Startups

Guy Kawasaki is the co-founder of Alltop.com, an "online magazine rack" of popular topics on the web, and a founding partner at Garage Technology Ventures. He is also a columnist for the Open Forum of American Express. Previously, he was the chief evangelist of Apple. Mr. Kawasaki is the author of nine books including Enchantment, Reality Check, The Art of the Start, Rules for Revolutionaries, How to Drive Your Competition Crazy, Selling the Dream, and The Macintosh Way. Guy Kawasaki has a BA from Stanford University and an MBA from UCLA as well as an honorary doctorate from Babson College.

Kavita N. Ramdas has won numerous awards for her vision and advancement of an inclusive philanthropy in which donors and grantees are treated as equal partners. In 2005, Kavita received the Juliette Gordon Low Award for her significant contributions to advancing women's human rights and for being exemplary role model for girls and women. In 2004, Financial Women's Association named Kavita Woman of the Year for the Public Sector; and Women and Philanthropy gave her the LEAD (Leadership for Equity and Diversity) Award for her championship and commitment to funding the global human rights of women and girls. KQED public television recognized her as a 2004 Bay Area Local Hero. She serves on the Board of Trustees of Mount Holyoke College, Massachusetts, and the Board of Directors of the Rural Development Institute, Washington state. She is a member of the Advisory Council to the Ethical Globalization Initiative, a venture of Mary Robinson, former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. She also serves on the Council of Advisors on Gender Equity to the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University and the Women's Rights Prize of the Gruber Foundation. Before joining the Global Fund, Kavita supported both domestic and international initiatives in economic development and population as a program officer at the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation in Chicago, Illinois. She earned a master's degree in international development and public policy at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University, and a BA at Mount Holyoke College. Kavita was born and raised in India, and speaks Urdu, Hindi, English, German, French and Spanish.

Heidi Roizen is an Operations Partner at Draper Fisher Jurvetson. She has spent her life immersed in the Silicon Valley ecosystem - as an entrepreneur, corporate executive, venture capitalist, educator and member of the boards of directors of private and public companies, trade associations and nonprofit institutions. After receiving her undergraduate and MBA degrees from Stanford University, Roizen co-founded T/Maker Company (an early personal computer software company) in 1983, where she served as CEO from inception through its acquisition by Deluxe Corporation in 1994. In 1996, Roizen joined Apple as Vice President of Worldwide Developer Relations. From there, Roizen entered the venture capital world, serving as a Managing Director of Mobius Venture Capital from 1999 to 2007. Roizen is also a Fenwick and West Entrepreneurship Educator in the Department of Management Science & Engineering at Stanford University, where she teaches the course Spirit of Entrepreneurship. Roizen is a member of the boards of directors of TiVo (NASDAQ: TIVO), DMGT (LSE:DMGT), Eventful, ShareThis and XTime, and serves on the advisory boards of Springboard Enterprises and the National Center for Women in Information Technology.

Vinod grew up dreaming of being an entrepreneur. He was raised in an Indian Army household with no business or technology connections. When, at age 16, he first heard about Intel, he dreamt of starting his own technology company. Upon graduating with a Bachelors in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, he tried to start a soy milk company to service the many people in India who did not have refrigerators. He then came to the US and got his Masters in Biomedical Engineering at Carnegie-Mellon University. His startup dreams attracted him to Silicon Valley where he got an MBA at Stanford University in 1980. In 1982, Khosla started Sun Microsystems to build workstations for software developers. At Sun he pioneered "open systems" and RISC processors. Sun was funded by long time friend and board member John Doerr of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. In 1986 he switched sides and joined Kleiner Perkins where he was a general partner. There, he worked with Nexgen/AMD, Juniper, Excite, and many other ventures. In 2004, Khosla formed Khosla Ventures. Khosla Ventures offers venture assistance, strategic advice and capital to entrepreneurs. The firm helps entrepreneurs extend the potential of their ideas in both traditional venture areas like the Internet, computing, mobile, and silicon technology arenas but also supports breakthrough scientific work in clean technology areas such as bio-refineries for energy and bioplastics, solar, battery and other environmentally friendly technologies.

Huong Nguyen graduated from Stanford University in 2014 and remains involved with Viet Youth Entrepreneurs while working on her own projects in Vietnam.

