Amir Mashkoori

CEO

 

Amir Mashkoori, chief executive officer, applies nearly 30 years of semiconductor industry experience to his leadership role at Kovio, Inc. His background includes an in-depth understanding of how to create new businesses and drive demand for emerging products and technologies.

 

Mr. Mashkoori came to Kovio from Spansion, the largest company focused exclusively on Flash memory. He played an instrumental role in the formation of Spansion in 2003, and managed the company’s Wireless Business Unit. As executive vice president, he oversaw the marketing, engineering, operations and business functions of the division. Under Mr. Mashkoori’s leadership, the wireless division made significant market share gains into the world’s largest handset providers by transitioning from a commodity player to a systems solutions provider. During his tenure, the division experienced more than double market share growth in the wireless handset market as the market itself expanded to almost one billion units
in 2006.

 

Mr. Mashkoori began his professional career at AMD in 1978, serving in various senior level operational roles for a period of 17 years. Mr. Mashkoori was also vice president of operations and later senior vice president of operations and business development at Trident Microsystems between 1996 and 1998, before re-joining AMD in 1999. At AMD he held various executive positions including vice president of operations, vice president of the Embedded Business Unit, vice president of the Wireless Business Unit and vice president and director of operations for the Memory Group.

 

Mr. Mashkoori holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in business administration from San Jose State University.

Vik Pavate

VP of Business Development

 

Vikram Pavate joined Kovio in 2002 with extensive experience in business development, product management and strategic planning. As vice president of business development, he is responsible for Kovio’s corporate strategy, business development, product management and marketing, OEM relationships and strategic joint development and technology alliances. From 1995 to 2000, Mr. Pavate held increasingly responsible positions in global product management within various deposition product divisions of Applied Materials Inc., including Physical Vapor Deposition, Copper Barrier-Seed and Integrated Liner Barrier. He also worked as a summer intern in the business development group at Onetta Inc., an optical networking company funded by Sequoia and Matrix Partners.

 

Mr. Pavate holds 10 U.S. patents and has published 30 papers on electronic materials and semiconductor technology. He received a Bachelor of Technology in ceramic engineering from the Institute of Technology, BHU (India), Master of Science in metallurgical engineering from Purdue University and Master of Business Administration from The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. He was awarded the prestigious Price Institute Fellowship for Entrepreneurship and a Silver Medal in the 2001 Wharton Business Plan Competition.

Richard Young

VP of Operations

 

Richard Young joined Kovio in 2007, bringing with him a unique combination of technical and financial operations expertise spanning semiconductor fabrication, business finance and large scale change initiatives. Mr. Young has deep experience in efficiency improvement in mature operations including “Kaizen” and lean manufacturing methods.

 

Mr. Young comes to Kovio from Spansion, where he held various roles over a period of several years. Most recently, he was director and controller of the company’s Wireless Solutions Division, and was previously director and controller of World Wide Operations. Prior to joining Spansion, Mr. Young spent eight years at AMD where he held a range of managerial positions, including manager of Operations Analysis, as well as operational and contruction manager in AMD’s Fab 30 in Dresden.

 

Mr. Young has also held executive and engineering positions with Mechanical Design and Construction in New Mexico; Industrial Design Corporation in Oregon and New Mexico; and Shimizu America Corporation, the U.S. subsidiary of Japan’s largest design and build general contractor. Mr. Young holds a Bachelor of Science degree in mechanical engineering from the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA).

Jiang Li

VP of Engineering

 

As vice president of engineering at Kovio, Jiang Li is responsible for the company's technology and product development. Mr. Li has extensive experience in bringing new technology and products into the marketplace.

 

Prior to joining Kovio, Mr. Li spent 9 years at AMD and Spansion, the largest company focused exclusively on Flash memory and previously a joint venture between AMD and Fujitsu. He held various engineering management positions there that culminated in is tenure as vice president of product engineering. He led and reshaped the team responsible for new product development within Spansion's Wireless Business Unit and made significant improvement on its product introduction procedures and time to market.

 

Mr. Li received a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and bachelor’s degree from Zhejiang University, China.

 

 

 

John Teegen

VP of Sales

 

John Teegen, vice president of worldwide sales, brings Kovio more than 25 years experience creating and building successful global sales organizations and channels for start-up companies and businesses to drive significant revenue growth. A high-technology sales veteran, Mr. Teegen's track record includes global sales leadership roles at large, established industry leaders as well as fast-growing start-up companies in a broad range of markets - from computing and communications to consumer digital entertainment.

