Bio
Sir Alan Collins
Sir Alan is a former British diplomat and brings to Nair & Co. a wealth of experience in international trade and investment particularly in the U.S., Asia and the Commonwealth countries. His association with various international industry bodies and government organizations provides invaluable political and economic insight to the company's strategies and operations. Sir Alan is currently serving as Director General/Chief Executive of the Commonwealth Business Council (CBC).
Previously, he has been the Ambassador to Singapore and the Philippines, Deputy Ambassador to Ethiopia and the Director General of the British Trade and Cultural Office in Taiwan. He was also the Director General Trade and Investment USA and Consul General New York, where he worked extensively to attract high-value inward investment to the UK.
During his time in Singapore, Sir Alan was part of the delegation that won the Olympics for London in 2012. He is also working as the Olympics Ambassador for the UK and is directing international business-related work from the London 2012 Games aiming at outcomes worth over $1.5 billion to the UK economy.
Kelly Dempski
Kelly L. Dempski is the director of research for Human-Computer Interaction at Accenture Technology Labs.
Esther Dyson
Esther Dyson is an active investor in a variety of start-ups, focusing on technology. Her portfolio of private space and air travel investments includes XCOR Aerospace, Space Adventures/Zero G, Icon Aircraft, Coastal Aviation Software and Airship Ventures. She has flown weightless on Zero-G four times, but hopes to go up again soon.
She is also the organizer of Flight School, an executive workshop for start-ups in air and space. It's in hiatus for 2008, but will resume in 2009.
On the IT side, her investments have included Flickr and del.icio.us, both sold to Yahoo! and Medstory, sold to Microsoft. Currently, she sits on the boards of 23andMe, Meetup, WPP Group, Eventful.com, Evernote, Boxbe and Yandex, the leading Russian search company.
Dyson sold her business EDventure Holdings, along with its Release1.0 newsletter and PC Forum conference, to CNET Networks in 2004; PC Forum and Release 1.0 played key roles in the early development of the PC software marketplace and the commercial Internet. Dyson left CNET at the end of 2006 and (with permission) has resumed doing business under the name of EDventure Holdings.
Richard Hanley
Richard Hanley is the Principal-in-Charge of KPMG's Bay Area and Pacific Northwest Advisory Practices.
Stephen Jurvetson
Who put the "J" in DFJ? A top venture man, around Silicon Valley, he's like a kid in a candy store, transforming science fiction into fact with such enterprises as NeoPhotonics, SpaceX, and Synthetic Genomics. Steve was the first kid on his block to own a Tesla Model S electric car. Actually, he was the first one in the world: he's on Tesla's board, too. Favorite hobby? Rocketry.
Vinod Khosla
Vinod Khosla is the president and CEO of Khosla Ventures. In 1986, he became a general partner Kleiner Perkins, where he took on Intel's monopoly with Nexgen/AMD.
In 2004, Khosla started Khoslaventures in order to create technologies that can have a beneficial effect and economic impact on society. Khosla assists or serves on the boards of a number of technology based companies.
He is also a charter member of TIE, a non-profit global network of entrepreneurs and professionals, and a founding board member for the Indian School of Business.
Aaron Levie
Aaron Levie is the CEO and co-founder of Box.
Scott McNealy
Scott McNealy is co-founder and former chairman & CEO of Sun Microsystems.
Geoffrey Moore
Geoffrey Moore is a best selling author and chairman emeritus at TCG
Advisors. His most recent book is Escape Velocity: Free Your Company's
Future from the Pull of the Past published in September of 2011.
Geoffrey has made the understanding and exploitation of disruptive
technologies the core of his life's work. His other books, Crossing the
Chasm, Inside the Tornado, The Gorilla Game, Living on the Fault Line,
and Dealing with Darwin are best sellers and required reading at leading
business schools.
Hasso Plattner
Hasso Plattner is a cofounder of software giant SAP AG. Today he is Chairman of the Supervisory Board of SAP AG.
Vishal Sikka
Dr. Vishal Sikka is member of the Executive Board of SAP AG and the Global Managing Board, heading technology and innovation for the company. Sikka has responsibility for technology and platform products, including database and technology especially the industry break-through in-memory database - SAP HANA, as well as analytics, mobile, application platform and middleware. He drives emerging technologies and advanced development for the SAP next-generation technology platform, applications and tools. He also oversees key technology partnerships, customer co-innovation, and incubation of emerging businesses. He has global responsibility for the SAP Research organization, academic and government relations.
Amit Singhal
Amit Singhal is a software engineer at Google Inc., a Google Fellow, and the head of Google's core ranking team.
Dick Williams
Dick Williams joined Shell in 1980 after receiving his Electrical Engineering degree from Penn State. He worked in a variety of Shell Pipeline's regions as an Engineer. After returning to Houston for several positions in the business and leading the Commercial Development effort of a major restructuring, Dick served three years as the Commercial Manager for Shell Distribution NA and was appointed President, Shell WindEnergy, Inc. in 2008. Shell’s Wind activities include operating 10 wind farms, eight in North America and two in Europe, with a capacity of 1000 MW and developing new projects in North America. Dick was one of the founding Chairmen of The Wind Alliance, a consortium or academia, government, and industry established to focus on the long term safety, operational, and technical success of the Wind Industry and is Chairman of the Houston Technology Center.
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