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Advisors



Vito Bialla, CEO, Bialla & Associates
Vito Bialla is CEO of Bialla & Associates, a nationally recognized executive search firm. He has spent over thirty years in consulting and executive search working for domestic and international clients. With experience in consulting to companies ranging from entrepreneurial start-ups to leaders in emerging industries, to established giants, Vito adds unique expertise to the firm. His large contact base and long-standing business relationships give the firm access, credibility and network resources within the business community.

Vito's focus is on Consumer Product Goods, Sports, Consumer Technology, Media & Entertainment. His functional expertise is on CEOs, Officer-level and outside Directors.

He is a member of the Olympic Club running and triathlon teams, a member of The San Francisco Yacht Club, and also serves as Chairman and Director of Zoot Sports®, Inc., a Southern California-based apparel company. He is also proud co-owner of Bialla Vineyards with his wife Linda.

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Felix Chen, Neurologist and Pain Management Specialist
Felix Chen is a Neurologist and Pain Management specialist in Redwood City, California. Currently practicing in a private practice setting, Dr. Chen has provided consulting services in the past for the pharmaceutical industry, assisting companies such as Ortho Pharmaceuticals and Novartis in their goals.

Dr. Chen holds a M.D. degree from the Medical College of Virginia, completed a Neurology residency and Pain Management fellowship at the University of California, Davis and is board certified in Neurology. He also earned his Ph.D. from the Medical College of Virginia and his M.S. degree from Virginia Commwealth University, both with specialization in the Neurosciences.

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Andrew Donkin, Managing Director
Andrew Donkin has 17 years experience in consumer sales, marketing and general business management. He developed his brand management discipline at Colgate-Palmolive while working on brands such as Palmolive and Colgate toothpaste, then went on to create great consumer experiences in new media.

As president of the Tickets.com licensing businesses, Donkin led the creation of a new online ticketing platform for clients including Major League Baseball, Carnegie Hall and the 2002 Winter Olympics. As chief marketing officer of There Studios, he was part of the team that launched a pioneering, award-winning multiplayer game, complete with its own economy, digital catalog and digital goods from clients such as Nike and Levi Strauss & Co.

Reactrix, he says, is the next step in connecting consumers to brands in an out-of-home media environment.

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Scott Dunlap, CEO and Co-Founder of NearbyNow, Inc.
Scott Dunlap is the CEO and Co-Founder of NearbyNow, Inc., a unique service that allows consumers to search every brand, product and sale in a shopping mall from the Internet or their mobile phone. Prior to NearbyNow, Scott was an early marketing executive at a number of technology companies such as Opsware (Nasdaq: OPSW), E.piphany (Nasdaq: EPNY), Avolent and others. He also co-founded 4charity.com (acquired by Innovaware) to create technology to help non-profits solicit donations online.

Scott holds a B.S. from the University of Oregon and a M.B.A. from Stanford University.

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Raul J. Fernandez, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, ObjectVideo
Raul J. Fernandez is Chairman and CEO for ObjectVideo. Mr. Fernandez brings more than 15 years of executive experience scaling innovative and rapidly growing technology companies. Mr. Fernandez is well known in the technology industry and the Washington, D.C. area as the founder of Proxicom, which under his leadership evolved from a start-up into a leading global provider of sophisticated e-business solutions for Fortune 500 companies. After taking Proxicom public in 1999 and growing the business to over $200 million in revenue, he sold it to Dimension Data (LSE:DDT) in a deal worth nearly $450 million. He has been profiled by The Wall Street Journal, Fortune, Forbes, CNBC and the Washington Post. In addition to Fernandez's commercial experience, he has been active on the technology policy front. In 2001, Mr. Fernandez was appointed to the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST). He also led the Information Technology Analysis Team for Virginia Gov. Mark Warner's Commission on Efficiency and Effectiveness. Mr. Fernandez also acts as a special advisor to General Atlantic Partners, a leading private equity investment firm, and sits on the board of Liz Claiborne (NYSE: LIZ). In January 2000, Mr. Fernandez became one of the owners of the NHL's Washington Capitals, the NBA's Washington Wizards, the WNBA's Washington Mystics and the Verizon Center. A native Washingtonian, Mr. Fernandez holds a bachelor's degree in economics from the University of Maryland.

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Jerry Gramaglia, Venture Partner, ArrowPath Venture Partners
Jerry Gramaglia is a Venture Partner with ArrowPath Venture Partners and serves on the boards of Coldwater Creek, WageWorks, Firefly Mobile and BeVocal. He also advises InCode Telecom and Umbria Communications in addition to Reactrix.

Gramaglia joined Arrowpath from E*TRADE Financial, where, as president and COO, he was instrumental in building E*TRADE's multiline, global brand. Prior to E*TRADE, Jerry held management positions with Procter & Gamble, Sprint and PepsiCo.

