The Third Annual Pace Pitch Contest
Judging Panel
Dr. Fred Aslan, Vice President, Venrock Associates
Majora Carter, Founder and Executive Director, Sustainable South Bronx
Stephen Hindy, Co-Founder and President, The Brooklyn Brewery
Thomas Mulligan, Vice President, JPMorgan Chase Bank
David S. Rose, Chairman, New York Angels
M. Bernard Siegel, CPA and Certified Professional Coach
Lori S. Smith, Partner, Goodwin Procter LLP
Dr. Fred Aslan, Vice President, Venrock Associates
Fred Aslan joined Venrock in 2006 and is currently a Vice President in the New York office focused on the firm's activities in healthcare. Prior to joining Venrock, Fred worked at Atlas Venture where he was involved in new medical device and biotechnology investments. Prior to Atlas Venture, Fred was Director of Business Development and Head of Investor Relations for CuraGen Corporation, a public drug development company in Connecticut, where he successfully worked on in-licensing a clinical stage oncology compound, raising $110 million in convertible debentures and securing sell-side and buy-side interest in the Company. Before this, he worked as a management consultant in the Boston office of the Boston Consulting Group, working with biotechnology and pharmaceutical clients.
Fred received an MD from Yale University School of Medicine, an MBA with Distinction from the Harvard Business School, and a BS in Biology from Duke University.
Majora Carter, Founder and Executive Director, Sustainable South Bronx
Majora Carter is founder and executive director of Sustainable South Bronx, an emergent community organization dedicated to the implementation of sustainable development projects for the South Bronx that are informed by the needs of the community and the values of environmental justice. Previously, she served as project director and then associate director of community restoration of the Point Community Development Corporation.
Ms. Carter co-designed the proposal for CityRiver, a job-creation, economic and ecological development for the Bronx River. She also spearheaded the development of the Hunts Point Riverside Park, the first waterfront park on the Hunts Point peninsula in over sixty years. She is a board member of the NYC Environmental Justice Alliance and representative for the Organization of Waterfront Neighborhoods.
Her numerous honors and awards include the 2002 NYC Council Women's History Month Pacesetter Award, the 2000 Environmental Advocate Award for Achievements in Community Development and the 1999 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Environmental Quality Award.
Majora is a life long resident of Hunts Point in the South Bronx, a graduate of PS 48, IS 74, the Bronx High School of Science, Wesleyan University (BA) and New York University (MFA). She is a 2005 MacArthur Fellow, 2002 Open Society Institute Community Fellow.
Stephen Hindy, Co-Founder and President, The Brooklyn Brewery
Steve Hindy is Chairman and President of The Brooklyn Brewery. A former journalist, he became interested in home-brewing while serving as a Beirut-based Middle East Correspondent for The Associated Press. He is Chair of the Brewers Association Board of Directors, a director of Brooklyn's Prospect Park Alliance and the Brooklyn Tourism Board. Hindy was Ernst & Young's Entrepreneur of the Year in 2004. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife, Ellen, principal of Intermediate School 89 in Manhattan. They have two children. With Tom Potter, Hindy co-authored Beer School: Bottling Success at the Brooklyn Brewery, Forward by NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg, published by John Wiley & Sons. Steve has a master's of teaching English from Cornell.
Thomas D. Mulligan, Vice President, JPMorgan Chase Bank
Tom Mulligan is a Relationship Manager in Business Banking, handling a diverse portfolio of customers in the New York City metropolitan area. Tom has been with the firm for 12 years serving in capacities within Corporate Trust, Middle Market Banking and Business Banking. Tom completed the firm's Credit Training Program and has experience in lending to small and medium sized companies.
Tom received his Bachelor of Science in Marketing from Niagara University.
David S. Rose, Chairman, New York Angels
David S. Rose is an entrepreneurial executive and investor with extensive experience in high technology and communications, angel investments, finance and government. He was named by Inc. magazine to the 1998 Inc 500 list as CEO of one of the fastest growing private companies in America. Red Herring magazine has described him as "a patriarch of New York's Silicon Alley" and Crain's New York Business named him one of the City's 25 most influential technology executives.
During the course of his career, Mr. Rose has supervised the creation of an intellectual property portfolio of issued patents appraised at over $100 million and negotiated both domestic and international corporate acquisitions. He was a prime author of the new data messaging protocols for the personal communications industry, and lectures frequently on issues relating to the development of the international information infrastructure.
In 1997 he was honored as a finalist for Ernst & Young's Entrepreneur of the Year Award in the New York New Media category; in 1984, Time magazine profiled him in its "Computer as Man of the Year" issue; and he has been the subject of numerous interviews and articles in print and electronic media. He is a member of the Technical Committee of the Personal Communications Industry Association as well as the Council of Communications Advisors.
Mr. Rose is Chairman of the Board of the New York Angels, Inc., the leading angel investment consortium in the New York region. Through his investment fund, Rose Tech Ventures, he provides capital and management expertise to promising early stage companies. On behalf of his own technology firms he has personally raised tens of millions of dollars in venture, strategic and institutional capital.
