Shaygan Kheradpir
Chief Information Officer
Verizon Communications

Shaygan Kheradpir is chief information officer for Verizon. He is responsible for information systems strategy, architecture, eBusiness development and implementation, systems development, information processing, commercial services and billing services.

Prior to becoming CIO, Shaygan was president of the eBusiness Group for Verizon, responsible for eBusiness design, implementation and performance. This includes eBusiness systems and operations, e-products and services development, customer acquisition and retention, sales and using the Internet as a distribution channel for all Verizon products and services. In that position, he directed one of the most complex server integrations ever with the redesign of verizon.com.

Prior to the Bell Atlantic / GTE merger, Kheradpir was vice president - Information Technology, Enterprise Systems for GTE, a position he held since August 1998. Enterprise Systems was an organization of more than 4,000 Information Technology professionals across GTE National Operations. Kheradpir was responsible for GTE - IT strategy, architecture, development, production support and deployment.Prior to that, he had served as assistant vice president - Information Technology since 1996.

Kheradpir joined GTE in 1987. In 1994, he was named vice president - GTE Labs, where he directed the company's Software Systems Lab.

From 1992-94, he was adjunct professor of electrical engineering at Northeastern University.

He is a senior member of the Institute of Electrical & Electronic Engineers and serves on Cornell University's School of Electrical and Computer Engineering's advisory council and on the Sun Microsystems' technology advisory council. The National Academy of Engineering selected Kheradpir as one of the nation's 85 outstanding young engineers in 1996. Kheradpir has written more than 20 journal papers and holds one U.S. patent.

He earned bachelors, masters and doctorate degrees in electrical engineering from Cornell University.

Mahvash Yazdi
Senior Vice President of Business Integration and CIO
Edison International

Mahvash Yazdi is senior vice president for Business Integration and chief information officer of Edison International and Southern California Edison. Yazdi, who joined Edison in 1997 with extensive information technology experience, provides strategic direction to drive business performance, process integration, and agility across the various business units of Southern California Edison.

Governing a sizable stake of SCE's corporate center, Yazdi oversees the resources and activities of Edison's Information Technology and Shared Services organizations. This includes strategy, enterprise architecture, software development and infrastructure management, procurement, transportation services, corporate real estate, corporate safety and security, technology governance and program management. Yazdi also launched Edison's telecommunications business in 1999, offering wholesale services to telecommunications service providers. Under her guidance, since 1998, Edison International has been ranked in ComputerWorld's "100 Best Places to Work in IT" six years in a row, and regularly ranks among Information Week's top 500 innovators. Yazdi was named one of Computerworld's "Premier 100" IT leaders for 2002 and received SiliconIran's 2004 Outstanding Woman Executive Award.

Yazdi currently serves on the board of directors of the Claremont University Consortium, Partners in Care Foundation, Columbus Newport Corporation, and as an advisory director for the Lotus Corporation and IBM Corporation. She joined The Southern California Forum of The Trusteeship of the International Women's Forum in 2003.

Yazdi earned her M.B.A. from the University of Southern California and her B.S. in industrial management from Polytechnic University, Pomona. She also completed the Management of Information Technology program at Harvard Business School.

Hossein Eslambolchi
President, AT&T Global Networking Technology Services
AT&T Chief Technology Officer and Chief Information Officer

Hossein Eslambolchi is President of AT&T's Global Networking Technology Services (GNTS), AT&T's Chief Technology Officer (CTO) and Chief Information Officer (CIO). He is responsible for the corporation's strategic technology direction, network operations, research and development, information technology systems and processes, and advises the chairman and senior leaders on technology issues. Hossein is a member of AT&T's Executive Committee, the company's governing executive panel led by AT&T Chairman and CEO David W. Dorman.

As GNTS president, Hossein leads all network development, engineering and operations, as well as the CIO and CTO organizations including AT&T Labs. The GNTS team provides the innovation, networking and technology expertise driving AT&T's business transformation to improve Customer Care, Sales and Network Operations. He is responsible for the design, development, engineering, operations and reliability of AT&T's global network, as well as its Global Network Operations Center -- AT&T's networking nerve center. Under Hossein's corporate management initiatives for Concept of One (do it once, do it right, use it everywhere) and Concept of Zero (zero defects, zero cycle time and automate where possible), AT&T is streamlining and automating processes and systems across the company. In less than two years, these initiatives have significantly improved customer-response time, reduced error rates and distinguished AT&T as the industry's lowest-cost major carrier.

