CoolTech Club VC panel : Pros and cons of Skolkovo project: Panel Discussion with Mark Iwanowski,Eric Buatois and John China

WHEN

August 19,2010

WHAT

A very constructive discussion on what needs to be done to achieve the success of Skolkovo Project as well as what is definitely not going to work. We have three great panelists for this discussion: Mark Iwanowski, Partner, Trident Capital,Eric Buatois, Managing Director,Sofinnova Ventures and John China, Managing Director, Silicon Valley Bank, who were with us on a VC Trip to Russia in May (www.vctriptorussia.com). Also Mark has just recently returned from a special meeting of the Presidential Committee on Modernization in Moscow chaired by President Medvedev. We invite you to participate in the discussion: your ideas and practical and productive suggestions are most welcome.

WHO

Mark Iwanowski, Partner,Trident Capital

Mark Iwanowski joined Trident Capital in 2005 as a Venture Partner and will be a Managing Director in Fund VII focusing primarily on CleanTech and Business Process Outsourcing. Mark has twenty-five years of experience successfully leading multiple global businesses in the high tech industry for both commercial and government customers. Mark was most recently Senior Vice President Global IT for Oracle Corporation. Prior to Oracle, Mark managed a Systems Integration, ASP and Outsourcing business for SAIC.

Mark was previously President of the R&D Division of Quantum Magnetics, an industry leader in explosive and illegal drug detection technology. Mark has also held executive positions with Raytheon and Honeywell.

Eric Buatois, Managing Director,Sofinnova Ventures

Eric Buatois joined Sofinnova Ventures as General Partner in 2001 to drive global technology investments based on his more than 20 years of international experience in the wireless industry. Prior to Sofinnova Ventures, Eric held several positions in general management and executive operations at Hewlett-Packard, Ericsson and Texas Instruments. Eric's career began in 1983 at Texas Instruments, where he defined and guided the DSP product line's introduction into the European market. His efforts led to the successful Europe-wide deployment of TI's DSP line. Eric served as COO of Ericsson Hewlett-Packard Telecommunications, a global joint venture specializing in network management and billing systems for wireless service providers. Eric was the executive in charge of HP's Communications Industry Business Unit before joining Sofinnova Ventures.

At Sofinnova Ventures, Eric specializes in software and semiconductor investments in the wireless area. Eric currently serves as Chairman of the Board for UPEK and Crocus Technologies, and as a director for VoluBill, Catalyst Mobile, Laszlo Systems, and HelloSoft.

John China, Managing Director, Silicon Valley Bank 

John China is head of SVB Capital’s Venture Capital Group and oversees the company’s Venture Capital Relationship Management, Entrepreneurial Services Group, and Private Client Services practices.

In this role, John manages the company’s network of relationships with venture capital and private equity firms and their partners, in addition to supporting emerging technology and life science companies, by engaging founders and CEOs with programming and networking events to add value during their development stages.

John also co-manages SVB Financial Group’s investment committee for Limited Partner investments in emerging managers.

Prior to joining SVB Capital, John worked for more than 14 years at Silicon Valley Bank, the commercial banking subsidiary of SVB Financial Group, where he held several leadership roles.

What They Say About Us

"The wonderful thing about entrepreneurs is that their passion for starting new companies transcends languages and geographic boundaries."

Ron Conway, Founder and Managing Partner of the Angel Investors LP funds, early stage investor in Google and PayPal

"Networking is very important for start-ups. The challenge for them is often not money: it is mentoring and finding people who can give good advice from experience."

Esther Dyson, Founder, EDventure Holdings

"This conference is clearly a labor of love for a group of dedicated professionals who care deeply about the Eastern European entrepreneurs. From the value-packed educational panels, to the star-studded key note speakers' line up, to an amazing quantity of venture capitalists – this is a not to be missed event for any high tech entrepreneur,"

Richard Guha, President of the Marketing Executives Network and Managing Partner at MaxBrandEquity

"As Stanford MBA students, we were exposed to a lot of VC firms both from the Valley and abroad. It is at Stanford that we met Anna Dvornikova, an absolutely amazing business leader and (by our big luck) our friend, who was the center of the Russian Silicon Valley professional community, and was doing a huge work to connect Russia and the Valley. Anna helped us a lot with kick-starting Wikimart, put us to our first-ever conference, introduced us to most of Russian VCs. And all that happened in a very short time span! It was the beginning of a six-month journey that despite the particularly tough times resulted in an extraordinarily group of investors backing our start-up."

Maxim Faldin and Kamil Kurmakayev,
co-CEOs, Wikimart