Dr. Ulrich
Geilinger
A Swiss national with considerable experience of both venture capital and venture lending transactions in Europe. He is a board member of HBM Partners AG, one of Europe's leading investment managers focusing on private and public life sciences companies. Until 1997 Dr. Geilinger was a partner at Apax where he was involved in a number of buyouts. Previously he was a member of senior management at Credit Suisse responsible for buyout and private equity fund investments. He started his career in private equity in 1987 as a Partner of Innoventure, a venture capital company affiliated with Credit Suisse and Advent International. Dr. Geilinger has also worked as an independent consultant advising Bank Vontobel and Private Equity Holdings, and he has sat on the Board of several European venture capital and private equity funds including Atlas Venture, Banexi Ventures, Apax, Bridgepoint, Candover, Innovacom, Index Ventures, Partech and Star Ventures. Dr. Geilinger is a former board member of the European Venture Capital Association and a former Chairman of the Swiss Private Equity and Corporate Finance Association. He has published a number of papers on private equity and venture capital and is co-author of the "Swiss Venture Capital Guide". He holds an MSc in natural sciences as well as a degree in industrial engineering and a PhD in technical sciences from the Federal Swiss Institute of Technology, Zurich.
Jim
Mitchell
James is considered one of the pioneers of the venture lending business, having founded Meier Mitchell & Company in 1984 providing debt and equity financings to venture backed companies in the technology and life sciences industries and having been active in the sector ever since. Under JM’s guidance, the company completed financings totaling in excess of $2 billion. He sold the company in 1999 to GATX Financial Corporation and subsequently served as President of the acquired company (re-named GATX Ventures) until October 2002. Prior to founding Meier Mitchell & Company, JM held the position of Vice President - Finance at Steiner Financial Corporation, a privately held financial services concern specializing in structured asset financings, primarily leveraged leases. Mr. Mitchell received a B.A. degree in economics from the University of California at Santa Barbara and received an MBA from the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. Currently serving on the advisory board for Partners for Growth (a venture lending group in San Francisco) and ContainerTrac, Inc. and for DXV Water Technologies LLC.
Eli
Talmor
Professor Talmor is the chairman of the accounting department at London Business School and a professor of finance at the University of California, Irvine. He has previously taught at UCLA, the Wharton School (University of Pennsylvania), Tel Aviv University, and the University of Wisconsin at Madison. His teaching and research specialization is in venture capital and corporate finance. Professor Talmor lectures in executive programs worldwide and has published in leading academic journals in the area of finance. Professor Talmor served a three-year term on the nomination committee for the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. He is the recipient of the 1990 European Finance Association Award for the best research article and the 1980 Trefftzs Award for the best doctoral paper in finance. From 1994-1999 he was a director of New Dimensions Software (NASDAQ corporation). Professor Talmor is currently a partner and director of venture capital funds and a principal investor in other business enterprises. He also serves on the Board of Governors of the London Business School. Professor Talmor holds a Ph.D. in Business Administration from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a B.Sc. (Cum Laude) from the Technion - Israel Institute of Technology.