Board Members
Shri Dodani
President and CEO, StrataLight Communications
Shri Dodani is the president and chief executive officer at StrataLight Communications, Inc., the leading supplier of 40G DWDM systems. Mr. Dodani is a veteran executive of the computer and communications industries with engineering, sales and marketing experience at major silicon, systems and software companies. Prior to joining StrataLight, Mr. Dodani held several executive positions at Intel (INTC) including head of business development for the Consumer Electronics Group and general manager for the Communications Group. Mr. Dodani was previously president and CEO at VxTel, a Silicon Valley voice-over-IP silicon and software start-up that was acquired by Intel. Before VxTel, Mr. Dodani was vice president, engineering and operations, at Carrier Access Corp. (NASDAQ: CACS), with responsibility for engineering, product development, manufacturing and market introduction activities. He joined the company at an early stage, and managed its triple digit growth, which led to a successful IPO. Prior to Carrier Access, he held senior management positions as Nortel, Alcatel, ADC Telecommunications, and Computer Automation.
Sohail Khan
CEO, SiGe Semiconductor
Sohail Khan has more than 25 years of experience in the communications and semiconductor industries, with a track record of building large, successful global businesses, creating new products, and developing new markets. Mr. Khan is currently the CEO of SiGe Semiconductor. Prior to that he served as an entrepreneur in residence and operating partner at Bessemer Venture Partners, where he was responsible for evaluating communications deals and providing assistance to portfolio companies. Previously, he helped to execute Agere's IPO spin-out, and held the positions of executive vice president of Infrastructure Systems and chief strategy and development officer. During his career, Mr. Khan served as president of Lucent's Integrated Circuits - Microelectronics Division, where he grew the company's market position in cellular handsets and base stations through collaboration with some of the industry's leading names in this segment. Mr. Khan has also held various management positions at NEC Electronics, Intel and the National Engineering Services of Pakistan. Sohail holds a master of business administration from the University of California at Berkeley, and a bachelor of science in electrical engineering from the University of Engineering in Lahore, Pakistan.
Larry Finch
Managing Director, Sigma Partners
Larry Finch joined Sigma Partners in 1987. He is a true pioneer of the high technology industry and has more than 40 years of experience in founding, managing and financing businesses. Throughout his career, Finch has served in roles as technologist, worldwide sales and marketing executive, and general manager of businesses units. He tracks a wide range of technologies, but tends to specialize in semiconductors, fabless semiconductors, and business software.
Most recently, Mr. Finch was president and CEO of Paradise Systems, Inc. When he joined Paradise in 1984, it was a troubled venture capital-financed start-up company with annual revenues of $4 million. In two and one-half years, he established the company as the worldwide premier supplier of IBM-compatible personal computer video controllers. He then sold the company in 1986 to Western Digital Corp. for $70 million in stock. Prior to Paradise, he was the founder, president and CEO of Shasta General Systems, Inc., a seller of small business computer systems, which he grew to $20 million in revenues and then sold to Zentec Corp. in 1983. Before founding Shasta, he held senior management positions with Singer Business Machines and Friden, Inc.
Gerry Langeler
Managing Director, OVP Venture Partners
Gerry Langeler joined OVP Venture Partners in 1992 and focuses on investments in the digital energy, software, imaging and digital biology sectors. His investments include Captivate Network, Carbonflow, Elekom, EnerG2, Foundstone, Max-Viz, M2E Power, Now Software, Portland Software, Preview Systems, Surplus Software, TView, Unify, Vascular Solutions, Viral Logic Systems Technology (VLST), and Webridge. In addition to GainSpan, Mr. Langeler currently serves on the boards of directors of Advanced Inquiry Systems, Carbonflow, Collaborative Software Initiative, EnerG2, Max-Viz, M2E Power and Viral Logic Systems Technology (VLST) and he is a board observer to Serus and Tigo Energy.
