Mark Suster – Opening Keynote Speaker
Korn Hall – 9:00am
Mark Suster is a partner at GRP Partners. He joined the firm in 2007 after having previously worked with GRP for nearly 8 years as a two-time entrepreneur. Most recently Mark was Vice President, Product Management at Salesforce.com (NASDAQ: CRM) following its acquisition of Koral, where Mark was Founder and CEO. Prior to Koral, Mark was Founder and CEO of BuildOnline, the largest independent global content collaboration company focused on the engineering and construction sectors, which was acquired by SWORD Group (PARIS: SWP). Earlier in his career, Mark spent nearly ten years working for Accenture in Europe, Japan and the U.S.
Mark received a BA in Economics from the University of California, San Diego, and an MBA from the University of Chicago. He grew up in the U.S. and is also a citizen of the UK.
Mark led the investment in Factual and currently sits on the Boards of the following companies in GRP’s portfolio: Ad.ly, Awe.sm, Burstly, Factual, GumGum, Pose and Ring Revenue.
Follow Mark on Twitter http://twitter.com/msuster
You can read Mark’s Blog Both Sides of the Table at http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com
Mike Jones – Closing Keynote Speaker
Korn Hall: 4:15pm – A fireside chat hosted by Dr. Al Osborne
Mike is an Internet executive, investor and strategic advisor. A long-time entrepreneur, Mike founded his first successful Internet company in college and since then, has founded, built and sold numerous online and mobile businesses. His experience and expertise in both large and small companies focuses on strategy, growth, and operational efficiency resulting in over $500M in successful investor outcomes.
Most recently Mike Jones served as the CEO of Myspace. In this role, Mike oversaw global business strategy and operations for Myspace, Myspace Music, and Myspace Mobile, which included board and strategic roles with joint venture partners in Myspace China and Myspace Japan / Softbank. During his tenure, he was responsible for the relaunch of Myspace, one of the most high-profile turn-around challenges in the industry. This included stabilizing a historically negative traffic and user trend, reducing the operational cost of the business by nearly 90 percent and pivoting the product from its legacy as a social network to a social entertainment destination, then selling the business on NewsCorp behalf to SpecificMedia.
Mike has over 18 years of strategic, operational and senior management experience in businesses ranging from early stage start-ups to private equity backed assets and from mid-stage business to large turn-around operations. A serial Internet entrepreneur, Mike has founded, advised, invested and sold numerous businesses, including application platform Userplane, which he led from startup to its acquisition by AOL, Tsavo Media, Movoxx, PeopleMedia, Brizzly and Myspace. Mike is actively involved with early-stage start-ups as an investor, advisor and board member. As an active early stage investor, Mike has personally invested in over 30 startup businesses including Klout, Betterworks, Formspring, ShoeDazzle and LunchMoney to name a few. Mike earned a Bachelor of Arts in International Business and Marketing from the University of Oregon.
Dr. Al Osborne – Host – A Fireside Chat with Mike Jones
Alfred E. Osborne, Jr. is Senior Associate Dean of UCLA Anderson. In this role, he oversees a variety of key areas and initiatives within the school, including resource development, alumni relations, corporate initiatives, marketing and communications and executive education.
Dr. Osborne is also professor of Global Economics & Management and founder and faculty director of the Harold Price Center for Entrepreneurial Studies at UCLA. The Price Center serves to organize all faculty research and student activities and curricula related to the study of entrepreneurship and new business development at UCLA Anderson.
A corporate governance expert, Dr. Osborne formed a Director Education and Certification Program designed to help officers and directors of private firms prepare for the higher level of scrutiny that comes when they take their companies public. This program also educates directors and officers regarding SEC regulations, FASB considerations, Nasdaq rules and the current best practices in corporate governance.
Dr. Osborne is also an expert in social entrepreneurship who has developed several programs that apply business models to the nonprofit world. For more than 13 years, The Price Center has created and run some innovative management development programs, including four in partnership with health care giant Johnson & Johnson: Head Start – Johnson & Johnson Management Fellows Program, UCLA/Johnson & Johnson Health Care Institute, the Johnson & Johnson/UCLA Health Care Executive Program, and the Management Development Institute (MDI) servicing Non Governmental Organizations (NGO) in the AIDS/HIV supply chain in Africa. Other programs include The Institute for the Study of Educational Entrepreneurship (ISEE) and the UCLA/Los Angeles County Office of Education Head Start Leadership Institute.
Dr. Osborne currently serves as a director of Kaiser Aluminum and the Heckmann Corporation, and has served many years on the corporate boards of Times Mirror Company, US Filter Corporation, Greyhound Lines, Inc., First Interstate Bank of California, Nordstrom, Inc. and K2, Inc., among others. He has served as an economic fellow at the Brookings Institution and directed studies at the SEC that contributed to changes in Rule 144, Regulation D, and other exemptive requirements to the securities laws designed to lower costs and improve liquidity and capital market access to venture capitalists and emerging growth firms alike.
Dr. Osborne’s current research interests include venture capital and private equity, and the role of the board of directors in private and public corporations. He remains active in the entrepreneurial and venture development community, has served on the editorial boards of several journals, and consults with growing companies and non-profit organizations on business and economic matters.”