Who we met on Wavelength USA 2011
LISA GANSKY, AUTHOR
Lisa is, at heart, a marketect and “impact junky” with a strong interest in breaking the edges of formerly happy business models and bringing together not-so-likely characters in the form of new offerings, teams and partnerships.
As CEO, co-founder and chairman of Ofoto, Lisa drew on her entrepreneurial spirit and experience developing global web services. Lisa & the team worked to develop Ofoto into a world-class consumer services offering which she left once Kodak Gallery reached over 45M customers in 2005. In addition to her roles at Ofoto and Eastman Kodak, she was a Co-founder and CEO of GNN, the first commercial website, acquired by AOL in 1995 where she then directed Internet Services for AOL through 1997. Lisa has been an investor and board member of more than twenty internet and mobile services companies.
Currently, Lisa serves as an advisor and investor in Convio, Greenbiz, Instructables, Me Please, New Resource Bank, Nuko, Squidoo, TaskRabbit, TasteBook, and Dos Margaritas, an environmental foundation. For more on see her site http://lisagansky.com
GERALD BRADY, CEO – SVB BANK
Gerald Brady is a managing director within SVB’s Venture Capital Group, hired to lead two important initiatives for the company. He is responsible for leading SVB’s Entrepreneur Services Group as well as the company’s work with corporate venture and corporate development groups.
Brady oversees a team dedicated to supporting emerging technology and life science companies, by engaging founders and CEOs with relevant, high-impact programming and networking events to add significant value during their development stages. Brady also maintains and develops relationships with corporate venture and corporate development groups, which the company believes will play an increasingly important role in the venture ecosystem in the future.
Prior to joining SVB, Brady served as the director of investor relations for Siemens AG, where he was responsible for all aspects of investor communications in North America. Before that, Brady was an acquisition director in the Strategic Planning Group at Siemens Corporation, and served as a managing director of Siemens Acceleration USA, which is the early stage venture capital arm of Siemens.
Brady has also worked at 3i in London and Palo Alto, where he was a director, investing in a number of technology businesses, including ActiveCard (ACTI), Bitfone (acquired by HP), Raw Communications (acquired by Thomson Financial) and Winery Exchange. Prior to his work in finance, Brady worked in the Internet and media industry, was part of the UK launch team for ZDNet in 1995, a sales manager for Yahoo! UK when it launched in 1996 and an executive at Ziff-Davis and EMAP Plc.
Brady holds an honors degree from Kingston University, an MBA from Cranfield University and he is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. Brady served as chairman of the NVCA’s Corporate Venture Group from 2006-2007.
JIM HORNTHAL, VENTURE PARTNER, IT – CMEA
Joined CMEA: 2005 Years Experience Building Companies: 30 Board Seats: Triporati, Via, KIND Snacks Non-Profit Board Seats: One Voice Movement, President’s Action Network
Deal Starters: Entrepreneurs with the adaptability to change Non-starters: Lack of respect for competitors and threats Outside Activities: Mentoring social entrepreneurs trying to make a difference, travel
If building great companies requires uniting diverse groups with conflicting ideas, then Jim Hornthal is well cast. When not fulfilling his duties at CMEA, Jim serves as chairman of the YPO’s Peace Action Network (PAN). Since 2002, PAN has helped create an India-Pakistan forum, an Israeli-Arab forum, and an Arab American Action forum, which he co-founded and co-chairs.
Jim believes in the power of “assembling a bright cohort of passionate and creative minds to tackle seemingly impossible problems.” Now that’s a lesson for entrepreneurs.
As an entrepreneur, Jim is best known as Founder and Chairman of Preview Travel, one of the first online travel agencies. Jim took Preview Travel public in 1997, and later initiated its merger with a division of Sabre Holdings to create Travelocity.com, where he served as Vice Chairman until Travelocity.com was acquired by Sabre in 2002.
Jim is also founder and chairman of Triporati, whose “Vacation Genome Project” is changing how travelers discover their perfect vacation, and serves as the Lester Center Fellow for Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley.
Consistent with his ability to bring people together, Jim is a trustee of the One Voice Movement, a grass roots organization that has brought together 650,000 Palestinian and Israeli youth in an effort to amplify the “voice of the mainstream while marginalizing extreme positions on both sides of the conflict.”
Jim is also an active member in the Council on Foreign Relations, the Clinton Global Initiative, and the Skoll World Forum. In his free time, Jim enjoys golf, skiing, and long walks on the beach with his wife, Bethany, and their two golden doodles, Snicker and Cleo.
