Roundtable: VCS vs. Entrepreneurs

Tiki Barber

Tiki Barber was a NFL Running Back who played 10 seasons for the New York Football Giants. He was drafted out of the University of Virginia by the G-Men in the second round of the 1997 NFL Draft. Barber was initially drafted to be a 3rd down "change of pace" back but had a break-out year in 1999 when he exploded for 1639 all-purpose yards. Barber never looked back as he ran for over 1,000 yards in 6 of his last 7 seasons. Over that span Barber was a 3-time All-Pro and Pro Bowl selection while helping lead the Giants to Super Bowl XXXV in 2001. Barber rushed for 1,662 yards and five touchdowns in 2006 making him the only RB to have their final season be the biggest rushing season of their career.

Tiki retired after his 2006 campaign as the all-time leading rusher for the Giants. His 10,449 rushing yards places him in the prestigious 10,000 yards club. He became the third player in NFL history to gain more than 10,000 rushing yards and 5,000 receiving yards in a NFL career, joining Marshall Faulk and Marcus Allen.

After retiring from football, Tiki enjoyed a career in media broadcasting becoming a correspondent for NBC's Today Show, an analyst for Football Night in America/Sunday Night Football as well as a broadcaster during the 2008 Summer Olympics on MSNBC.

Thuzio provides an online platform for individuals and institutions to connect with public individuals for instruction, experiences and corporate entertainment and events. Thuzio's initial focus is on major sports (primarily in the New York City area), and will be expanding starting in the Fall of 2012 to over 20 sports nationally and in the Fall/Winter of 2012-13 to music, film, television, cooking and the arts. The company is backed by a variety of strategic investors with deep experience in each of those activities.

Born on April 7, 1975 in Roanoke, Virginia he is the brother of the NFL player Ronde Barber. Tiki graduated from the University of Virginia McIntire School of Commerce, concentrating in Management Information System (Phi Eta Sigma Honor Society) prior to being drafted by the Giants in 1997.

Ayah Bdeir

Ayah Bdeir is an engineer and an interactive artist, and the founder of littleBits.cc, an open source kit of electronic modules that snap together with magnets. Only 6 months after its creation, litteBits has been acquired by MoMA for the museum’s permanent collection, won "Best of ToyFair," been featured on Ted, BBC, Forbes and Popular Science, and called by Bloomberg TV, "LEGO's for the iPad generation."

Bdeir graduated with a Masters from the MIT Media Lab where she was a student in the Computing Culture Group. Prior to that, Bdeir studied Computer Engineering and Sociology in the American University of Beirut.

After the Media Lab (and a brief stint in Finance), Ayah got a fellowship and senior fellowship at Eyebeam Art + Technology center. She taught graduate classes at NYU and Parsons and taught numerous workshops to get non-engineers, and particularly young girls, interested in science and technology. Bdeir was a mentor in the regional reality TV-show "Stars of Science" (initiated by Qatar Foundation) promoting science and technology innovation in the Middle East.

In 2010, Bdeir was granted a fellowship with Creative Commons in recognition of her work, including spearheading the first Open Hardware Definition and co-chairing the Open Hardware Summit at the New York Hall of Science in September of 2010 and 2011. Just recently, Bdeir was awarded the highly prestigious TED Fellowship, as one of 25 innovators in 2012 from around the world.

Bdeir is also the founder of Karaj, Beirut’s lab for experimental art, architecture and technology.

Ayah lives and works in New York.

Kim Chilman-Blair

Dr. Kim Chilman-Blair is the CEO and Founder of Medikidz. Having worked in paediatrics for a number of years, she found herself frustrated at the lack of medical resources accessible to children. With all the available material directed towards parents, she decided to create a product that would help young patients understand what was going on inside their bodies, and lessen the fear that came with a diagnosis.