 

Mr. Teegen joined Kovio in July 2009 from SNR Technologies Group, LLC, a privately held consulting and investment company, where Mr. Teegen was a Founding Partner since 2001. At SNR, Mr. Teegen provided start-up companies with seed capital and consulting services including executive management, financing, business development, channel development, and compensation. During 2006-2007, Mr. Teegen was senior vice president, global sales, at NeoPhotonics, an optical components company where Mr. Teegen's leadership resulted in design wins at every major global communications OEM. At NeoPhotonics, Mr. Teegen also completed a restructuring of the sales organization during four acquisitions and drove the company to more than 50 percent revenue growth. Prior, Mr. Teegen was vice president of worldwide sales for MMC Networks,  responsible for its growth from negligible annual revenues to a run rate of more than $100 million in three years, leading up to the company's IPO and eventual acquisition by AMCC. Mr. Teegen has also held executive sales and management positions at AMCC, Intellon (ITLN) and VLSI Technology (NXP).  Mr. Teegen began his career in 1982 with Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) where he was District Sales Manager.

 

Mr. Teegen received a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Florida in 1982.

 

 

 

Lisan Bramer

VP of Legal Affairs and General Counsel

 

Lisan Hung Bramer, brings with her sixteen years of legal experience, eleven of which have been in the semiconductor industry. At Kovio, Ms. Bramer is responsible for legal initiatives and strategy, using her extensive experience in balancing business interests with safeguarding against legal risks.

Prior to Kovio, Ms. Bramer held various leadership positions in the law department at Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. During her ten years, Ms. Bramer led legal teams for Sales, Marketing, and Public Relations, Quality, the Graphics Products Group, and most recently was the director of law for the Technology and Operations Groups. Ms. Bramer was instrumental in closing lucrative commercial deals with AMD’s multinational OEMs; driving certain critical aspects in forming and divesting Spansion, Inc.; leading the sales and marketing legal efforts in support of major antitrust litigation; and resolving technology transactions related to research and advanced development, graphics products, supply chain, and foundry and back-end manufacturing operations. Before joining AMD, Ms. Bramer was in private practice focusing on fraud, commercial and general litigation, appellate work, and general transactions.

 

Ms. Bramer holds a Juris Doctor degree from Santa Clara University School of Law and a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of California at Berkeley.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rob Chandra

 

"Kovio's many technical break-throughs coupled with a very entrepreneurial management team has the potential to deliver innovative products to enterprises and consumers for many years ahead. For the first time in the semiconductor industry, we can envision printed integrated circuits that are produced at a fraction of the cost and energy consumption of traditional silicon."

 

Rob Chandra is a Managing Partner in Bessemer's Menlo Park office. Since entering the venture capital industry in 1996, Rob has been involved with 19 early-stage investments that have gone public or have been acquired by public companies.

 

Rob is the founding managing partner of the firm's investment practice in China and India where he recruited an experienced local team, established the offices, led investments in Anant Raj, BA Systems, Rico Auto, Motilal Oswal Financial Services, New Vernon Capital, Sarovar, and Shriram EPC, and contributed to the firm's investment in FG Wireless. Rob is active in the semiconductor industry and led the firm's investments in Avnera, Berkeley Design, PA Semi, and Summit Micro. Rob is also interested in printed electronics, alternative energy, and consumer driven health care and led the firm's investments in Kovio and Miasolè and is involved with IPC – The Hospitalists Company.

 

Over his career, Rob has helped build companies in a variety of industries. He was involved with communications equipment ventures such as Altiga (acquired by Cisco), Catena (acquired by Ciena), NBX (acquired by 3Com), and Wavesmith Networks (acquired by Ciena). He has experience with semiconductor investments such as Envoy (acquired by TI), LightLogic (acquired by Intel), Mellanox (IPO), Mobilian (acquired by Intel), and Morphics (acquired by Infineon). Rob has also been involved with consumer internet start-ups such as BuyerZone.com (acquired by Reed Elsevier),Direct Hit (acquired by Ask Jeeves), SmarterKids.com (IPO), MotherNature.com (IPO) and Centra (IPO), and a health care investment, American Hearing Centers (acquired by HearUSA).

 

Prior to joining Bessemer, Rob was a general partner with Commonwealth Capital Ventures, which he joined after 10 years of industry experience. Rob was an engagement manager with McKinsey & Company in their Los Angeles and then Palo Alto offices where he served high tech and health care related clients. Previously, Rob spent three years with Accenture working in their San Francisco, London, and then New York offices where he served financial services and high tech clients. Rob worked for IBM in sales and marketing where he focused on the Unix workstation product line. Early in his career, Rob worked in the strategic planning department for Lucky Stores which was acquired by Albertsons, the nation's second largest grocery chain.

