Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers Hires Greentech Partner
Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, has hired Michael Linse as Partner to focus on renewable investments from the firm’s Green Growth Fund. Prior to joining KPCB in 2009, Michael managed the alternative energy investing team within the European Special Situations Group (ESSG) at Goldman Sachs. Michael was responsible for a number of ESSG investments, including Nordex and Sterecycle. Michael joined Goldman Sachs in 1997, in the Financial Institutions Group, working out of the Frankfurt and Hong Kong offices. In 2002, he joined the Structured and Principal Finance Group in London, where he focused on distressed portfolio transactions. Michael joined ESSG in 2003, initially working on German restructuring situations and then, beginning in 2005, on investments in the alternative energy sector. He was named Managing Director of the group in 2007. Michael earned a BA in Economics from Harvard University in 1997 and an MBA from Harvard Business School in 2002.
3VR Announces New Chief Executive Officer
3VR, the pioneer of searchable surveillance, has hired Al Shipp as Chief Executive Officer. Mr. Shipp joins 3VR from Apple Computer where he was SVP,
Enterprise Division responsible for global direct sales and marketing into enterprise customers.
Earlier, he was the President of Critical Path and SVP Worldwide Field Operations at Inktomi.
Prior, Mr. Shipp was President, eCommerce Server Division and President, Worldwide Sales at BEA with $1.2B in revenue
responsibility. Earlier in his career he was an executive at IBM where he climbed the sales ranks and ultimately became
VP, West Region Software Sales with $1.8B in revenues. Al earned a degree in Engineering from Rose-Hulman Institute.
Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers Hires Greentech Partner
Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, has hired Amol Deshpande as Partner to focus on opportunities and initiatives associated with green technology and global climate change. Amol joins KPCB from Black River and Cargill Ventures, both investment-oriented business units of the private agribusiness, Cargill, Inc. At Cargill, Amol focused on Greentech investments throughout the water, energy and agricultural supply chain. He was directly involved with investments and initiatives in multiple Greentech verticals including solar, next generation fuels, sustainable agriculture, industrial biotech, waste/environmental sciences and global climate change. Additionally, he was responsible for maintaining relationships with key innovative business units within Cargill and tracking innovation in Greentech both inside and outside of the organization. He also has experience both as a consultant with Deloitte and as an entrepreneur. Amol graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with a BS in Chemical Engineering and has an MBA from Cornell University, where he was a Park Fellow.
Vice President of Product and Marketing
Doostang Hires New VP of Product & Marketing
Doostang, the invite-only career community, has hired Chuck Taylor as its new Vice President of Product Management & Marketing. Mr. Taylor joins Doostang from Affinity Circles, a leading provider of trusted social networks, where he ran all strategy, product management and marketing. Prior to that Chuck was the Director of Product Marketing for HotJobs, a $125M division of Yahoo!. Previously, he held product management positions at Progressive Insurance and Proctor & Gamble, Inc. and was a consultant with Bain & Company. He graduated from Cornell University with a Bachelors and Masters in Engineering and has an MBA from Harvard Business School. Doostang has received venture funding from Shasta Ventures.
Vice President of Media and Audience Products
Tippit, Inc., Hires Michael Schmier as VP of Media and Audience Products
Tippit, a pioneering Internet media company that owns and operates a network of high-traffic, industry-specific websites, has hired Michael Schmier as the Vice President of Media & Audience Products. Before joining Tippit, Michael was the VP of Product Marketing & Business Development at Merced Systems. Prior he was the Vice President of Marketing & Business Development for BabyCenter.com through the acquisition by Johnson & Johnson, and was a Senior Research Manager at The Advisory Board Company. He holds an MBA from Stanford University and a Bachelors degree from University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. With headquarters in San Francisco, Tippit has received private funding from Trinity Ventures, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and Granite Global Ventures.
GuardID Systems Hires David Watkins as Chief Executive Officer
GuardID Systems, a next-generation consumer internet security company that protects your identity while you bank, shop, and invest online, has appointed David Watkins as Chief Executive Officer. He joins GuardID Systems from QSecure, Inc., producers of the SmartStripe electronic credit card, where he was the President and CEO. Before that, Watkins was the President and CEO of TrueSpectra and the General Manager of Diamond Multimedia where he launched the original Rio MP3 player. Previously, he held executive positions in marketing at Borland Software, Symantec, and Activision. Mr. Watkins holds a Bachelor degree from Connecticut College and an MBA from Stanford Business School. The company has received venture funding from Trinity Ventures and Prism Venture Partners.
