Category: Mentors (Page 9 of 23)

Madelyn Quinol is Co-Founder and CEO of Presto Innovation, LLC, a consulting services company based in the San Francisco/Silicon Valley area.

Before deciding to found Presto Innovation, Madelyn worked at NASA Ames Research Center for 6 years, where she collaborated with, trained, and guided teams not only for the research center but also at Johnson Space Center (JSC) and Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).

Madelyn helped project teams in all phases of their production lifecycles–customer engagement, cost estimation, concept development, requirements definition and analysis, interaction design, interface design, usability engineering, systems engineering, project management, verification and validation, and quality assurance–while customizing and applying User Experience and Agile methodologies suited for those teams. Read More...

Ronjini Joshua is a Founders Space mentor. She is the owner of The Silver Telegram, a PR agency specializing in startups, lean organizations and crowdfunding campaigns.

With more than 15 years of experience in technology PR experience, Ronjini focuses in elevating brand awareness for startups and bringing new products to market focusing mostly in consumer technology and lifestyle.

Ronjini is an experienced speaker, speaking on topics including Diversity in PR, Startup PR and crowdfunding. Speaking at several conferences including: PR Summit, Crowdfunding East, Digital Hollywood, Kickercon, Startup Week Santa Monica, CES and others. Read More...

Camiel Becker is a managing partner at Becker & Lee LLP in San Francisco, California. He is certified as a specialist in immigration and nationality law by the State Bar of California’s Board of Legal Specialization.

Mr. Becker represents a number of companies and individuals in the employment-based immigration context, including mid- and small-sized businesses, researchers and scientists, and IT professionals.

Gerald (Jerry) Wroblewski is an operations leader with general management and operational expertise in global manufacturing, supply chain product development, finance and administration.

He successfully develops and implements new products/processes and strategies, accelerating revenue and profit growth in consumer products, medical devices and pharmaceuticals. Skilled at creating world-class organizations in both large and small companies and developing working environments based on teamwork where employees share in company’s success by meeting aggressive milestones. Ability to generate 5% to 10% annual operational budget savings to invest in business growth.

Specialties: World Class Manufacturing,
Product and Process Development,
Supply Chain Optimization,
Acquisition Integration, Mentoring
Start-Ups, Medical Devices, Drug Development CMC

Christina Michelle is a digital media executive with expertise in strategy, business development and operations.

Currently an independent consultant, she was previously with the NBC News Group where she focused on building strategic partnerships for NBC News, Today, CNBC and MSNBC. Prior to joining the News Group, she worked within NBC Universal’s Integrated Media division, where she developed and implemented strategies to drive growth for brands such as iVillage, Daily Candy, Astrology.com and the NBC Health Video Network.

Prior to joining NBC Universal, she was with Cox Media where she focused on marketing, operations and partner relations. Christina Michelle is the publisher of DistributedBytes, a weekly newsletter which explores digital media distribution strategies. She is based in San Francisco, CA and holds a B.S. in Organizational Behavior from the University of San Francisco.

Jerome Nadel is the CMO at Rambus. He joined in 2012 to help transform the company’s business model from IP licensing to products and services. Jerome is a pioneer in user experience and service design, which he applies to product and corporate marketing.

Jerome has had a variety of chief marketing officer and chief user experience officer roles at companies including Human Factors International, SLP InfoWare, Gemplus, and Sagem.

John Chisholm has three decades of experience as entrepreneur, CEO, and investor. In 1997 he founded and for a decade served as CEO/Chairman of CustomerSat (now part of Confirmit), a leading provider of enterprise feedback management systems.

A pioneer in online marketing research, in 1992 John founded and for five years served as CEO/Chairman of Decisive Technology (now part of Google), publisher of the first desktop and client-server software for online surveys. Earlier he worked for or consulted to GE, HP, Xerox, GRiD Systems, Pyramid Technologies, Ventura Software, and Network Appliance.

He is president and chairman of the worldwide MIT Alumni Association and a trustee of MIT and of the Santa Fe Institute. He is a member of the Global Partners Council of the Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET) and serves on the advisory board of the Gruter Institute for Law & Behavioral Research. He advises entrepreneurs through the MIT Venture Mentoring Service, the Thiel Foundation 20under20 Fellowship, and the Plug and Play Tech Center. Read More...

Michael Volpatt brings 20 years of agency and client experience to Larkin/Volpatt communications. He has played a crucial role in the development of consumer and business-to-business brand and marketing strategies for clients including Draper University, Arkadium, Hearst Magazines Digital Media, Dstillery, Yieldex, Satellogic, YouNoodle and many other early to mid stage startups and larger companies.

His work has helped companies and non-profit organizations frame their competition, better understand the markets they operate in and develop key messaging platforms that serve to differentiate and resonate with their target audiences.

Most importantly Michael is an expert at marketing and PR implementation. Michael’s clients have been featured in numerous print publications including the Wall Street Journal, TechCrunch, New York Times, Bloomberg, Fortune, Inc., AdAge, AdWeek and other trade and business publications. You can also see and hear his clients on both local and national television and radio stations – CNN, Bloomberg Radio, MSNBC, CBS and many more. Read More...

Joanna Jones is the Director of Research at InterQ Research, a full-service market research company based in San Francisco.

Joanna co-founded InterQ, with the goal to make high-quality, cutting edge qualitative and quantitative research accessible to startups, investors, and medium-sized companies. Joanna is passionate about uncovering new insights, helping companies refine their products, and developing impactful branding.

By using qualitative research methods, including focus groups, in-depth interviews, and ethnographic research, Joanna is able to unlock barriers for companies that can have dramatic effects on the success and profitability of their businesses. Joanna is super excited to work with startups at Founder’s Space, guiding new companies into better product development methods so that they don’t have to pivot later on.

Larry Braitman has  been investing, advising, and accelerating the growth of early-stage companies since 1997. He’s now a Venture Advisor at Founders Space.

With Rick Thompson, he co-founded Flycast Communications, where Braitman served as EVP of Business Development. Flycast created the first-ever banner advertising network targeting direct-response buyers. Flycast went public in 1999 raising $75 Million and then sold in 2000 in a deal ultimately worth $2.2 Billion. Read More...