Michael Gale
Chief Executive Officer
Michael is Chief Executive Officer of Gramercy Venture Advisors and is based in New York. Michael has over 30 years of business, investment and managerial experience in the Asia-Pacific and US markets. In 2001, Michael co-founded Gramercy Venture Advisors, a boutique investment bank focusing on the technology industry, digital media and sustainability. As CEO of Gramercy Venture Advisors, he established the company as a leading merchant bank building business models, value chains and cross-industry partnerships on a global scale and led the development of Gramercy Private Equity, the PE arm of Gramercy that specializes in Special Purpose Private Equity Funds and is the manager of the Asia BrandTech Fund.
Prior to the founding of Gramercy, Michael spent eight years as CEO of Double Impact, a leading San Francisco based venture catalyst. Michael has helped in the development, funding, growth and exit of over 100 early stage technology companies from around the world. He has extensive international experience in building, funding and managing start-up companies. Prior to Double Impact, Michael was Managing Director of Macromedia's Asian operation during the three years leading to its very successful NASDAQ listing in December 1993. As well as his involvement across the full range of activities at Gramercy Venture Advisors and Gramercy Private Equity and serving on the various group Boards and Investment Review Committees, Michael sits on the Boards of a number of portfolio companies. Michael is also the founder of the not-for-profit global democracy site www.voteglobal.com.
Amy Swartz
Director, Corporate Development
Amy Swartz co-founded Gramercy Venture Advisors in 2001. Amy has been involved in international business development, finance and marketing for over 10 years, working closely with Gramercy clients and portfolio companies to accelerate their global growth. Her international experience encompasses regions including North America, Europe, Australia, Japan, China and SE Asia. Amy has worked directly with over 100 start-up technology companies primarily in the US and Australia.
Prior to Gramercy, Amy spent several years as a consultant with Double Impact, Inc., a leading San Francisco based Venture Catalyst. She holds a Bachelor of Science in International Business, Marketing from San Francisco State University. Amy has several Directorships including Gramercy Venture Advisors, Itrek Nepal and Light of Lanka Foundation, a non-for-profit with which she is personally associated.
Dave Weinstein
Partner and Director
Dave is an accomplished entrepreneur and technologist. He is well known in the Silicon Valley community for his incisive analysis of technology trends and is a regular contributor to the technology press. He holds the position of Senior Editor for Gizmag Magazine (www.gizmag.com) since 2004, serving as technical expert. Prior to joining Gizmag Dave was VP of Business Development for Visto Corporation (www.visto.com) of Redwood Shores , CA, a leading mobile messaging and synchronization software provider . Prior to Visto, Dave founded and was Chairman and VP of Product Marketing for netdrive.com, an innovative online storage provider. Visto Corporation acquired netdrive.
Simon Blagden
Group Executive Chairman PEGG
Simon has over 20 years' experience in the telecoms and IT industry, living and working in most regions of the world across a truly international career. Following 5 years at GEC Plessey as International Commercial Manager and then Country General Manager, Simon joined The Quante Group as UK Managing Director. In 1995, he joined Quante's main board as International CEO, with operations in over 50 countries worldwide, and he led the sale of the company to 3M in 2000. Simon was appointed a Member of The Order of The British Empire in 1997 for services to industry. Simon is also non-executive Chairman Fujitsu Telecommunications Europe.
Martin Cooper
Advisory Principal
Martin is a solicitor and businessman who has worked for a number of major law firms in Sydney, New York and London as well as operating his own practice for the last 25 years. As a lawyer he has a higher degree in tax and trade practices law and has always specialized in entertainment and copyright law.
As such a specialist, he spent 4 years at Network Ten and was subsequently General Manager Corporate Planning at News Corporation Limited. Here he worked closely with Rupert Murdoch on the evolution of his plans for TV and film in Australia and world wide as well as on the acquisition of the London Times, Ansett Airlines and The Herald & Weekly Times. At this time he was also CEO of the production company for the film “Gallipoli”- a joint venture between the Robert Stigwood Organisation and News Corporation Limited.
As a lawyer he has been involved in the financing of approximately 70 feature films and many documentaries and television programs. He has also advised on more than 20 Offer Documents For public offers on films and has issued seven in the name of his licensed dealer company.
He has been a director of a number of companies in the Beyond International Group, television stations Ch10 in Sydney and Melbourne and has owned and operated a television station in Western Australia.