While studying for a Masters in Entrepreneurship at the University of Otago in her native New Zealand and working full-time as a paediatrician, Kim started writing stories that would eventually become the world's first series of medical information comics for young people. After winning a $20,000 entrepreneurship challenge, she moved over to England with her colleague, Dr. Kate Hersov to fully establish Medikidz.

Since launching in September 2009, Medikidz has created a series of comic books and now has over 20 titles, including Type 1 Diabetes, Epilepsy, Autism and Depression. With books now being distributed worldwide and two new titles being produced every month, Dr. Kim looks set to change the way young patients receive information and support about their conditions.

Howard Morgan

Howard Morgan has more than 25 years of experience serving as a mentor, advisor and investor in entrepreneurial ventures.

Howard was Professor of Decision Sciences at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and Professor of Computer Science at the Moore School at the University of Pennsylvania from 1972 through 1985. He has been a Visiting Professor at the California Institute of Technology and the Harvard Business School. During his academic career he served as an editor of Communications of the ACM, Management Science, Transactions on Office Information Systems and Transactions on Database Systems. His research on user interface technology, and on optimization of computer networks led to his bringing the ARPAnet to Philadelphia in 1974. As a result of this early participation in the internet, he advised many corporate and government agencies on the uses of electronic and voice mail, implementing it throughout the Wharton School in the mid 1970s.

From 1983 to 1989, he served as President of Renaissance Technologies Corp. in New York, where he supervised venture capital investments in high technology companies. He was a founding board member and technical advisor of Franklin Electronic Publishers, one of the first manufacturers of personal computers. He has been an active consultant and speaker to users and vendors in the information systems area for more than 30 years, and has worked with many of the Fortune 100 companies and numerous government agencies.

Since 1989, he has been President of the Arca Group, Inc., nurturing early stage companies and taking them from seed stage through initial public offerings. He also serves as a Director of Idealab, where he was a founding investor in 1996. Dr. Morgan serves on a number of public company Boards, including Franklin Electronic Publishers and Internet Brands, Inc. He is also Chairman or a member of the board of numerous private companies including Energy Innovations, Evolution Robotics Retail, snap.com, MagicWorks LLC and Math For America. He has also served as CEO of Kentek and Franklin during various turnover or transitional periods. In 1997, he was named Delaware Valley Entrepreneur of the Year. Howard is a respected author and a frequent speaker at major industry conferences.

He received a Ph.D. in Operations Research from Cornell University in 1968, and a B.S. in physics from City College of the City University of New York in 1965.

Alan Patricof

Alan Patricof, a venture capital pioneer, founded Greycroft, LLC in 2006. Greycroft is a venture capital firm, with offices in New York and Los Angeles, focused on the digital media sector. The firm has two funds, Greycroft I, with committed capital of $75 million, and Greycroft II, which was initiated in 2010 with committed capital of $130 million. Prior to founding Greycroft, Mr. Patricof was the founder and chairman of Apax Partners, Inc. (formerly Patricof & Co. Ventures, Inc.), the U.S. arm of Apax Partners, Worldwide, LP, now one of the world’s leading private equity firms with $41 billion under management or advice.

During the past 40-plus years, Mr. Patricof has participated in the financing and development of a large number of public and private companies. Companies that he has been involved with at the initial stages are Apple Computer, America Online, Cadence Systems, Office Depot, FORE Systems, Cellular Communications, Inc., IntraLinks, Audible, Inc. and The Huffington Post.

Mr. Patricof is active in the New York and Washington communities as a board member of TechnoServe, Trickle Up Program, Global Advisory Board of Endeavor, Applied Sciences NYC Advisory Board, and the Initiative for Global Development (IGD) Leadership Council. In 2007, he was appointed to the board of the Millennium Challenge Corporation by the President of the United States; he is currently serving his second term. From 1993 to 1995, he served as Chairman of the White House Conference on Small Business Commission.

Mr. Patricof holds a BS in Finance from Ohio State University and an MBA from Columbia University Graduate School of Business. He is married to his wife Susan for over 40 years and he has three sons, Mark, Jonathan, James, as well as seven grandchildren, Lily, Nina, Jack, Chloe, Lila, Riley and Sawyer.

