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Arjun Gupta is the Managing Partner and Founder of TeleSoft Partners. Over the last thirteen years Arjun has overseen investing in and helping build approximately 61
private companies, resulting in approximately 32 mergers & acquisitions and IPOs to date with a combined current market equity valuation or cash equivalent of approximately $18 billion (post bubble). He was ranked by Forbes Magazine in the Top-100 technology venture investors on the 2006 , 2007, and 2008 Midas List. Arjun is a Director of Calient, Education.com, Knowledge Adventure, LiteScape, LogLogic, Nexant, Validity and VoiceObjects. Arjun is also on the boards of The Aspen Institute. Stanford Business School Management Board, India America Council, Aspen India, Friends of New Orleans and The East Africa Leadership Foundation. Earlier in his career, Arjun was a management consultant for high-tech clients at McKinsey, and a software engineer with Tektronix. Gupta is a Henry Crown Fellow of The Aspen Institute, has a BA (Honors) in Economics from St. Stephen's College, a MS and BS in Computer Science, Phi Beta Kappa , from WSU,and MBA from Stanford.
Paul Unruh currently serves as a director on Knowledge Adventure's board which he joined in 2006.
Unruh retired as vice chairman of Bechtel Group, Inc. in June 2003. During his 25-year tenure he held a number of management positions including treasurer, controller, and chief financial officer.
He also served as president of Bechtel Enterprises, the finance, development, and ownership arm, from 1997 to 2001. Unruh is also a certified public accountant.
In addition to Knowledge Adventure, Unruh is currently a member of the board of directors of Symantec Corporation, a leading Security and Storage Software company, Move, Inc., a provider of real estate media and technology solutions, and Heidrick & Struggles International, Inc., a provider of executive search and leadership consulting services. He also serves on the boards of one other private company.
Mike Kwatinetz is a founding General Partner with Azure Capital Partners where he specializes in software and related infrastructure technologies. His current board memberships are Bill Me Later, Education.com, Knowledge Adventure, Medsphere, OQO, ROME and Rooftop Comedy. He also served on the boards of The Firm, Woodbury Computer Associates (acquired by JWP), TopTier (acquired by SAP) and Wildseed (acquired by AOL). Other representative investments include VMware (acquired by EMC).
Prior to Azure, Mike was Group Head of Technology Research, a Managing Director and the senior software and hardware analyst at several major investment banks, including Credit Suisse First Boston, Deutsche Bank Securities and PaineWebber. Mike was also a senior research analyst at Sanford Bernstein & Co.
Prior to his career in technology research, Mike was CEO of Woodbury Computer Associates, a software products and consulting firm, which resulted in a 160x cash-on-cash return.
Mike has provided research coverage and strategic advice to numerous technology companies and has consistently been viewed as a top resource on many, including Microsoft, Compaq, Dell, Apple, Hewlett Packard, VA Linux and Gateway. His coverage universe also included e-business software and internet devices and infrastructure. His theories on the shift of industry control to Microsoft and Intel, "The 4th Wave of the Web," the advantages of Linux, and the need for PC vendors to go "Beyond the Box" were considered agenda setting for the investment community. His technology investment strategy newsletter, SoundBytes, was one of the most widely read amongst public portfolio managers. He was top-ranked by Institutional Investor in PC Hardware and ranked second in PC Software and was the only sell-side analyst to ever be top three rated in both software and hardware, doing so for six straight years before leaving to form Azure in early 2000. In 1997 and 1998, Mike was rated Institutional Investor's No.1 Large-Cap "Home-Run Hitter" for stock selection among all Wall Street analysts and remained among the Top 5 in 1999. Furthermore, Reuters and the Wall Street Journal have selected him as the No.1 PC analyst.
Mike received his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in Mathematical Modeling from the University of California Berkeley and his M.B.A. in Accounting from New York University. Until recently, he sat on the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) advisory committee. He is also author of "The Big Tech Score," published by John Wiley & Sons.
Hans Roderich is a Partner with Azure Capital Partners and has been with the firm since its inception. Currently he serves on the board of Knowledge Adventure and is an observer on the board of SourceCode Technology. Hans is also a former board member of Bill Me Later and Wildseed (acquired by AOL).
Prior to Azure, Hans was a research analyst with several investment banks covering internet infrastructure software, platforms, devices and hardware. Previously, he worked several years as a consultant with Andersen Consulting (now Accenture) in their Systems Integration practice.
Hans received his B.S. degree in General Engineering from the University of Illinois-Urbana and his M.B.A. in Finance and Economics from the University of Chicago.
Barbara Marcus was most recently President, Scholastic Children’s Book Publishing and Distribution, and Executive Vice President, Scholastic Inc., the global children’s publishing and media company and the world’s largest publisher and distributor of children’s books.
As President, she was responsible for all children’s consumer book publishing and distribution in the United States, through school-based book clubs, school-based and direct-to-home continuity programs, school-based book fairs and the retail channel. After acquiring J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone for publication in the United States in 1998, Ms. Marcus also led the publishing effort for six out of the seven Harry Potter titles. Under her leadership, the Children’s Book Publishing Division was the largest division of Scholastic and reached $1.2 billion in revenue. Ms. Marcus retired from the company in July 2005.
Currently Ms. Marcus is pursuing a variety of activities. She is on the Board of B*tween Productions, a tween multi-media company in Boston; Knowledge Adventures, a children’s software and technology company in Southern California; and a s special advisor of Forever Entertainment, an entertainment company. Ms Marcus is on Accenture’s Media and Entertainment Council and has recently consulted for several major publishing and media companies.
Active in a variety of charitable and industry-related organizations, Ms. Marcus is currently co-chair of the UJA-Federation Publishing Committee and a member of the UJA’s Women’s Executive Committee. She has just joined the board of Graham-Windham, New York City’s oldest foster care charity. Ms. Marcus also is a member of the Women’s Forum. She previously served on the Wal-Mart Literacy Committee, the board of the NYU Publishing Division and the First Book Board of Directors.
Ms. Marcus attended Tufts University, where she was a B.A. Cum Laude in American History.
David Blumstein, CEO of Knowledge Adventure, has more than twenty-five years of management experience driving sales and profitability in senior executive positions within the computer industry. Prior to his role at Knowledge Adventure, he served as Vice Chairman, as well as President and CEO of Top Tier Software, Inc. for six years. Before joining TopTier, Mr. Blumstein served as President and CEO of Softbank OnHand, Inc. (U.S.) after the company purchased Alexander & Lord, where he was Founder, President and CEO. He also served as President and COO of Peter Norton Computing, and as President and CEO of Ingram Distribution, where he turned a troubled Ingram around and merged it with Micro-D, forming Ingram Micro, the world's largest distributor of personal computer products. Prior to Ingram Micro, Mr. Blumstein was a founder of Softsel Computer Products, the industry's first software distributor, where he spent seven years as Executive Vice President Sales & Marketing. Softsel merged with MicroAmerica and was renamed Merisel. Mr. Blumstein holds a Bachelors Degree from Brooklyn College, NY.
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