Bob Sutton is a professor of management science and engineering and an affiliated-faculty member of the Stanford Technology Ventures Program (STVP). Sutton has been teaching classes on the psychology of business and management at Stanford since 1983. He studies innovation, leadership, the links between managerial knowledge and organization action, and workplace dynamics. He has published over 100 articles and chapters on these topics in peer-reviewed journals and the popular press, and he is the author of several bestselling books, including "Good Boss, Bad Boss: How to Be the Best ... and Learn from the Worst," and "Scaling-Up Excellence: Getting to More Without Settling for Less." His new book is "The Asshole Survival Guide: How to Deal With People Who Treat You Like Dirt."  

Pui Shiau is a program assistant in the Office of International Affairs at Stanford University.

Henning Piezunka is an assistant professor of entrepreneurship at the international business school INSEAD and earned a Ph.D. in management science and engineering at Stanford University.

Chuck Eesley is an associate professor in the Department of Management Science & Engineering at Stanford University. As part of the Stanford Technology Ventures Program (STVP), his research focuses on the role of the institutional and university environment in high-growth, technology entrepreneurship. Specifically, he has sought to be a leader in investigating the types of environments that encourage the founding of high-growth, technology-based firms. In 2015, he was selected as an inaugural Schulze Distinguished Professor. Over the past few years, Eesley has played a growing role in national and international meetings on fostering high-tech entrepreneurship.

Nathan Furr is a professor of innovation and entrepreneurship at Brigham Young University and earned a Ph.D. in management science and engineering at Stanford University.

Matt Harvey is the former executive director of the Stanford Technology Ventures Program (STVP).

Tina Seelig is a Professor of the Practice in the Dept of Management Science and Engineering (MS&E) at Stanford School of Engineering, and Executive Director of Knight-Hennessy Scholars. She is also a faculty director emeritus of STVP - the Stanford Engineering Entrepreneurship Center. She teaches courses on creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship and has won numerous awards for her thought leadership. She has been honored with the SV Forum Visionary Award and the Gordon Prize from the National Academy of Engineering, recognizing her as a national leader in engineering education. She has written 17 books and educational games, her latest titled “Creativity Rules: Get Ideas Out of Your Head and Into the World.”

Avid Larizadeh is a general partner at Google Ventures and earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in engineering from Stanford University.

Mike Peña was the communications manager at the Stanford Technology Ventures Program (STVP).

Akaash Nanda is a symbolic systems major in the Class of 2016 at Stanford University.

Jeff Hawkins is the Founder of Numenta, but he is also well known as the co-founder of two companies, Palm and Handspring, and as the architect of many computing products, such as the PalmPilot and the Treo smartphone. Throughout his life Hawkins has also had a deep interest in neuroscience and theories of the neocortex. His interest in the brain led him to create the non-profit Redwood Neuroscience Institute (RNI), a scientific organization focused on understanding how the human neocortex processes information. While at RNI, Hawkins developed a theory of neocortex which appeared in his 2004 book, On Intelligence. Along with Dileep George and Donna Dubinsky, Hawkins founded Numenta in 2005 to develop a technology platform derived from his theory. It is his hope that Numenta will play a catalytic role in creating an industry based on this theory and technology. Jeff Hawkins earned his B.S. in electrical engineering from Cornell University in 1979. He was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2003.

Dunn is currently an Advisor to Social Ventures around the world and an Associate Consulting Professor at the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design (a.k.a d.school) at Stanford University. She left Hewlett-Packard in June, 2005 after 22 years, the last three years of which were spent as Senior Vice President of Corporate Affairs and Global Citizenship. In that role, she led HP's efforts on corporate social and environmental responsibility, government and public affairs, and corporate philanthropy. Through the efforts of Debra's team, HP received widespread recognition and numerous global awards for leadership in Global Corporate Citizenship. She was elected an HP vice president in November 1999, and she was named general manager of HP's executive committee in 1998, leading the Agilent spin-off process. Dunn holds a BA in comparative economics from Brown University, and an MBA from Harvard School of Business. She serves on the Boards of the Skoll Foundation, B Lab, Global Giving, and the Faculty of Sustainability.

Geoff Davis is the founder and CEO of Unitus. For the last nine years, Geoff has worked with microfinance programs worldwide, beginning with a program he founded in central Mexico. He was an early employee at Grameen Foundation USA, a global microfinance leader, and has spoken widely on microfinance, including speeches and lectures at the International Monetary Fund, on National Public Radio, and at Harvard, Stanford and Brigham Young Universities. He has also been a speaker on microfinance topics at conferences in Chile, Switzerland, Bangladesh and elsewhere. In addition, Geoff is an entrepreneur, having worked at numerous startups and formed several companies earlier in his career. Geoff holds a B.A. in international relations from Brigham Young University and a master's degree in development economics and public policy from Harvard University.