With over two decades of hands-on experience in founding, managing and funding diverse companies, Mr. Rose is actively involved in mentoring and advising other entrepreneurs and corporate executives. Dubbed by BusinessWeek "The Pitch Coach" for his ability to help entrepreneurs perfect their fundraising skills, he was a Founding Member of the New York New Media Association and is a frequent guest speaker at graduate business schools including Harvard, Yale, Columbia and NYU. He is also a mentor and judge of Yale University's annual business plan competitions and has judged the annual Students in Free Enterprise national finals. As a regular lecturer for New York's Industrial Technology Assistance Corporation he has taught the Venture Financing and Deal Negotiation section of the FasTrak Tech courses since 1997.
Mr. Rose is Chairman and CEO of Angelsoft, which operates a collaboration platform for early stage equity investing; and Chairman of KoolSpan, Inc., a developer of leading-edge network security technology. He also serves as an active early stage investor in companies including SignStorey, Koolspan, BioScale, DigitWireless, Metaphor Solutions, Goodmail, Content Directions, Zero-G, Critical Mention, Spotlight Data and others. Prior to founding AirMedia Corporation in 1988, for which he served as CEO for over ten years, his career included over fifteen years in real estate development, government, teaching and urban planning.
Mr. Rose was co-founder and Chairman of The Computer Classroom, one of the world's first computer training firms, and spent over ten years developing technology-enhanced commercial and residential real estate in New York, Washington, DC and Boston with the firm of Rose Associates, Inc. Earlier, he served as Deputy Director of the New York office of US Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan. In that position, Mr. Rose represented the Senator on multiple civic and public boards and was the Senator's Special Assistant for high technology and urban planning.
A native New Yorker, Mr. Rose has a BA from Yale University and an MBA in Finance from Columbia University Business School. He is a graduate of the New York City public school system and Horace Mann High School. He is profiled in Marquis Who's Who in America, Who's Who in the World and Who's Who in Business and Industry.
M. Bernard Siegel, CPA and Certified Professional Coach
Bernie Siegel is a licensed CPA and a Certified Professional Coach. He is a graduate of one of the top empowerment coaching programs in the country, and, as a former Executive, has over two decades of real world experience helping to shape success in several well known, fast growing, public and private companies. As the CFO of TD Waterhouse, CFO and COO of Fleet Brokerage Services and CFO of Wit Capital Group, which he brought public, he had a leadership role in establishing them as industry leaders. In addition, he served as the CEO of an international venture capital firm, Yazam, Inc., which raised over $120 million in capital, investing in seed stage start-up companies around the globe. Having frequently served as a board member of many companies, he has helped to improve their performance and achieve their business objectives.
Currently Bernie is devoting his time working primarily with executives and entrepreneurs in fast growing businesses as a professional business coach/consultant and a financial advisor. He has helped them to achieve results they may have thought weren't possible.
Bernie has been a frequent speaker and panel member at various industry events, sharing his knowledge of what makes businesses successful. He was featured as a rising star of Silicon Alley in Red Hearing magazine. Bernie is an active member of the Village-Chelsea Chamber of Commerce, serving on the Membership Committee. He is also on the Board of the International Coaching Federation-NY, and a member of the Business Plan Presentation Committee of the MIT Enterprise Forum.
Lori S. Smith, Partner, Goodwin Procter LLP
Lori Smith, a partner in the firm's Business Law Department and a member of its Technology Companies Group, specializes in representing foreign and domestic companies in various industries with regard to mergers and acquisitions, financings and general corporate matters, with an emphasis on emerging technologies. Ms. Smith has extensive experience acting as outside counsel for companies at all stages of development, from start-ups to public companies. Work for Clients
Ms. Smith has over 20 years experience representing entrepreneurs, venture capital and private equity investors and public and private companies in the structuring, negotiation and implementation of equity and debt financings and private equity transactions, private placements, acquisitions, mergers, strategic alliances, joint ventures, and licensing, manufacturing and distribution arrangements (including distribution via the Internet and wireless means). In addition to advising clients on transactional and contract matters, she regularly provides advice and assistance to companies and their investors with respect to general corporate governance and ongoing compliance matters as well as the various issues that need to be addressed in anticipation of and planning for a public offering, sale or merger.
Ms. Smith is outside general counsel to New York Angels, one of the leading angel investment groups in the Northeast and serves as a member of the Board of Directors of the New York Chapter of the MIT Enterprise Forum.
Ms. Smith was a Senior Editor of Law and Contemporary Problems at Duke University School of Law. Before joining Goodwin Procter, Ms. Smith served as a partner in the corporate and technology practice groups in the New York office of Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld, LLP. Previously, she was senior counsel at Proskauer Rose LLP, also in New York. Ms. Smith is a member of the New York and New Jersey Bars.
Ms. Smith received a J.D. from the Duke University School of Law (with high honors) and a BA from the University of Rochester (magna cum laude).