As CTO, Hossein oversees the formulation and implementation of a strategic vision to advance technology in conjunction with AT&T's business objectives. He is the President of AT&T Labs and leads some of the world's best scientists and engineers in the development and creation of new services, tools and capabilities for next-generation Internet Protocol (IP) networks to give AT&T and its customers a competitive edge.

As CIO he provides the leadership to reengineer AT&T's business processes and the underlying information technology (IT) infrastructures -- improving productivity and the value of information within the organization. He leads the direction and alignment of IT to support AT&T's business planning, applications development, architectural design, sourcing, strategic partnerships, technology transfer, and customer satisfaction.

Hossein joined AT&T Bell Laboratories in 1986 and has more than 17 years of expertise in designing and developing packet networks. Under his leadership and guidance, AT&T now operates the most reliable and largest packet network in the world -- carrying approximately 4 pedabytes of packet traffic per day. Hossein also served as interim President of Excite@Home Broadband Networks Services, where he improved network reliability by 51 percent, while the customer base grew by 20% to more than 3 million subscribers. An expert in network reliability and IP technology, he headed up the development team for Fast Automated Restoration System (FASTAR), which AT&T successfully deployed in 1992 making it possible to quickly restore service when high-capacity fiber optic cables are damaged.

Hossein was honored by Computerworld magazine as one of the Premiere 100 IT Leaders for 2004. The Executive Council of New York recognized Hossein with a "Ten Award" as one of its top innovators of 2003. Also in 2003, industry newsletter Light Reading acclaimed Hossein as the number one "mover and shaker" in telecommunications. Additionally, Cisco iQ Magazine ranked Hossein among the world's leading executives with exceptional vision using networking technology to transform their organizations - honoring him as one of its 10 Internet Business Leaders in 2003

Holding approximately 200 patents and applications, Hossein was named "Inventor of the Year" by the New Jersey Inventors Hall of Fame, in 2001. In October 1999, he was appointed an AT&T Fellow (AT&T's highest technical honor). He was honored as a finalist in the 1997 United States National Inventor of the Year competition. The New Jersey Research and Development Council bestowed him with the Thomas Alva Edison award in 1997. In the same year, he received AT&T Labs' Science and Technology Medal.

Hossein is on the Board of Directors for Mindspeed Technologies, Inc. His work has been published in 18 technical publications, and he is on the IEEE editorial board of the Journal of Network and Systems Management. Hossein also serves as AT&T's Accessibility Champion.

Hossein graduated with highest honors from the University of California - San Diego with a B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering and in 2002 was elected as UCSD's alumnus of the year. He received his M.S. in Electrical Engineering and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of California - San Diego.

David Nazarian
co-founder and Qualcom Primary Investor
Smart Technology Venture

Mr. Nazarian is the founding member of Smart Technology Ventures, having successfully completed two family venture funds before founding Smart Technology Ventures III. He is a successful entrepreneur who has founded and built many technology companies and has nearly 20 years of operational and investment experience in the telecommunications and aerospace industries.

Mr. Nazarian was a major investor in Omninet, a company that provided two-way messaging services via satellite for mobile users, when it merged with Qualcomm in 1988. The Nazarian family remains a large shareholder in Qualcomm (Nasdaq: QCOM). Mr. Nazarian serves as Chairman of the Board of Optinetrics, and on the boards of directors for Lucix, Nomadix, Cradle Technologies, and Allard Industries. He also is a member of the Board of Governors for Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. He received his MBA from the University of Southern California.

Joe Pirzadeh
President & CEO
ATSONIC, Inc.

Founder of Atsonic, with 17 years of investment and executive management experience in over 6 different multi-billion markets environment. He is also the founder and Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of ATS Enterprises.
Pirzadeh can be characterized as a scientist, investor, inventor and entrepreneur. He is the embodiment of professional excellence and people management. His continually preoccupation and active participation in assessing behavioral talents in people and applying the results to improving company performance, was one of the key of his executive and investment success.
Also, he was one of the appreciated lectors of Purdue University in Indiana and Shanghai University in China where his favorite topics for discussions are behavioral talent, goal achievement and executive responsible attitude development.
Pirzadeh is holding in both United States and Canada an invention patent related to design of a specific escalator device for gaming industry. Also, he was one of the top technical architects of US mobile missile train and contributes on different Illinois nuclear power plant projects.
Pirzadeh is a Graduate Degree in Mechanical Engineering of Northern Illinois University.

