Investor Bios for our New York Venture Capital Event - Fall 08, Tuesday, Sept. 16, 2008 in New York

Investors at a FundingPost Venture Event

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Here are the Investor speakers from our Sold-Out New York Venture Capital Event - Fall 08, sponsored by Morrison & Foerster. This event was in New York on Tuesday, Sept. 16, 2008.

Sita Vasan
Senior Manager, Strategic Investments
Intel Capital
Read the full profile for Sita here!
Sita Vasan has worked for Intel Capital's Strategic Investment team for the past 9 years. During this time, she has closed over 60 venture capital investments in the media, semiconductor, wireless, enterprise software, storage, and optical sectors. She now focuses on digital home investments based in NYC. She has 15 years of prior investment banking experience where she worked in London for Orion Royal Bank & Bank of Tokyo, in Paris as Vice President and head of Banque Indosuez’s Foreign Swap Marketing team and at the private sector arm of the World Bank, International Finance Corp (IFC). At IFC she managed the Client Derivative Management team and worked in the Telecom / Infrastructure project finance team. Her education includes an MBA from Wharton (University of Pennsylvania) and BA from Bryn Mawr College.

Morgan Rodd
Managing Partner
Arrowpath Venture Capital
Read the full profile for Morgan here!
Morgan is a Managing Partner of the firm and brings over 15 years of experience with information technology companies as an investor, investment banker and finance executive. He focuses primarily on investments in application and infrastructure software, with an emphasis on security, data management and data integration. Morgan currently serves on the Board, or is a Board observer, of Actional, Gamma Technologies, Immunix (acquired by Novell), Saqqara, and Siperian. Prior investments and Board seats include NetSec (acquired by MCI), Security Focus (acquired by Symantec) and Sanera Systems (acquired by McData).

Ryan Ziegler
Investment Manager
Edison Venture Fund
Read the full profile for Ryan here!
Ryan Ziegler discovers and evaluates investment opportunities in New Jersey and New York. He also identifies new investment opportunities in the interactive marketing, financial services and wireless sectors. His activities include market research, technology assessment and financial analysis. Ryan also participates in due diligence and structuring investments. As Investment Manager, he sourced or evaluated new investments in EdgeTrade, Games Media, M5 Networks, Operative, Scivantage, SmartAnalyst and TetraData. Ryan served as a board observer on TetraData (acquired by Follett Software) and presently for CyberShift, Games Media and Scivantage. Ryan joined Edison in 2003 as Manager of Business Development. He managed and expanded Edison's extensive referral network of service providers, technology executives and capital sources generating proprietary investment opportunities. Previously, Ryan was a Business Development Manager with SEI Investments (NASDAQ: SEIC). Ryan worked in the enterprise sales, marketing and investment strategy teams serving multiple financial market segments. He launched a multi-billion dollar corporate distribution channel program for SEI’s Enterprise business unit.

Habib Kairouz
Managing Partner
Rho Ventures
Read the full profile for Habib here!
Prior to joining Rho in 1993, Habib worked in investment banking and leveraged buyout in New York with Reich & Co. and Jesup & Lamont. He received an MBA from Columbia University. His current and former board seats include: Avolent, Innerwireless, Intralinks, iVillage, ReachLocal, Tripod, Tacoda, Travel Ad Network, Waterfront Media, and Yantra. Habib is a Managing Partner of Rho Capital Partners and Rho Ventures and serves on the investment committee of Rho Fund Investors and Rho Canada.

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Donald Sussis

Angel Investor
Read the full profile for Donald here!
Don Sussis has many years of experience as an entrepreneur, business executive, investor and investment professional. For many years he ran an investment firm for high net worth individuals that invested in public and private companies. Previously, he was retained by small and large cap companies as well as many pre-IPO companies to advise them on improving their communications and negotiating financial contracts.

Mr. Sussis served 2 full terms as VP of the Manhattan Chamber of Commerce. He has also been a board member of several national charities and an executive of several professional organizations. He holds an M.A. in Communications from the U. of Wisconsin, Madison (1972) and an M. P.S. in Interactive Tele-communications from N.Y.U. (1995). He was on the full time faculty of The City University of New York/Hunter College-Park Ave. for seven years. For a dozen years he was President and Principal of a high end designer fashion manufacturing company with wholesale and retail components that enjoyed national distribution. For several years he was a contributing columnist to the WSJ and was the first eCommerce Columnist for Internet.com.

Currently, Don is head of Business Development & Communications for a +$Billion Hedge Fund in Stamford, Ct. Mr. Sussis was a founding member of the New York New Media Angles Group and has invested, been a board member and an advisor to many start-ups.

Robert A. Spira, Chariman, Chapman, Spira & Carson

Robert A. Spira has a career spanning over forty years in the financial community. Mr. Spira formed Chapman, Spira & Carson, LLC in 1989 to pursue private merchant banking opportunities, to invest in intellectual property and to offer investment banking services to his clients. He currently is a director of Rhumbline Advisors, an investment fund managing over $8 billion for institutional clients. He is the former President of Haas Securities, and he is or has been a member of the New York Stock Exchange, a member of the Boston Stock Exchange (where he served on the listing committee), a member of the American Stock Exchange (where he served on the Arbitration Committee), a member of the National Association of Securities Dealers (where he served on the Arbitration Committee and was a director of the District Business Conduct Committee ďż˝ the ruling and enforcing arm of the securities industry), a member of the New York Futures Exchange (where he served as chairman of the New Business Committee) and the American commodity Exchange and a member of the Midwest, the Pacific Coast and the Philadelphia Stock Exchanges.

Mr. Spira has been an advisor to the House Commerce, Consumer and Monetary Affairs Sub-Committee of the U.S. Congress with regard to the securities markets. He is a member of the World Trade Association, United States Senatorial Club, International Platform Association, Wall Street Planning Group and the National Options Society and is now or has been a director of American Philatelic Society, Professional Association of Scuba Divers and the Keystone Fund Group; he was the 1988 co-chairman (Fundraising) of the U.S. Olympic Committee and is a member of the prestigious U.S. Congressional Advisory Board. After receiving a BA degree from Roosevelt University, Mr. Spira served with the Green Berets, U.S. Army during the Korean War.

John Ason

Angel Investor
Read the full profile for John here!
John Ason has been an angel investor for over 12 years specializing in early stage pre-revenue companies. He has made over twenty eclectic investments in the areas of e-commerce, technology, advertising and entertainment. John was at AT&T Bell Labs for over 25 years, first involved in software and technology development, then in marketing and business management of large telecommunications projects overseas. He is a graduate of the Illinois Institute of Technology. He is a guest lecturer at the Rothman Institute of Entrepreneurial Studies at Fairleigh Dickinson and at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. John's hobbies include traveling, golf, GO (oriental game) and mentoring companies.

For about half if his investments, John has been the lead angel devoting a significant amount of his time to mentoring the companies. A typical company consists of one or two people in a garage or kitchen with minimal or no revenues. Average investment from the angel network for the first round is $275K. Any low capital industry with high growth potential qualifies with the exception of medical and biotech.

Moderator: John Hempill, Partner, Morrison & Foerster
John Hempill acts as general outside counsel for a number of privately and publicly held companies in a variety of industries. He has extensive experience in private and public finance, ranging from representing private emerging growth companies, venture capital funds and strategic investors in seed rounds and later stage private equity financings, to representing public companies and underwriters in public offerings, as well as 144A and PIPEs financings.