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Guy Kawasaki, Managing Director, Garage Technology Ventures
Guy Kawasaki is a managing director of Garage Technology Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm, and a columnist for Forbes.com. Previously, he was an Apple Fellow at Apple Computer, Inc., where he was one of the individuals responsible for the success of the Macintosh computer.

Guy is the author of eight books including The Art of the Start, Rules for Revolutionaries, How to Drive Your Competition Crazy, Selling the Dream, and The Macintosh Way. He has a BA from Stanford University and an MBA from UCLA as well as an honorary doctorate from Babson College.

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Kip Knight, VP of Marketing, eBay, North America
Kip Knight is currently vice-president of marketing for eBay, North America.

eBay is the world's largest online shopping site with over 150 million users and sites in 33 countries. Kip has worked at eBay since 2002 in marketing and general management roles on both the U.S. and International businesses.

He earned his B.S. degree from LSU in marketing and his MBA from the University of Cincinnati.

Kip started his career in marketing research at Burke Marketing Research in Cincinnati, Ohio. He spent 10 years in Brand Management at Procter and Gamble in charge of various brands such as Ivory Soap as well as working on the development and launch of various new food and beverage brands such as Olestra.

He also worked in PepsiCo's international restaurant division where he served in a variety of marketing and general management roles, including General Manager of North Latin America and head of marketing for KFC International. Kip was also Chief Marketing Officer for Taco Bell based in Southern California.

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Philip Marineau, Retired President and CEO, Levi Strauss & Co.
Phil Marineau has an extensive record of success in consumer brand marketing and executive leadership.

Most recently, Marineau led Levi Strauss & Co. (LS&CO.) through a successful business turnaround and left an impressive legacy of achievement as its President and Chief Executive Officer. LS&CO. is a leading global apparel company with $4.1 billion sales in more than 110 countries. Marineau, who joined the company in 1999, is credited with restoring LS&CO.'s financial strength and markedly improving its competitiveness across all dimensions of the business.

For most of its 153 years, LS&CO. was an owned-and-operated manufacturer and wholesaler of jeanswear. Marineau and his leadership team transformed LS&CO. into a consumer-driven creator, marketer and distributor of global apparel brands. This included reinventing the company's business processes and overhauling its product lines, marketing programs and retail strategies. Marineau streamlined LS&CO. and instituted a fully integrated operating model for running the company, including a rigorous planning and performance management system. As a result, LS&CO. today is more disciplined, focused and efficient, with faster responses to marketplace trends and more productive relationships with its retail customers. The company's Levi's® and Dockers® brands are resonating with consumers again. Marineau also launched the Levi Strauss Signature® brand, which expanded the company's market reach to include value-conscious shoppers in the sizeable mass retail channel.

Prior to joining LS&CO., Marineau was the President and Chief Executive Officer of Pepsi-Cola North America from 1997 to 1999. Under his leadership, Pepsi outgrew Coke in North America for the first time in years.

From 1996 to 1997, Marineau was President and Chief Operating Officer of Dean Foods Company where he oversaw a substantial increase in both sales and earnings. He led the successful repositioning of milk as a beverage rather than a food item.

Prior to Dean Foods, Marineau was a 23-year veteran of the Quaker Oats Company where he held progressively responsible positions, including President and Chief Operating Officer from 1993 to 1996. As COO, he had worldwide responsibility for the company and its brands, including Gatorade, which grew into a more than $1 billion global powerhouse in the sports-drink industry under his leadership. He also helped to build many other well-known Quaker brands around the world.

Currently, Marineau is a board member of the Meredith Corporation, Kaiser Permanente, the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy, the Holy Family Day Home and the American Institute of Public Service. He also is on the advisory board of Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management.

Marineau received his Master of Business Administration from Northwestern University in 1970. He received a Bachelor of Arts in history at Georgetown University in 1968.

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Bruce Nelson, Vice Chairman, Omnicom Group
Bruce Nelson is Vice Chairman of the Omnicom Group (OMC). His responsibilities include accelerating the growth of the operating companies and business development across marketing disciplines. He is the Co-Director of Omnicom's MBA Residency Program.

Previously, he was Executive Vice President, Chief Marketing Officer, of Interpublic (IPG) from 2000-2005. While there, he built Magna Global – the first aggregated media negotiating company – in 2001. He built the sixteen-company marketing communications network for Bank of America in 2002. In 2003, he was the architect of Interpublic's Licensing entity, Magna Licensing, aligned with Bragman Nyman Cafferelli. In 2004, he built FLAG, a dedicated specialist agency serving Bank of America for its enterprise-wide projects. In addition, he was the architect of Draft Worldwide's go-to-market strategy: Behavior Path Marketing.