Faraj Aalaei
Centillium communications
CEO & Co-Founder

Faraj Aalaei is Chief Executive Officer and one of co-founders of Centillium communications. Aalaei has more than 19 years of experience in the telecommunications industry. Prior to co-founding Centillium, Mr. Aalaei was the Director of Access Products at Fujitsu Network Communications, Inc., a designer and manufacturer of fiber-optic transmission and broadband switching platforms, from October 1993 to March 1997. Mr. Aalaei also designed advanced telecommunications products at AT&T Bell Laboratories, a telecommunications company, from May 1985 to October 1993. Mr. Aalaei received a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Wentworth Institute of Technology, an M.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Massachusetts and an M.B.A. from the University of New Hampshire.

Ross Haghighat
Triton Systems
Founder, Chairman and CEO

Mr. Haghighat is founder and Chairman of the Board of Triton Systems, Inc., a leading edge nanotechnology portfolio company in Boston, Massachusetts. Triton Systems incubates disruptive product solutions in the fields of life science and engineering, nanoelectronics and advanced composite technologies. Triton boasts a number of breakthrough products which include high barrier nanocomposites for consumer applications, protective coatings for plastic substrates, flexible electronics, and advanced aerospace composite structures.

Mr. Haghighat also serves as the CEO and Chairman of Elecon, Inc., a leading producer of organic semiconductors. He is responsible for setting the strategic and tactical directions of the firm. Mr. Haghighat also co-founder, and served on the Board of Directors of a photonic-based firm that was acquired by a Fortune 500 company in 1999. Earlier in his career, he managed a high technology group at a consulting firm for 7 years. Mr. Haghighat holds graduate degrees in materials science, organometallic chemistry, and in business administration.

Kamran Elahian
Global Catalyst Partners
Venture Capitalist, Managing Principal

Kamran Elahian is a veteran entrepreneur with over 27 years of experience in the high-tech industry. He is currently Chairman of Global Catalyst Partners, a global venture capital fund for investments in communication product companies, which he co-founded in 1999. He also serves as Chairman of ten other companies.
Kamran co-founded ten companies: CAE Systems ('81) a software company; acquired by Tektronix for $75M, Cirrus Logic ('84) a fabless semiconductor company; IPO at $150M valuation, Momenta ('89) a pen-based computer company; failed within 3 years, NeoMagic ('93) a mobile multimedia IC company; IPO at $300M valuation, PlanetWeb ('96) a communication software company for Internet appliances, Centillium Communications ('97) a telecommunication IC company; IPO at $700M valuation, Actelis Networks ('99) a broadband telecommunications systems company, Informative ('99) a customer feedback solutions software company, Entopia ('99) a knowledge management software company, and Greenfield Networks ('01) a telecommunication IC company.
Kamran also founded Schools Online ('96) a non-profit pubic charity organization with the goal to bring the Internet to every school in the world, and co-founded Global Catalyst Foundation ('00).

Behrooz Abdi
VP & GM - Radio Products Division
Motorola Semiconductor Products Sector

"Born and raised in Tehran, Iran, Behrooz Abdi migrated to the US in 1978. He received his Bachelors of Science in Electrical Engineering from Montana State University in 1984 and his MSEE with honors from Georgia Institute of Technology in 1985. He started his career at Motorola as a design engineer working on high frequency mixed signal chips for video and disk drive applications. During his tenure in design and technical management Behrooz earned 14 patents, several
publications and the 1993 Motorola Distinguished Innovator Award.

In 1995 Behrooz became an operations manager responsible for the Radio Frequency (RF) integrated circuits business, serving the wireless and mobile market with Motorola's Semiconductor Products. In 1996 he received the Georgia Tech Outstanding Young Alumni Award. In 1997 he was promoted to general manager for the radio products division and in 1999 to his current position of vice president where he has led
Motorola to the #1 market position in RF integrated circuits within the wireless mobile market. In this role he leads a global business with well over $600M in revenue and operations in the Americas, Europe and Asia Pacific.Behrooz has lectured internationally in the area of communication systems and ICs, and has been the keynote speaker at several conferences addressing the future of Mobile market and technology. In addition to his role within Motorola he is also a member
of the Arizona State University Dean Advisory Council where he and his colleagues advise the dean of engineering on a variety of issues ranging from department curriculum to state education policy, school competitiveness and industry relations.
Behrooz makes his home in Phoenix, Arizona, with his wife Sharon and their three Daughters Shirin, Mandy, and Tara."