ALLAN WEBBER, CO-FOUNDER – FAST COMPANY
Alan Webber cofounded Fast Company after spending six years as the managing editor/editorial director of the Harvard Business Review (HBR). During his tenure at HBR, the business magazine was named finalist three times for the National Magazine Awards.
Webber went to the Harvard Business School in 1981 to serve as a senior research assistant and project coordinator on the auto industry in America. The project culminated in a book called Changing Alliances. Prior to that, Webber served as special assistant to the U.S. Secretary of Transportation in Washington, D.C.
POLLY LABARRE, AUTHOR – MAVERICKS AT WORK AND CNN CORRESPONDENT
Polly LaBarre is a provocative and inspiring voice on business and innovation. A bestselling author, agenda-setting writer, speaker, and television correspondent, Polly has contributed to the business conversation in a range of forums for over a dozen years.
Her book, Mavericks at Work: Why the Most Original Minds in Business Win is the product of a far-ranging, multi-year exploration of business at its best. Mavericks represents in-depth access to some of the world’s most creative companies, courageous leaders, and disruptive experiments in reinventing the logic of how business gets done. The book offers a bold idea agenda and powerful next practices that amount to a business plan for the 21st century.
Just weeks after its release, Mavericks at Work became a New York Times bestseller, aWall Street Journal bestseller and a BusinessWeek bestseller. The Economist named Mavericks a “Book of the Year” and called the book “a pivotal work in the tradition of In Search of Excellence and Good to Great.” Now in its seventh printing, Mavericks will be published in Europe, Australia, Japan, the rest of Asia, and Brazil. Mavericks has been the subject of high-profile articles in many top publications and featured extensively on television (from ABC’s Good Morning America to CNBC to PBS’s CEO Exchange). Other accolades include: “Top Ten Business Book of the Year” (amazon.com), “Top Ten Book on Innovation and Design” (BusinessWeek), and “2006 Picks of the Year in Business Books” (The Financial Times).
Polly brings her passion for identifying the big ideas and framing the big questions that will rule the future of business to her role as business and innovation correspondent for CNN. In her thrice-weekly segments on the network’s “American Morning” and “Your Money” programs, Polly introduces viewers to a remarkable collection of inspiring leaders, innovative organizations, and exciting new ideas from the world of business and beyond.
As a member of the original team of Fast Company magazine, Polly played a central role in the remarkable success of a magazine that changed the way leaders at all levels think about working and winning-and earned a passionate following around the world. During her eight years as senior editor, Polly established herself as a storyteller with a fresh voice and a well-tuned ear for the themes that mark the economic moment. Her influential articles grapple with what it means to build great organizations and do work that matters-and introduce readers to a range of extraordinary characters and organizations.
She also contributed to the strategic development and content design of a range of Fast Company events. She co-hosted the magazine’s signature Real Time conferences-agenda-setting gatherings where executives and entrepreneurs met to debate and shape the future-and helped to create a high-level roundtable series, “Fast Talk,” which she moderated around the globe. She also designed and hosted Fast Company’s first women’s leadership event, Woman to Woman: Setting the Agenda for Business.
Polly has delivered keynote addresses around the world. She makes frequent appearances on television, including ABC’s Good Morning America, NBC’s Today, CNBC (most recently as a featured expert on the five-part “The Business of Innovation” series), and PBS’s Nightly Business Report (where she has contributed a regular commentary). Her writing has appeared in a variety of publications, including Fast Company, The New York Times, IndustryWeek, Jungle magazine, and Business Management Review, China’s leading monthly business magazine. She is a co-author of The Big Moo: Stop Trying to Be Perfect and Start Being Remarkable (Portfolio, 2005).
IVY ROSS, EXECUTIVE VP MARKETING – GAP INC
Ivy Ross is currently the EVP of Marketing for the Gap brand. Under her leadership the fully integrated 1969 denim brand was launched , nearly doubling the business as well as the recent black pants campaign which was successful beyond the companies expectations . During her time at Gap, she has created integrated digital and social media campaigns that have led her to be interviewed on NPR market place and various publications as an innovator and expert in the emerging media space. Previously, she held many executive positions ranging from head of product design and development to presidencies with several companies, including Calvin Klein, Swatch, Coach and Mattel. Both Fast Company and Business Week have chosen Ivy to represent the new face of leadership.