From 1998-1999 he was Vice Chairman of Young & Rubicam Inc., the holding company of Y&R Advertising, Wunderman, Burston-Marsteller and Landor Associates.

Prior to that, Mr. Nelson pursued a multi-disciplinary career at McCann-Erickson Worldwide for 19 years, holding Executive Vice President titles as Director of Worldwide Accounts and Director of Strategy for Worldwide Accounts. He was the youngest Executive Creative Director in the agency's history.

He is the author of three proprietary frameworks in which to view Brands that have been accepted and institutionalized by marketers around the world. They are Immediacy Marketing: Selling in Real Time, The Brand Footprint, and Managing Leadership and Challenger Brands.

He has been the author and architect of long-running campaigns that have redefined their categories: "Higher Standards" for Bank of America, "Minds Over Money" for Shearson Lehman Brothers, "Common Sense. Uncommon Results" for Fidelity Investments and "These Times Demand The Times" for The New York Times. In addition, he was responsible for the successful repositioning of the Gold Card from American Express in 1980 and the successful launch of the Platinum Card three years later. In addition, Mr. Nelson is the author of notable campaigns for Coca Cola, Alka-Seltzer and Exxon to name a few.

Mr. Nelson has been a lecturer on both Branding and Global Branding at the Columbia Business School and at the Yale School of Management.

Mr. Nelson is currently a Director of Prince Sports, Inc. and IGA Worldwide, Inc.
He has served on the Boards of Modem Media, Inc., Official Payments Corp., iTurf, Inc. and Zeborg, Inc.

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Betsy Pace, Executive Consultant, Spark and Kindling
Betsy Pace is an executive and consultant with deep experience in startups as well as established corporations. She helps companies develop and execute strategy, set goals and priorities and achieve results.

Pace has spent over 20 years developing disciplined approaches to marketing, strategy and company stewardship. She served as vice president, marketing, for Computer Curriculum Corp., Paramount Communications' educational software division, and as general manager of Paramount Interactive. Following her work with Paramount, she joined OnLive Technologies as vice president of marketing and went on to become the Internet startup's CEO. She began her career overseas with The Boston Consulting Group, then returned to the United States to lead Apple Computer's K–12 Education Team.

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Bob Plummer, Sr. Director, Information Technology, VMware, Inc.
Bob Plummer has led the information technology departments for some of the most successful Silicon Valley companies, all in the startup phase. In his 25 years in the field, he has been IT director for Netscape, Gupta Technologies and Good; his resume also includes stints at Sun Microsystems, where he was manager of servers and networking and Tandem Computers, where he was IT manager.

Prior to VMware, he was VP of IT and Network operations for Reactrix. At Reactrix, he helped develop the Reactrix Media Center and STEPscape Media Network's "unplug and play" technology.

When he's not working on improving IT systems, Plummer is out flying one of his two aircrafts (a Cirrus and a single-engine Cessna), coaching the Lego Robotics Team or making wood furniture. He also serves as an advisory board member for Protogent and MBA advisor at Notre Dame de Namur University.

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Michael Powell, Chairman and CEO, MK Powell group
Michael K. Powell is the former Chairman of the United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Mr. Powell was first appointed to the FCC in 1997 by President Clinton and was designated Chairman in 2001 by President George W. Bush.

During his tenure at the FCC, Mr. Powell set out to bring FCC regulations into the 21st Century and to recognize the move of voice, video and data technologies away from limited analog platforms to powerful digital applications that bring more value to the public.

Prior to his tenure at the FCC, Mr. Powell served as Chief of Staff of the Antitrust Division in the Department of Justice. Michael Powell also served as a policy advisor to the Secretary of Defense and as an armored cavalry officer in the United States Army. Mr. Powell has formed his own consulting firm, The MK Powell Group, and has joined Providence Equity Partners, a private equity firm.

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Alex Yemenidjian, Chairman and CEO, Armenco Holdings, LLC
Alex Yemenidjian was formerly the Chairman and CEO of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Inc. until April 2005. While at MGM, he oversaw all operations of this diversified entertainment company, encompassing the production and distribution of motion pictures, television programming, music and home entertainment products including video, DVD and interactive media. Prior to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Inc. Mr. Yemenidjian was president and COO of MGM Grand, Inc. (now MGM MIRAGE, Inc.). He currently serves as Chairman and CEO of Armenco Holdings, LLC, and he is a member of the Board of Directors of Guess?, Inc., Regal Entertainment Group, The Lincy Foundation, The United Armenian Fund and USC Marshall School of Business Board of Leaders. He is Co-chair of Imagine the Arts Campaign at California State University, Northridge and Trustee of Baron Investment Funds Trust.

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