Massih Tayebi
Chairman & Wireless Facilities co-founder
Bridge West Venture

Massih Tayebi is Chairman and co-founder of Wireless Facilities Inc. and serves as an executive member of the board of directors. Prior to co-founding WFI, he served as Technical Manager for Computer Integrated Management Systems with responsibility for product life cycle management. Previously, he held a senior faculty position in the Engineering Department at the University of Paisley in Great Britain, lecturing in the areas of planning and control, concurrent engineering, system analysis and design, product development life cycle, plant management and quality function deployment, and total quality management. During his tenure he served as the director of computer integrated management research for the university and headed the development of world class learning centers throughout Europe.

Tayebi received his Ph.D. in the integration of design and process planning and his M.S. in computer integrated manufacturing, both at the University of Strathclyde in the UK. He also did post-doctorate work in the integration of design and inspection at the University of Brunel in London.

Ahmad Bahaei
CTO & Fellow
National Semiconductor

Dr. Ahmad Bahai is a Fellow and the CTO of National Semiconductor's wireless and Information Appliance group. Prior to joining National, he was CTO of Algorex, technical manager at AT&T Bell Laboratories Advanced Wireless Communications Labs, and senior scientist at TCSI. He has served on the advisory board of Sirius Sattelite Radio, GCT, and ZCOM. Dr. Bahai is an adjunct/consulting professor at Stanford University and University of California at Berkeley. His research interest includes adaptive signal processing and communication theory. He is the author of more than 50 papers and reports and his book on "Multi-carrier Digital Communications" is published by Kluwer/Plenum. He also serves as an associate editor of IEEE Communication Letters. Dr. Bahai holds a MSEE from Imperial College, University of London, and a Ph.D. from University of California at Berkeley.

Shahriar Shahabi
Director of Marketing & Corporate Relations
Fourstars.net

With a background in business development, international relations and well-grounded experience in hi-tech start-up companies, Shahriar brings to FourStars.net a unique blend of technology and business expertise.

Prior to FourStars.net, Shahriar was involved with the building of SoundLogic, a Canadian start-up software company that went on to be acquired by Lucent Technologies in 1999. Thereafter Shahriar was strategic consultant to numerous software and internet companies such as Cyntrex (now L3Technologies), emarQ (now Avalist) and Systems Group where he was instrumental in raising their profile and leading them to increased exposure, sales and private investment opportunities.

Shahriar has a Bachelors of Arts majoring in international relations from Simon Fraser University, BC, Canada and as a scholarship recipient has attended the Leadership Institute in the United States where he became certified as a public relations strategist.

Shahriar has lived and traveled extensively across Europe, North America, the Middle East and Far East Asia.

Mr. Alidad Fannanfarma
Chairman
Palmchip

Alidad Fannanfarma has had more than thirty five years of experience in launching of technology projects along with creation of companies for implementation of the projects. In most of these projects he had undertaken the responsibility of their management as CEO or Chairman of the Company. In connection with such activities he had developed business relationships including full representation of some of the largest industrial firms in Europe. Some of his accomplishment related to this period of his carrier are: being founder and Director of a steel rolling mill (750,000MT per year), foOOi-er and builder of a large pipe mill (500, 000 MT per year), Construction of a Lube-oil plant for Esso, Construction of four major ports and jetties, Engineering and Construction of two Nylon Producing plants. In addition, he was Chairman and President of Steel Industry Association (Syndicate).

For past years Alidad Fannanfarma has been active as an entrepreneur in investment banking and Management of high-tech companies. He has served as an expert in the revitalization of the corporations in distress or helped management of start-ups bringing

finance, technology and management for their recovery or growth. Among these companies one can mention: ICT, a semiconductor company making programmable chips; Key Image Inc, a company in Image analysis; Nuko Information Systems Inc., a company in Telecommunication. He was the founder and President of a Sanderling Venture Ltd., Fund in bio-technology venture with a six year life. He holds degrees in civil and mechanical engineering.

Ardeshir Montaseri
President & CEO
Fourstars.net LLC.

