Mr. Reichman currently serves as the Chairman and CEO of Desert Glory, the largest operator of greenhouses for tomatoes in North America and the leading grower and marketer of Cherry tomatoes with about 70% share in the U.S.

Prior to Desert Glory, Mr. Reichman led the Borden Foods Corporation (BFC), a $600 million KKR portfolio company, during its divestiture period, after serving as it CFO and co-leading its turnaround program.  Prior to that, Mr. Reichman was VP Strategy and Development for Borden Capital Management Partners (BCMP), the holding group that oversaw the Borden portfolio of companies (10 companies, $6.5 billion in aggregate sales) for KKR.  In that capacity, he was responsible for the closing of over ten M&A transactions totaling over one billion dollars.

Mr. Reichman joined Borden from PepsiCo Foods International (PFI), where he founded Elite Foods, the newly created Israeli salty snacks affiliate of PFI. He served as its first CEO after buying a local potato chip company as a foundation for establishing the business.  Mr. Reichman joined PFI from McKinsey and Co., where he managed strategic and operational improvement studies in the consumer goods and high tech areas. 

Mr. Reichman has served in the Israel Defense Force, where he reached the rank of First Lieutenant, and graduated Summa Cum Laude from the Technion Israel Institute of Technology with an undergraduate degree in Civil Engineering.  He earned his Master's degree from MIT's Sloan School of Management.

 

Robert Friedman - Advisory Board Member - Private Debt & Equity, Real Estate, Venture Capital and Investment Banking, Expertise

Robert Friedman has over 20 years of varied experience in Private Debt & Equity, Real Estate, Venture Capital and Investment Banking. Mr. Friedman is currently a Managing Director at Bankers Capital, a boutique investment bank based on New York, that has arranged several billion dollars of senior and mezzanine debt and equity for commercial real estate and private equity investments since its inception in 1991.

Previously, Mr. Friedman was co-founder of Wingate Ventures and held senior management operational positions in finance and business development at several public and private portfolio companies.

Mr. Friedman began his career at Oppenheimer and Co. where he managed Institutional Investor relationships. He earned a BA in Economics with Honors from Yeshiva University and an MBA from the Yale School of Management.

 

Bill Joll - Advisory Board Member - High Tech Executive,Tech VC & Public Company Expertise

Bill Joll is a very experienced Executive Manager with 25 years experience and track record in running major divisions at major corporations and with startups.

Mr. Joll most recently served as V ice President of Marketing - Carrier Solutions, at RealNetworks, Inc. Previously he spent 18 years at Nortel Networks, where he served as President of Marketing for Europe , General Manager of two different carrier product lines with over $1 Billion in revenues, and head of product management in Asia and Latin America . Key accomplishment's included managing both large ($1B+) and small (less than $100M) P&L's in a GM model, creating and managing channels for Enterprise products and solutions, turning around deteriorating sales, increasing return on sales, delivering multi-million dollar profits and creating and building fully functional teams on a global basis

Mr. Joll has also served as CEO of three technology startups including Maple Optical, Threshold Networks and his current CEO position - On2 Technologies where he has developed a track record in raising venture capital funding.

Mr. Joll earned bachelors and masters degrees in electrical engineering at the University of Manitoba. 

 

Private Equity Legal Advisory Firm - Nixon Peabody represented by Charles P. Jacobs

Charles Jacobs has over thirty years of Private Equity Legal expertise and is one of the leading attorneys globally in advising LP's and GP's on and Executing Private Equity Transactions.

Mr. Jacobs is the leader of Nixon Peabody's Private Equity Group, and his practice concentrates on private equity and venture capital fund formation, private equity investments in multiple asset classes, secondary transactions and mergers and acquisitions.

Mr. Jacobs' clients include Horsley Bridge Partners, Credit Suisse Private Equity, Paul Capital, TD Capital and a number of public pension funds, including the New York State Common Retirement Fund, the New York State Teachers Retirement System, the New York City Pension System, the State of New Jersey Department of the Treasury and the Connecticut Retirement System. He has represented these clients in over 250 investments in the leading venture capital and leveraged buyout private equity partnerships, both domestically and internationally.

Mr. Jacobs is a frequent speaker on panels regarding private equity issues and has been recognized for exceptional standing in the legal community in the area of Private Fund Formation in Chambers USA : America 's Leading Lawyers for Business, 2006.

Mr. Jacobs is admitted to practice in New York and is a member of the National Association of Public Pension Attorneys, the American Bar Association (Venture Capital Committee and Committee on Negotiated Acquisitions), the New York State Bar Association (Banking, Corporate and Business Law Section) Association. He is also a member of the Advisory Board for the Private Equity Analyst's Terms and Conditions Study.

 

Robert Fuchs - Advisory Board Member - Private Equity Expertise

Robert Fuchs has over 18 years of varied experience in Private Equity, Investment Banking and Asset Management. Mr. Fuchs currently serves as an Executive Vice President at Sunrise Securities Corp, a boutique investment bank, based in New York.

Previously, Mr. Fuchs served as Vice President of Private Equity at Auda Advisor Associates, a Fund of Fund and Private Equity Advisory firm with over $2 billion under management that advised leading institutional Limited Partners. Mr. Fuchs was involved in leading the development and deployment of several of the firm's private equity product offerings and private equity fund selection.

Robert began his career in the corporate finance department of Drexel Burnham Lambert. Robert graduated from Yeshiva University with a BA in Economics in 1987 and from the Columbia Business School with an MBA in Finance in 1991.