Prior to joining OVP, Mr. Langeler co-founded Mentor Graphics Corporation (NASDAQ: MENT) in Portland, Oregon in 1981. There he served as president, and over eleven years helped lead Mentor through its IPO to over $400M in worldwide sales and over $1B in market capitalization. He began his technology career at Tektronix.
Mr. Langeler received his AB in Chemistry from Cornell University and his MBA from Harvard University. He is the author of The Vision Trap (Harvard Business Review, 3/92). He also authored a chapter in Venture Capital Best Practices (Aspatore Books, 2005). He serves on the advisory board of Highway 12 Ventures in Boise, Idaho.
Carl Showalter
Founding Partner, Opus Capital
Carl Showalter is a founding partner of Opus Capital investing in Internet and data communications startups. Previously, Carl was a general partner with Lightspeed Venture Partners. Carl brings more than 12 years of operating experience to Opus. Most recently, he served as vice president of marketing at Juniper Networks, where he built and led a global marketing and product management organization. Prior to Juniper, Carl was vice president of dial and broadband services for UUNET, overseeing a 300-person, $1B revenue division. He also held various sales and management positions at ANS, an AOL company, where he helped build AOL's modem access network and then helped launch hardware-based firewalls and IP VPNs in the mid 1990's. Carl began his career at Bellcore, focusing on network security and data service delivery. At Bellcore, Carl performed logical and physical attacks on phone company infrastructure, helping them fix these vulnerabilities. Carl holds a BS degree in systems engineering from the University of Virginia. and an MS degree in engineering-economic systems from Stanford University.
Stephen J. Socolof
Managing Partner, New Venture Partners
Stephen J. Socolof has spent his career focusing on corporate innovation. In 2001, Mr. Socolof and his colleagues formed New Venture Partners as an independent venture fund to partner with and support global technology corporations in bringing to market their internal innovations through the creation of spinout ventures.
Prior to forming New Venture Partners, he joined Lucent Technologies in 1996 to plan for and, in 1997, establish the Lucent New Ventures Group responsible for developing spinout ventures to commercialize technology from Lucent's Bell Labs. Under the leadership of Mr. Socolof and his partners, the Lucent New Ventures Group became the benchmark corporate venture organization for external commercialization of internally-developed technology.
Before joining Lucent, Mr. Socolof spent eight years with management consulting firm, Booz, Allen & Hamilton Inc., where he was a leader of the practice focused on enhancing corporate innovation and increasing the productivity of the R&D organization. He worked with many global technology corporations to improve the return on their R&D investments by enabling them to identify and bring new products and businesses to market more quickly and successfully.
At New Venture Partners, Mr. Socolof leads deals in semiconductors, software, storage, and wireless. In addition to GainSpan, Mr. Socolog serves on the boards of InPhase Technologies, Inc. and Procelerate Technologies, and is a board observer at DAFCA, Inc., Silicon Hive, and Veralyte. Mr. Socolof holds a BA in Economics and a BS in mathematical sciences from Stanford University and an MBA from The Amos Tuck School at Dartmouth College, where he was a Tuck Scholar. He currently serves on the board of the Center for the Study of Private Equity at the Tuck School.
Greg Winner
President & CEO
Greg Winner has over 30 years of semiconductor experience, with emphasis on product development and operations. Most recently, Mr. Winner held the position of CEO for ZeroG, a privately held semiconductor company focused on Wi-Fi for the embedded space. Previously he was the General Manager of the GPS Business Unit at Atheros Communications, Inc. and was formerly CEO, u-Nav Microelectronics which was a privately held semiconductor startup focused on GPS solutions and acquired by Atheros. He also served as Sr. Vice President, Engineering and Quality for Applied Micro Circuits, Corp where he managed product development, central engineering, quality and operations related functions for the optical communication IC market. During his previous 17-year tenure at Silicon Systems Inc., Mr. Winner held several management positions that included the development of high performance analog, mixed-signal and digital integrated circuits for Storage applications.