Ardeshir Montaseri is the acting president and CEO of FourStars.net and group of companies. He holds a BSc. in computer (software engineering) from Azad University in Tehran, and currently is finishing his MBA from University of Wollongong.

Ardeshir has more than 12 years of management experience in IT industry. He is internationally experienced in all aspects of information technology, innovative problem-solver, who anticipates, analyzes and addresses issues, consistently achieving outstanding results.

K. CYRUS HADAVI, PH.D.
President, CEO, and Chairman of the Board
Adexa, Inc.

K. CYRUS HADAVI, PH.D. President, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board, founded Adexa in 1994 with a singular mission: to bring to market intelligent business planning solutions that synchronize the efforts of all internal and external stakeholders and systems to achieve corporate objectives. The impact of Adexa solutions can be measured with gauges of increased efficiency and responsiveness, or financial markers such as improved revenues, profitability and returns on invested capital. Prior to founding Adexa, Dr. Hadavi directed implementations at i2 Technologies, Inc., delivering business solutions to Fortune 500 companies. Before that, he helped pioneer next-generation distributed problem-solving applications at Siemens. While at Siemens, Dr. Hadavi served as Adjunct Professor at Columbia University, where he taught courses on the application of computer science and artificial intelligence to manufacturing. Besides publishing numerous articles on supply chain management, manufacturing and e-commerce, Dr. Hadavi is a frequent speaker at business venues worldwide. He holds a B.S. degree in electrical engineering and an M.S. degree in industrial management from the University of Birmingham, UK. He also holds an M.S. degree in computer engineering from the University of Southampton, UK, and a Ph.D. in electrical and computer engineering from the University of Michigan.

Brom Mahbod
Oracle Corporation
VP of e-Services Platform

Bahram Mahbod is currently a Vice President at Oracle Corporation in charge of the e-Services Platform Division, responsible for transforming Oracle's family of products into the platform of choice for application development and deployment and developing standard configurations for large-scale deployment of enterprise computing infrastructure.
Prior to his current position Dr. Mahbod was the Vice President of Server Technologies at Oracle subsidiary Network Computer, Inc. (now Liberate Technologies, Inc.), where he built the server engineering organization which developed the highly scalable and reliable server infrastructure for network computing and introduced a number of novel concepts in large scale networks.

Since 1989, when he joined Oracle Corporation, Dr. Mahbod has held various senior technical and management positions at Oracle Corporation and has made substantial contributions both technically to the flagship product as well as developing joint partnerships with major financial and banking institutions for ambitious projects aimed at running operations more efficiently.

Prior to joining Oracle Dr. Mahbod was a member of the technical staff at Hewlett Packard Laboratories engaged in research for the corporation. He was a member of the team which developed IRIS, the first prototype of an object-oriented database. He was also involved in building the foundation of network management at HP Labs.

Dr. Mahbod is on the board or advisory board of a number of companies in Silicon Valley and on the East Coast, as well as seed level venture funds. He has been involved in various conferences and academic activities, and is a former member of the organizing committee of COMPCON. He holds a Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of California.

Mahmud (Mike) Assar
Co-founder/ Senior Vice President of Technology
Lexar Media, Inc.

Mahmud (Mike) Assar has served as Lexar Media's Senior Vice President, Technology since the company's inception in September 1996. From November 1994 to September 1996, Mr. Assar served as the Vice President of Engineering at Cirrus Logic. Mr. Assar is the co-author of several patents related to Mass Storage Flash controller architecture and circuits. Mr. Assar holds a B.S. in electrical engineering from the University of Illinois at Champaign.

Feyzi Fatehi
CEO
eBizZones, Inc.

Feyzi Fatehi is an entrepreneur with 20 years in executive general management, global sales, marketing and business development.

Prior to joining eBizZones as Chief Executive Officer, he served as Senior Vice-President of Worldwide Field Operations at Endeavors Technology - an emerging growth Enterprise Collaboration Software provider, where he was responsible for Sales, Marketing, Strategic Alliances and Channel Partnerships. He helped re-shaped the company's strategy and execution that resulted in tripling the company's valuation in less
than one year.

Prior to Endeavors, he was Vice President of Business Development at Jamcracker, Inc., - a Silicon Valley based provider of web-services for IT and enterprise applications - where he was responsible for technology and business alliances as well as sales and go-to-market channel partnerships. Jamcracker was named among Top 50 most valuable private companies during his tenure.