More recently, Martin has been CEO of multimedia investment fund, the Australian Multimedia Enterprise Limited and has worked in venture capital for information industry start-ups and related businesses. He has worked closely with Allen & Buckeridge, which acquired the AME, and has had extensive experience in international financing arrangements for games, completion bonding for games and the games market place. He has attended every E3 since 1996 and all but one ECTS in that period. He has extensive connections with publishers, financiers and bonding companies as well as lawyers in those areas in UK and US.
Martin is now pre-occupied with professional directorships in a number of start-ups in the new media and IT areas including Pre Angels Management Pty Limited, a VC investment facilitator, Team Bondi Pty Limited, which operates in the video game industry, Eball games Pty Limited, IDSecure Pty Limited, a leading provider of customer relationship management software, Hubonline Global Pty Limited (until April 2006), Rising Sun Pictures Pty limited (a film and computer special effects developer) and Depth Analysis Pty Limited, each of which is developing new technology for the internet. He is also a director of Barmetrix Pty limited, a provider of software to the liquor industry and a consultant to Global Optics Pty Limited and Brainbow Films Pty Limited.
He is and has been director of several listed companies and, through his directorship of Lloyd Cooper & Associates Ltd has had a dealer’s license with which he issued a number of prospectuses for films.
Martin is a keen yachtsman, has been a Trustee of the Ted Noffs Foundation for 30 years and is currently a Director of the Gut Foundation of Australia.
David Daniel
Group Managing Director PEGG and Vice Chairman PEGG Capital AG
David is one of the original founders of PEGG in Asia Pacific and a highly experienced Company Director in Australia and Europe, of some 22 years tenure in both Australian and international private and public firms. David specializes in Strategic and Capital Structuring, Capital Facilitation, Listing and commercialising businesses throughout The UK, Europe and USA. David is a resident of The Isle of Man.
Directorships
Director and Partner – Private Equity Gateway Group (EU) Limited,
Vice Chairman & Director, Supervisory Board: PEGG Capital AG,
Director: Azurn EU Limited
Director DII (IoM) Limited
Director DataRE Limited
Board advisor and alternate Director, Gramercy Venture Advisors Inc. USA, Australia, China.
Gale Aguilar
Advisory Principal
Gale's years of operating experience in the high tech industry has allowed him to recognize the management and organizational challenges to growth, as well as the roadblocks. His executive experience in companies from 2 people to over 400,000 give him understanding of the problems and opportunities that exist at organizations of all sizes and to appreciate that their solutions are very different.
Gale has served in senior management roles in sales, marketing, development and corporate development. Positions include CEO, Chairman, President, VP of Marketing, Senior VP of Corporate Development and Strategy. He currently serves as founder and chairman of an unmanned helicopter company and chairman and former president of 2Phase Technologies. At IBM Corporation Gale held many positions including responsibility for all US systems marketing and world wide systems requirements, systems strategy, data security and privacy as well being responsible for marketing to the aerospace industry. He entered the company as an engineer and then moved up the ranks in sales to broader executive positions..
Following IBM he joined a new management team at Prime Computer where he was VP and a member of the Management Committee. In six years the company was grown from 300 million dollars in revenue to 234 on the fortune 500. He has been associated with many pioneering efforts in computing and holds a patent in storage technology. From the mid 80's he has been a principal in the acquisition and sale of companies from private corporations to public companies on the American, NSDQ, and NYSE exchanges. During this period he has taken several companies public.
In the most recent 10 years he has been the CEO of a defense contractor building and pioneering a new class of armored vehicles for the US and foreign defense departments, president of a software company, and CEO of 2Phase Technologies. He has served on numerous boards of companies both private and public, US and foreign including Chairman and Managing Director of a UK corporation.
Gale served in the Naval Reserve and on active duty with the US Army. He was recognized for his contributions to the Apollo program.
Roger Akers
Advisory Principal
Roger has over 25 years of experience in technology related environments. As an IT Services executive, Roger managed the development and delivery of large-scale software systems in over 80 client environments. Efforts included technical and management assignments of national consulting firm, Systems and Computers Technology Corp., as well as the building of regional IT consulting firm as Managing Partner (PRODATA, Inc.). With a staff that ultimately grew to 480+, PRODATA, Inc. provided management and technical IT consulting to public and private sector clients in the western US. Upon the successful merger of PRODATA with a national IT services firm, Roger developed a consulting to industry leaders such as Intel and Cisco Systems. In addition, Roger helped develop and invested in a number of technology companies in the US and internationally.