Shawn Reigsecker

Shawn Riegsecker is the founder and CEO of Centro, the leading provider of intelligent media logistics software and services for agencies, publishers, and advertisers. Riegsecker founded the company in 2001 with the goal of making it easier to buy and sell digital media, and since then he has transformed Centro into a partner to hundreds of clients, helping them simplify complex media decisions, connections, and processes in an increasingly digital world.

With its software, market-driven insight, and a commitment to outstanding customer service, Centro executes flawless digital media campaigns, resulting in better campaign performance, higher retention rates, and greater profitability for its clients.

Riegsecker's leadership, commitment to innovation in the digital media industry, and unique approach to culture and employee engagement has led Centro to receive many accolades, including appearing on Deloitte’s Technology Fast 500, the Inc. 500, and No. 1 on Crain’s Chicago Business' Best Places to Work 2011 and 2012.

Riegsecker was an Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year finalist in 2008 and 2011, recipient of the National Association of Newspapers 2008 Advertising Person of the Year Award for his contributions to the newspaper industry, and has been a member of the Young Presidents' Organization since 2010. He is also serves on several boards, including the advisory board for TechWeek.

Locally, Riegsecker is a member of the selection committee for 1871, a community of Chicago designers, coders, and entrepreneurs working together to grow business, and is also an angel investor in the FireStarter Fund, a group of Chicago founders supporting the next generation of entrepreneurs.

Prior to founding Centro, Riegsecker held leadership positions at Real Media, Everstream, and Cleveland.com. He graduated from Bowling Green State University with a B.S. in Business Administration.

Bill Robinson

Bill lives in New York City and is a Strategic Marketer by trade and award-winning journalist by craft. He is first and foremost a passionate marketer who also has grown to love writing about Business, Technology, Marketing and Entrepreneurship.

Bill was a corporate executive for RCA Corporation and was one of the youngest managers in the entire corporation. After the acquisition of RCA by General Electric Corporation (GE) in what was then the largest non-oil merger in history, Bill was the youngest manager in the organization by a differential of more than 15 years.

For more than six years after leaving GE, Bill worked for best-selling author of "The E-Myth: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It," Michael E. Gerber. When Bill started working for Gerber, the HarperCollins' title had sold 150,000 copies. After Bill cold-called a full-page article on Gerber in Fortune Magazine and parlayed that into other print, broadcast and major conference appearances, the book attained sales of over 1 million copies in 18 languages.

Bill was then bitten by the entrepreneurial bug and started Relentless Marketing in 1995 near Silicon Valley. Relentless Marketing has served many clients globally while Bill lived in England and Moscow focusing mainly on smaller, high-tech start-ups in the Internet, Software and Hardware sectors. He helps build these companies through fundraising, mass-media branding and through the establishment of high-level, strategic alliances with bigger players in their niches.

In traveling the world as a journalist, Bill has traveled to over 76 cities in 44 countries. He has written columns, articles and cover stories for The Wall Street Journal Europe, Marketing Magazine (UK), FORTUNE Small Business, Cisco System's iQ Magazine, The Financial Times, Business 2.0, Forbes.com, United Airline's Hemispheres Magazine and Upside Magazine, among others; while his "TechScape" column on The Huffington Post has won broad accolades. Bill's "On Location" columns for Upside magazine won three prestigious ASBPE awards. He also appears frequently on CNN, PBS, Bloomberg TV, BBC News 24 and had a regular segment on SKY News while speaking, moderating and chairing technology, marketing and business conferences worldwide. Bill is probably the only person in the world to have interviewed the Late Sir Arthur C. Clarke, Ray Kurzweil, Dean Kamen, and Vint Cerf, a "Father of the Internet."

Currently, Bill is loving being back in his native New York from his world gallivanting; enjoys going to as many rock concerts as he possibly can; and considers his daughter Katherine "the light of his life."