Fatehi's earlier career was with Hewlett-Packard, where he served for fourteen-years in capacities such as the Worldwide Channels Manager for HP's multibillion-dollar enterprise server business, and Director of Strategic Alliances, Channels and Enterprise Solutions for Asia Pacific where he participated at the regional business reengineering that resulted the business grow from $500 million to $1.4 billion in less than three years.

Fatehi has been published on various IT and business topics. He has delivered multiple keynote speeches at industry events around the globe. He authored the Partnerships and Alliances section for the recently published "Service Provider Strategy" book by Prentice Hall and contributed to a Harvard Business School case study on Global Alliances Strategies. Prior to his move from Silicon Valley to Southern California, Fatehi served as the Chairman of International Business Development Network, and currently serves on the board of Corporate Investment and Strategic Alliances Conference.

Fatehi holds a BS in engineering from University of Texas at Austin, an MS in computer science from Southwest Texas State University, and an MBA in international management from Santa Clara University.

Farhad Mohit
Founder/Chairman
Bizrate.com

BS in math and computer science and BA in economics, UCLA, 1991; MBA in entrepreneurial management, Wharton School, 1996

While at Wharton, he dreamed up BizRate, a Web site that rates e-tailers and tracks down merchandise. He wrote the business plan as his master's thesis, then started the company in June, 1996, in his parents' home with the help of former classmate Henri Asseily, now BizRate's chief technology officer. Today Mohit is the chairman.

Why he would just as soon not be the CEO
''My ego is attached to the business model and the vision, not to building a resume. Having a partner who understands how to get departments to work in sync frees me up to focus fully on the strategic side. That's what I do best.''

Defining childhood experience
Fled the revolution in Iran with his family in 1978. Lived in France, England, and Northern California before settling in L.A. in 1984. ''I met a lot of different kinds of people, and the ones I liked most were not afraid to be themselves. I learned that individuality is a cool thing to have.''

First Web job
Spent the summer of his MBA program designing a Web site for the Wharton Journal, for which he was a columnist. ''While everyone else was getting big internships at places like Goldman Sachs, I went to the Journal. They couldn't pay me, but I did it anyway so I could learn how to work the Web,'' he says.

Business idol
John Hagel, author of Net Worth, a book that sings the praises of Web ''infomediaries'' that help consumers sort out online surfing and spending opportunities. The book is required reading for BizRate employees and investors.

Shahin Hedayat
Centillium Communications
Former President & Co-Founder

Shahin Hedayat is the former President and one of co-founders of Centillium communications. Mr. Hedayat served as Vice President, Engineering, Chief Technical Officer and a Director from our inception in February 1997 until January 2000, when he was named President. Mr. Hedayat has more than 15 years experience in the semiconductor industry.

From September 1985 to February 1997, Mr. Hedayat held various positions at Cirrus Logic, including Vice President of Engineering for Computer Telephony products. He was the architect of V.32bis and V.34 products, which achieved multi-million unit shipments. Mr. Hedayat holds six U.S. patents. Mr. Hedayat holds a B.S. and an M.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor.

Michael Hildreth
Americas Biotechnology Leader
Ernst & Young

Americasleader for Ernst & Young's Biotechnology practice, Michael Hildreth, develops go-to-market strategies and relationship development processes for the industry. A graduate of Stanford University, he has been practicing public accounting for over 23 years, the last twenty of which have been with Ernst & Young. Mike is a recognized leader in assisting leading biotechnology companies with strategic alliances as well as public and private equity offerings. He also regularly consults with clients and colleagues on complex accounting, auditing, and financial strategies matters. In late 1999, the Venture Capital Advisory Group was created under Mike's leadership. This unit is dedicated to serving the needs of the venture capital community. Mike is a frequent speaker on emerging industry, SEC, and growth company issues. He co-developed E&Y's IPO Transformation process and is a contributing editor for Ernst & Young's annual biotechnology report. Mike is also a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and the California Society of Certified Public Accountants.

Ashok Dhawan
President & CEO
Inphi Corporation

A well-respected telecommunications veteran, Ashok Dhawan brings to Inphi more than 25 years of experience in networking technology and business development, much of it in startup environments. He is known for his entrepreneurial management style and established track record of building profitable companies from the ground up by driving sales and revenue growth.

Prior to joining Inphi, Mr. Dhawan founded the Broadband Access Division at Ascend Communications to address the burgeoning DSL market. He served as division president following Ascend’s acquisition by Lucent Technologies, where he quickly carved out a leadership position for the company in the DSL access multiplexer (DSLAM) market.