In 1998, he co-founded Akers Capital LLC. After successfully raising the Pac West Technology Fund in 2000, Roger and the team have invested in, mentored and matriculated a number of emerging technology companies. His enjoyment of working with the best and brightest teams possible has been Rogers’s primary motivation throughout his career. Managing projects, participation in the building companies and investing capital has provided a great opportunity and provided many insights into the intricacies of technology based business development. Roger enjoys providing emerging companies support by participating on their boards, and acting as sounding board as the companies develop. He also enjoys working with other community minded individuals to develop an environment where such companies can thrive.
Roger has undergraduate degrees in accounting (CPA) and Computer Science and a Master of Business Administration. He is currently Chair of the Golden State Capital Network board; is immediate past Chair of the Sacramento Area Regional Technology Alliance (SARTA); and immediate past Chair of McClellan Technology Incubator (MTI). In addition, Roger is a CSUS CBAC and University of California Davis Connect Program Board member. He also participates on advisory boards of the Graduate School of Management and the Department of Research (ERAB member) at the University of California, Davis. He is also a member of their Board of Trustees. Roger also serves as treasurer of the Sacramento Angels investment group.
Marvin Avilez
Advisory Principal
Marvin Avilez has over 15 years experience in new media at companies including Macromedia, Apple, Oracle and RespondTV. Over the past 5 years Marvin has focused on consulting to startup companies from an operational standpoint. He currently is a co-founder of Social Amp an extendable platform which allows websites to become instantly social. Marvin spent 14 yrs in the United States Marine Corps Reserve working in micro-electronics, Interrogation & Translation and Counter Intelligence. He has served in various conflicts around the world and currently resides in New York.
John A. Dembitz
Advisory Principal
John is chairman of TITUS International Ltd., and EAC Management Ltd., and a non-executive director of Park Group Plc, Lee Baron Group Ltd, and The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, and was Chairman of Coffee Point PLC sold to Bunzl PLC, TACK International Ltd sold to PRC Group, and CVO Group BV. In addition to his directorships, John has an involvement with entrepreneurial businesses in an advisory capacity, and has a small property business.
After graduating from London Business School in July 1975, John joined McKinsey & Co Inc for a period of five years where he worked with large industrial and technology clients in the UK, Europe and North America. He was then appointed Group Executive with Consolidated Goldfields and Executive Director, with overall responsibility for strategy, of Amey Roadstone Corporation Ltd., a leading construction materials business. This was followed by a period in investment banking as an executive director with Charterhouse Bank. In 1985, he was appointed CEO of Valin Pollen Ltd, a quoted corporate and financial communications consultancy. In 1990, John joined his brother to build IDOM SA, a banking/IT consultancy. Within five years IDOM became Central and Eastern Europe's largest consultancy, and was acquired by Deloitte & Touche in 1995/1996. This was followed by a brief period as a partner with Korn Ferry International.
John has a BSc Hons from Manchester University and an MBA from London Business School, where he is also a member of the Global Advisory Council.
John, was born in Budapest and lives in Wimbledon, UK.
Elaine Harris
Advisory Principal
Elaine Harris currently resides in London and Los Angeles and brings over 27 years of experience as a Technology and Assurance Partner of Ernst & Young. During the past 5 years, she served as a Technology & Security Risk Services partner in London working with clients throughout Europe, the Middle East and Africa focusing on the Technology, Media, Entertainment, Consumer Products and Automotive industries. She worked extensively throughout Poland, Hungary, Russia, the Ukraine, Czech Republic, Austria and Hungary working with UK and US multinational expanding into the Region.
From 1999 to 2005, she led the firm's Asia Pacific Risk and Advisory Services practice in Tokyo. She worked with multinational companies throughout the region to help them improve internal controls, corporate governance, due diligence, security, business continuity and operational and financial reporting. She led many of the firm's initiatives to help organizations with the complexities of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and similar regulations worldwide. Clients served include The Coca-Cola Company, Unilever, Cadbury Schweppes, LVMH, Hermes, Disney, Viacom, NSK, Merlin Entertainment, Spyglass, Alticor, Vodafone, Sony, Hitachi, ICI, Inchcape, Nissan, Mitsubishi, Astra Zeneca and Royal Dutch Shell.
Ms. Harris previously served in various leadership roles in Paris and the US. Elaine graduated from the University of Florida with a BS in Business Administration.
Chris Laurie
Advisory Principal
After a short career in medical practice, Chris Laurie has been a serial entrepreneur. After establishing a series of horticultural and floricultural enterprises, he founded Hillstowe Vineyards in South Australia in 1979 and Hoddles Creek Vineyards in the Yarra Valley in 1986. Following the sale of his horticultural and winery interests, he founded Micromet Pty Ltd, an IT irrigation management technology.