Simon Khalaf Joins Flurry, Inc. as Chief Executive Officer
Flurry, Inc., a mobile services company that offers the leading free unified messaging platform for the everyday cell phone user, has recruited Simon Khalaf as CEO. Simon brings a unique mixture of mobile, media and leadership experience to Flurry. He was previously the CEO of both Vernier Networks, a wireless hardware company, and Volera, a market leading content and media delivery platform, which he sold to Novell in 2003. Before that he was the founder and head of marketing of Worldtalk, an internet security company that was acquired by Tumbleweed. He received a Bachelor of Electrical Engineering from The American University of Beirut and a Master of Science in Computer Engineering from Syracuse University. Flurry has received venture funding from Draper Fisher Jurvetson and Borealis Ventures.
Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers Hires Partner
Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, a leading venture capital firm, has hired Chi-Hua Chien as Partner. He joins KPCB from Accel Partners where he focused on digital media, software-as-a-service, consumer Internet, and online advertising infrastructure companies. Chi-Hua was instrumental in Accel's investments in AdECN (acquired by MSFT) and Facebook, and also worked on the firm's investments in BitTorrent, fbFund, Glam, Trulia, and YuMe Networks. Previously, Chi-Hua was the Director of Marketing at hosted software provider Coremetrics, a leading ecommerce web analytics provider. Chi-Hua's prior roles include corporate development at Google, where he covered the digital video market and coordinated the company's first acquisition in China, as well business development at eCoverage, and investment banking in Morgan Stanley's Technology Group. Chi-Hua has a BS and MS in Industrial Engineering, and BA in Economics, all from Stanford University where he was named a Mayfield Fellow and President's Scholar. He also earned an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business where he was an Arjay Miller Scholar. Based in Menlo Park, KPCB has backed entrepreneurs in more than 400 portfolio companies, including Netscape, Amazon.com and Google.
Danoo, Inc. Appoints A New Board Member
Danoo, Inc., a new digital out-of-home media network, appointed Michael Hudes to the Board of Directors. Mr. Hudes is the Global Director of Digital Media at Clear Channel Outdoor where he focuses on creating, partnering or acquiring media properties, taking advantage of new technology to drive greater returns on Clear Channel Outdoors’ existing global estate while identifying new ‘placed-based’ media channels and interactive platforms to reach consumers with more targeted and timely advertising and content. Prior to joining Clear Channel Outdoor, Hudes was President & COO of AdSpace Networks, a leading builder of digital media networks for advertising and promotion in public spaces and at retail. Earlier he was President & COO of Organic, Inc. and also served as Director of Marketing & Advertising Partnerships at da Vinci Time & Space, a leading interactive television company focused on creating original content and development tools for interactive programming. He began his career in advertising with the Young & Rubicam companies. Backed by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Danoo delivers engaging localized content to urban consumers via the web, mobile devices, and a network of out-of-home digital screens.
Associate Partner
Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers Hires Wen Hsieh
Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, a leading venture capital firm, has hired Wen Hsieh as Associate Partner. He joins KPCB from McKinsey & Co. where he was a Partner and Co-Leader of the firm's Asia Semiconductor Practice. In this role he was responsible for spearheading major client engagements in the U.S., Mainland China, and Taiwan across the entire global semiconductor value chain. Prior to McKinsey & Co., he was the Founder & CEO of OnChip Technologies, a developer of microfluidic-based protein chips for high-sensitivity and high-throughput proteomic separation and identification applications. Earlier, he was a Co-Founder of Campus24.com, a provider of online auctions and classifieds for college students which was acquired by Collegeclub.com. He earned a BS, MS and PhD in electrical engineering, with a minor in biology, from CalTech. Based in Menlo Park, KPCB has backed entrepreneurs in more than 400 portfolio companies, including Netscape, Amazon.com, Google, Intuit, Juniper Networks and Sun Microsystems.