Mr. Dhawan previously served as the Executive Vice President of Engineering and Marketing at Raycom Corporation. During his tenure, he was instrumental in development of the industry's first stackable Ethernet switch, helping position the company for eventual purchase by Retix Corporation.

Mr. Dhawan has held various senior management positions at Rockwell, Amdahl, Emulex Corporation, and Micom Systems, now part of Nortel Networks. In each of these companies, Mr. Dhawan was responsible for developing new product businesses that captured leading market share in the area of interest.

Arman Pahlavan
Co-chairman
Manatt's Venture Capital

Arman Pahlavan advises emerging growth companies, both public and private, and venture funds in various aspects of their business transactions. His areas of specialty include corporate finance, mergers and acquisitions and intellectual property transactions in various industry sectors including telecommunications, Internet and life sciences. Since 2000, he has represented companies and venture funds in transactions valued at approximately $600 million. These venture funds have included New Enterprise Associates, Draper Associates, Versant Ventures, ABS Ventures, Kleiner Perkins and others. Mr. Pahlavan is the co-chairman of Manatt's Venture Capital and Emerging Companies Practice Group.

Akbar Shokouhi
Co-founder, President & CEO
QThink, Inc.

Prior to co-founding QThink, Akbar Shokouhi held various senior management level positions with Cadence Design Systems, Inc., Applied Micro Circuits Corporation and Unisys Corporation. Mr. Shokouhi brings to QThink over 17 years of ASIC and mixed-signal design, semiconductor technology development, leadership, management, venture capital, and entrepreneurial experience. Mr. Shokouhi received his Bachelor's Degree in Electrical Engineering from Osmania University. Mr. Shokouhi serves on multiple venture capital and corporate Advisory Boards, Boards of Directors, and is a member of the San Diego Telecom Council.

Maryam Rofougaran
Innovent Systems
Co-founder

Maryam Rofougaran is an Engineering Director at Broadcom Corporation in the area of radio development for wireless systems including Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) and Wireless Personal Area Network (WPAN). Prior to Broadcom Maryam and her brother, Reza Rofougaran, co-founded Innovent Systems Corporation, a wireless start-up company. Maryam was vice president of Innovent Systems Corporation when Broadcom Corporation acquired it in July 2000. Innovent Systems has been a very successful acquisition for Broadcom and has generated one of the fastest growing businesses within the company. Since the acquisition Innovent Systems has developed several radio and single-chip CMOS ICs for Bluetooth and WLAN (802.11b, 802.11g and 802.11a). These products are being shipped to customers at very high volume of several million units per quarter.

Prior to co-founding Innovent Systems Maryam provided consulting services in the area of design and implementation of wireless communication products with CMOS, BiCMOS and SiGe technologies. Her consulting projects included IC designs of wireless applications such as GSM, GPS, CT2 Cordless phones, pagers and CDMA front-ends. Her clients included wireless communication starts-ups such as Impala Linear Corporation and BethelTronix, as well as large companies such as Samsung and Rockwell.

Maryam received her BS and MS in Electrical Engineering from the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA). She was also pursuing her Ph.D. at UCLA in Electrical Engineering when she left to co-found Innovent Systems. As a graduate student at UCLA, Ms. Rofougaran played a significant role in the pioneering design of a single-chip 900MHz CMOS transceiver. Ms. Rofougaran is the co-author of numerous papers including the 1995 European Solid-State Circuits Conference "Best Paper Award", the 1996 International Solid State Circuits Conference "ISSCC Jack Kilby Award" for Outstanding Paper, the 1997 ISSCC "Jack Raper Award" for Outstanding Technology Direction, and the 1998 Design Automation Conference "Best Paper Award." Maryam holds three patents and has two pending patents, all in the area of wireless systems and IC design.

Majid Ghafghaichi
Accurel Systems International
Founder & CEO

Majid Ghafghaichi is a veteran technologist with over 38 years of experience in semiconductor engineering. He founded three companies:
1- Accurel systems ('88); an advanced semiconductor technology company, assisting fabless chip companies in reducing their products' time to market. Accurel systems pioneered FIB Technology which is used in Editing silicon chips and Failure Analysis of said company's products.
2- Nano Measurements inc. ('02); a Nano Technology company which assists semiconductor product companies with their Analysis and reliability needs.
3- Pictotest Inc. ('03); which tests and characterizes semiconductor products.
Prior to founding Accurel, Ghafghaichi was General Manager of Data Generals' Semiconductor Division in Sunnyvale CA. (1981 to 1988). He also held several technical management positions in semiconductor product design and development in IBM (1966 to 1981).