He is a Founding Trustee of the Australian Institute of Horticulture and was Chairman of Carrick Hill Trust (1985-1991) and Chairman of The Botanic Gardens of Adelaide (1985-1994).
Silvio Salom
Advisory Principal
Silvio is a proven chief executive, change agent and entrepreneur. His expertise in successfully growing technology companies has been acquired and proven through considerable experience. Silvio is an experienced chief executive and non-executive Board member of private and public companies. He has operational expertise with start-ups, as well as with large, rapidly growing companies. Silvio has deep strengths in technology commercialisation, international expansion, mergers and acquisitions, capital raising and publicly listed operations.
The focus of Silvio’s work has been as a technology supplier to Aerospace & Defence, Telecommunication, Aviation, E-commerce, Enterprise and Training markets on a global basis. In 1987 Silvio founded Adacel Technologies Ltd, in Melbourne, as a private company to service the aerospace and defence markets with leading edge technology solutions. Silvio built Adacel to be a $100m world leader in its markets, listing the company in 1998, acquiring a major global player in North America and transitioning the business to the USA. Silvio is Managing Director of Adacel.
In 1990 Silvio co-founded Lochard Pty Ltd to deliver best-of-breed environment monitoring solutions to airports. Silvio remains a non-executive director of Lochard and today, the $20m company is the clear leader in its global market. As with Adacel, Silvio used advanced technology to secure customer preference and acquisition of a USA major to realise global market leadership.
Silvio currently serves as an Advisory Principal for Gramercy Venture Advisors, as an ITC Advisory Board member for the CSIRO, in the Cooperative Research Centres for Intelligent Decision Systems and Smart Internet Technology and as a non-executive director of LogoMedia Inc, a company Silvio founded in Boston to address the on-line machine translation market. He has also served as a director for Melbourne University Private, Vice Chairman of Airport Industries Australia and as founding Board member of the IT&T Skills Hub.
Stephen Tolchin
Advisory Principal
Stephen Tolchin is currently an advisor, board member and investor in early stage technology companies and he is an Advisory Principal at Gramercy Venture Advisors. Tolchin is a limited partner in several venture capital firms. He has served on the boards of directors of MizBiz.com, Web Flow Corp., PowerPlan Corp., Movaris and Double Impact, Inc. He was an executive advisor for many years to Veritas Software Corp, and has been an advisor to Relational Technology Corporation (later Ingres), Bridge Communications (prior to the 3Com merger), Pyramid Technology Corp., Ramp Networks (from early stage through IPO) and Détente Technology (prior to acquisition by Cadence) and to the Johns Hopkins Hospital.
He is a Technology Partner at El Dorado Ventures. He ran a small VC fund and organized substantial angel investment rounds. He has also advised Toggle Entertainment, Optimize Solutions Inc., PeopleMover. Inc., and Intelic. He has been an advisor to Common Loop, Celunite, Enterprise Appliances, and a podcasting company.
Tolchin was previously CEO of Webflow Corp. (now Accentuate) and HAL Software Systems, the multi-platform application software products division of HAL Computer Systems, where he also was Vice President of software engineering for the computer systems business. HAL is a Fujitsu owned company.
Prior to that, Tolchin was Vice President of software development at Pyramid Technology, a public manufacturer of high performance, scalable Unix server computers (now owned by Seimens), and also had responsibility for various marketing functions, including the $80 MM Telecom Business Unit. Tolchin was also vice president of engineering and chief technical officer at NetLabs.
Tolchin was Technical Director at the Johns Hopkins Hospital, where he developed a large-scale client-server based clinical information system in the early-mid 1980’s, Tolchin was supervisor, software engineering, Unix systems and Principal staff at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, a $400 MM defense contractor, where he led the development of HIOS, a large-scale integrated office automation and collaboration system for the US Army. At APL he also led development of local area network technology and database technology during 1979-1986. He was also vice-chairman of the graduate computer science program in the Johns Hopkins University GWC Whiting School of Engineering, and was an assistant professor with joint appointments in the School of Medicine and the School of Engineering.
Prior to this, Tolchin managed major information system projects for Blue Cross-Blue Shield of greater NY, and worked for Analytic Services Corp. He also founded and operated a manufacturing business in the consumer goods market.