As an innovative entrepreneur and thinker, Ivy creates unique collaborative environments with her teams. To maximize her collaborators’ creative potential, Ivy draws upon her personal studies in a diverse range of fields, including sound vibration, quantum physics , energy medicine and living systems. Many of her methodologies, most notably Project Platypus, have been adopted not only by Mattel but also Procter and Gamble, where she serves as a member of its design board.
Ivy has been a contributing author to numerous books, including The Change Champions Field Guide and Best Practices in Leadership Development and Organizational Change. She has also been referenced in Ten Faces of Innovation, Rules of Thumb, and Unstuck among other books. In addition to writing, Ivy was the keynote speaker at the Nokia World Design Conference and Fortune Magazine’s Women Conference.
A renowned artist, Ross’ innovative metal work in jewelry is in the permanent collections of 12 international museums, including the Smithsonian in Washington D.C., the Victorian Albert Museum in London and the Cooper Hewitt Museum in New York City. A winner of the prestigious National Endowment for the Arts grant, Ross has also received the Women in Design Award and Diamond International Award for her creative designs.
DR. CURT CARLSON, PRESIDENT & CEO – SRI INTERNATIONAL
Dr. Curtis R. Carlson became president and CEO of SRI International in December 1998. Previously, he spent more than 20 years with Sarnoff Corporation, an SRI subsidiary that was fully integrated into SRI in 2011.
In 1973, Carlson joined RCA Laboratories, which became part of SRI in 1987 as Sarnoff Corporation. He started and helped lead the high-definition television (HDTV) program that became the U.S. standard, and in 1997 his team won an Emmy Award for outstanding technical achievement. In 2000, another team started and led by Carlson won an Emmy for a system to optimize satellite broadcast image quality. He helped found more than 12 companies.
Carlson is widely sought out as a speaker and thought leader on innovation and global competitiveness. He serves as co-chairman of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Singapore National Research Foundation. He is a founding member of the Innovation Leadership Council for the World Economic Forum and was selected to serve on President Obama’s National Advisory Council on Innovation and Entrepreneurship. He advises U.S. governors and prime ministers, economic ministers, and education ministers around the world on innovation, competitiveness, and educational reform.
In 2006, Carlson won the Otto Schade Prize for Display Performance and Image Quality from the Society for Information Display with Dr. Roger Cohen. In 2007, Carlson was given the Medal of Excellence Award by Rutgers University’s School of Engineering. In 2002, he received the Dr. Robert H. Goddard Award from Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) for his professional achievements.
He has received honorary degrees from Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Stevens Institute of Technology, and Kettering University. He was a visiting distinguished scientist at the University of Washingtonin 1998, and he is a Kobe ambassador for SRI’s contributions to Kobe, Japan.
Carlson has been on numerous boards, including Nuance Communications, Pyramid Vision, Sensar, and Sarif. He was a member of General Motors’ Science and Technology Advisory Board. He has served on numerous government task forces, including the Air Force Scientific Advisory Board, National Research Laboratory Review Panels, the Galvin Naval Research Laboratory Review Panel, the U.S. Army Research Laboratory Technical Assessment Board, and the Defense Science Board task force on bio-chemical defense. He was a member of the original team that helped create the Army’s Federated Laboratories.
He has written a book with William Wilmot called Innovation: The Five Disciplines for Creating What Customers Want, published by Random House. It was selected by BusinessWeek as one of the Top Ten Business Books for 2006. Innovation describes how SRI’s unique process for innovation can be applied to all types of commercial and nonprofit enterprises, including the government.
Carlson received his B.S. in physics from WPI and was named in Who’s Who Among Students. He is a member of Sigma Xi, and Tau Beta Pi. His M.S. and Ph.D. degrees are from Rutgers University. Carlson has published or presented numerous technical publications and holds fundamental patents in the fields of image quality, image coding, and computer vision. He is married to Dudley Brown Carlson, an award-winning children’s librarian.
WENDY LEA, CEO – GET SATISFACTION
Wendy Lea is the CEO of Get Satisfaction, a community-based platform that helps companies engage their customers through open and transparent conversations that increase customer satisfaction, product insight and enhance customer loyalty. Wendy founded The Chatham Group, where she currently serves as an angel investor, strategic advisor and board member for a long list of startup companies. Wendy chairs the board for The Forum of Women Entrepreneurs & Executives (FWE&E.org) and serves on the board of Silicon Valley Social Venture Capital (SV2.org). She was recently recognized as a Top 100 Woman of Influence in Silicon Valley.