HASSAN NEMAZEE
CEO / Chairman
Nemazee Capital Corporation

Born in Washington, D.C. on January 27, 1950 and attended the Landon School graduating in 1968. Received an AB degree with Honors from Harvard University in 1972.

1972 to 1979- Chairman of Iran Foundation, Nemazee Hospital, Nemazee School of Nursing, Shiraz
Waterworks, and Member of the Board of Trustees of Shiraz University (formerly Pahlavi University). 1987- present Chairman and CEO of Nemazee Capital Corporation.

Nemazee Capital Corporation is a holding company, which invests in both public and private companies. 1979 to 1987 Chairman and CEO of HN Properties which developed real estate in Houston, Texas and
suburban Washington D.C.

1972 to 1979, was Chairman and CEO of Nemazee Holdings. Nemazee Holdings was joint venture partner of American International Group (AIG), Morgan Bank, and Linbeck Construction in Iran.

-Member Council on Foreign Relations -2004
-Member Board of Trustees Asia Society -March 2003
-Nominated by President Clinton in 1999 to be U.S. Ambassador to Argentina -Member of the Visiting Committee of the Center for International Affairs, Harvard University 1998 -present
-Member of Visiting Committee on University Resources, Harvard University 1986-2002 -Member of the Board of Directors, American Iranian Counci12001-2002
-Member of the Middle East Center Advisory Council at Harvard University. 1990- 1994 -Member of the International Affairs Planning Committee, Harvard University. 1990-1995 -In 1996 was named a John Harvard Fellow
-Vice Chairman of the Encyclopedia Iranica affiliated with Columbia University 1990- 1998
-Taught seminars at Harvard and also in Japan and Korea in conjunction with Harvard University.
-Member of the Board of Trustees of The Spence School 1993 -1997
-Member of the Board of Trustees of The Brain Trauma Foundation 1996- present

Dr. Jaleh Daie
Managing Partner
Aurora Equity

Jaleh Daei, Ph.D is Managing Partner at Aurora Equity LLC, the firm which is engaged in private equity investment in early stage start-ups across various technology sectors.

Jaleh was the Director of Science and Senior Advisor to the President of David and Lucile Packard Foundation from 1999-2001, Providing executive and scientific direction for an annual budget of over $90 million consisting of a diversified portfolio across life, physical, environmental and engineering sciences including the coveted Packard Science and Engineering Fellowships, one of the program Fellows received the 2001 Nobel Prize in Physics.

Professor, UW-Madison and Senior Science Advisor, UW System (26 campuses and 150,000 students) at University of Wisconsin (1993-1999), Jaleh led teams of graduate students, staff technicians and international collaborators and supported program operations with external funding.

At Rutgers University (1985-1993), She has been also Founder and Director, Center for Interdisciplinary Studies (91-93). As a conceptual architect, founder and chief executive of a center of excellence with 33 faculty, she leveraged IP income with private funds to create new partnerships and a competitive grants program.

Jaleh is Science Liaison to the President’s National Science & Technology Council. Represented USDA Undersecretary to NSTC, a cabinet level body advising the President on all aspects of science and technology. She Worked with White House staff, sub-cabinet appointees and Congressional Committees to fund science and technology initiatives. Special Assistant to NOAA Chief Scientist, U.S. Department of Commerce, Jaleh, as part of the agency's strategic planning, was assigned to develop an agency-wide research strategy. Reviewed policies, drew together inputs from senior executives and drafted a consensus document for implementation.

SELECTED BOARDS AND PANELS

• Member, White House Fellowships Regional Selection Panel (2003-present)
• Advisory Board/Advisor, Investigen, Inc. (2003- present)
• Advisory Board, Nokia Innovent, a venture enterprise of Nokia Company (2002-present)
• Treasurer, Space Foundation. First woman appointed to the board and elected as an officer Serves as chair of the investment committee of the foundation (1999-present)
• Commissioner, Biotechnology and Global Food Security. Center for Strategic and International Studies, Washington, DC (2000-2002).
• Trustee, World Affairs Council of Northern Californ