Tolchin holds a B.S in Physics from City College of New York and an M.S and PhD. in Physics from New York University.
James M. Walsh
Advisory Principal
Jim Walsh is a Managing Director of Prisma Capital Partners LP, an Advisory Principal of Gramercy Venture Advisors and serves as Chairman of the Investment Committee of the Board of Trustees of Stevens Institute of Technology. His career has spanned more than three decades in capital markets, investment management and private client services in the US, Europe and Asia.
Jim joined Prisma, in 2009 to coordinate its marketing activities. Prisma is a $4.5 billion alternative asset manager, and was a client of his firm, Walsh Advisors, LLC, since 2004. Jim co-founded Walsh Advisors as an advisory firm marketing alternative investment solutions to international institutions, advising on private equity investments and providing strategic financial advice to companies in leading technology spaces.
He has held senior positions managing and building businesses at Zurich Financial Services (Zurich), Société Générale Securities Corporation/SG Cowen Inc. (NY), Prudential Securities Incorporated (Tokyo) and The First Boston Corporation/CSFB Ltd, now Credit Suisse (NY, London, Tokyo).
Jim spent eleven years in Tokyo for First Boston/CS and Prudential Securities where he led the capital markets business, private client groups and investment management throughout the Asia Pacific Region. Prior to moving to Asia Jim managed the global new business effort for the market-leading CSFB capital markets group in London and served on the CSFB Executive Committee. Previously he had been co-head of the First Boston Capital Markets Group.
Jim is a former director and advisor to several investment funds including a listed (NYSE) private equity fund. Jim began his career at The Bank of New York and has been an Associated Member of the New York Stock Exchange.
He has an MBA from the Columbia University Graduate School of Business, and a BS and MS in physics from Stevens where he also is a member of the Advisory Board of the Wesley Howe School of Technology Management.
Jim is a member of the Board of Governors of the Foreign Policy Association, a member of the American Chamber of Commerce in Japan (1984 – present) and a past member of its Board of Governors.
Randy Boyer
Partner
Randy has over 20 years of strategic business development, sales, marketing, corporate development, legal and management experience in the US, Latin American, European, Japanese, South Korean, Chinese and other Asian markets with high-technology companies. During his career Randy has negotiated and closed more than 100 complex strategic business development, licensing, distribution and investment deals on behalf of his employers and clients with major multinational companies in the software, Internet, hardware, mobile and e-learning sectors worth more than $100 million. He has also set-up and managed subsidiaries in Japan, Singapore, Taiwan and the US for several employers and clients.
From 2002 to 2008 Randy was VP Global Business Development for conVISUAL AG, a leading digital application service provider based in Europe and publicly traded on the Frankfurt stock exchange with offices in the US and Asia. Before that Randy worked with Michael Gale and Amy Swartz at Double Impact as its President. Before Double Impact Randy worked with Michael Gale at Macromedia as Director, Japan and Latin America during which time he set up Macromedia’s Japanese subsidiary. Prior to the merger of Authorware, Macromind and Paracomp that created Macromedia in 1990, Randy was the VP of Legal Affairs and International Sales at Authorware.
Nhan Nguyen
Associate
Nhan Nguyen has extensive knowledge in the area of information technology and also has diverse experience in the areas of due diligence, business analysis, competitive analysis, industry analysis, and financial analysis.
Prior to joining Gramercy Venture Advisors Nhan worked as an IT/project manager at Eballgames where he oversees all aspects of IT related projects from requirement specifications to implementations and rollouts. During his time at Eballgames Nhan was also involved in the business development side of the business assisting with the capital raising and business strategy.
Nhan holds a BA in Software Engineering from Monash University Australia and is currently pursuing his MBA at Melbourne Business School specializing in finance.
Rihui Tan
Principal
Tan is a Chinese national with over twenty years experience in technology transfer to China. From 1982-1999 he worked for the State Science and Technology Commission focused on bringing foreign technology into China. In this role he worked with many foreign technology companies to assist them in entering the market. He was based in Hong Kong from 1984-1991 with the Xinhua News Agency (Hong Kong) Branch.
In 1992 he was responsible for establishing Macology Trading, the highly successful state-owned distribution company created to distribute Macromedia’s products in China. As General Manager of Macology he built a very successful market presence for Macromedia. In 1999 Tan left the Commission, which had become the Ministry of Science and established Allitech a software company focused on providing software applications for government ministries. In 2003 he established Wanlitech, a Hong Kong based developer of high end software for the location based entertainment industry. Tan joined Gramercy in early 2005.
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