 

Rob holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and a BA from University of California at Berkeley. In his spare time, Rob is active in Palo Alto youth sports and coaches little league baseball. He roots for the 49ers and Giants, plays golf, has an interest in global politics, and enjoys reading.

Kobi Rozengarten

 

Kobi Rozengarten is currently a General Partner of JVP (Jerusalem Venture Partners) with over 25 years of experience in senior management positions at global hi-tech companies.

 

Prior to JVP, Kobi served as COO and then President of Saifun Semiconductors where he led the organization from the start-up phase to a successful IPO in 2005. Prior to joining Saifun, he was the Managing Director of Micro-Swiss Ltd. and held several senior management positions at Kulicke and Soffa Industries and Elbit Systems Ltd.

 

Kobi also serves as Chairman of Valor Computerized Systems and Infinite Memories, and as member of the Board of Directors of Altair Semiconductors, Dune Networks, Kovio Inc, and Densbits Technologies.

 

Kobi holds an M.S. in Industrial Management and a B.S. in Industrial Engineering from the Technion, the Israel Institute of Technology. He is a member of its Board of Governors.

Joe Jacobson

 

Joseph Jacobson is Associate Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) where he is co-PI of the Center for Bits and Atoms and leads the Molecular Machine Group. His group at MIT is focused on pioneering the field of Avogadro Scale Engineering with applications in novel computing machines and synthetic biology.

 

Jacobson received his PhD in Physics from MIT and was a post-doctoral fellow at Stanford in the area of Quantum Optics. He is the recipient of a 1999 Technology Review TR100 Award for Innovation, The 2000 Gutenberg Prize and a 2001 Discover Award. He has authored over 70 peer reviewed papers and conference proceedings in the fields of femotosecond lasers, quantum optics, molecular electronics, nano-chemistry and synthetic DNA. In the private sector Jacobson was co-founder of E Ink, Kovio and Codon Devices and is a founding board member of One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) which is focused on developing a $100 laptop for kids.

Stephen N. David

 

A native of Lincoln, Nebraska, Mr. David graduated from the University of Nebraska in 1970 with a Bachelor of Science degree. After graduation, he joined P&G as a sales representative in the Omaha PS&D District. After taking a leave of absence when he served as a Captain, U.S. Army Quartermaster Corps in 1971, he rejoined the Company as a sales rep in 1973. He was promoted to District Field Representative for the Omaha PS&D District in 1975, then Unit Manager for the Minneapolis PS&D District, and District Manager, Los Angeles PS&D in 1979.

His career at P&G has spanned many diverse assignments and country postings. In 1982 as Senior Project Manager, Customer Services, Mr. David led the deployment of the first personal computers for the Company and helped train the advertising and sales departments on how to use them to help solve real business problems. In 1986 he was named Country Manager P&G Hellas (Greece), and in 1989, General Manager-Arabian Peninsula.

Mr. David returned to the U.S. in 1992 when he became Vice President-Fabric Conditioners, P&G USA and then in 1993 was given a special assignment as Vice President in the Strengthening Global Effectiveness program. In 1998 he was appointed Senior Vice President Customer Business Development and in 1999 he was named Global Customer Development Officer with global responsibility for the Company?s sales organization.

Mr. David's experience in line management and Customer Business Development, combined with his personal passion for IT and involvement in the current business-to business work, contributed to his being named, effective July 1, 2000, as Chief Information Officer and Business-To-Business Officer with overall responsibility for P&G's Internet strategy. This appointment reflects the increasing importance of information technology in accelerating sales growth and managing costs. It also positions P&G to capitalize on tremendous opportunities in the business-to-business arena where a faster, more efficient, and seamless supply chain can be created.

Mr. David has served on a number of Boards and Advisory Committees, including Ahold USA, Transora, Global Commerce Initiative, Uniform Code Council (UCC), Hewlett Packard, Information Week, Inroads, the University Of Texas MBA School, the Cincinnati Arts Festival, Cincinnati United Way, and Classicway Girls Basketball. Currently, Mr. David is the Chairman of Iomega, a Senior Advisory for BCG, sits on several high tech startup companies Boards in Silicon Valley and the Board of IFTF. Recent awards include Salomon Smith Barney Technology Group's CIO of the Year for 2002, one of the twenty-five most influential executives by Consumer Goods Technology magazine, and #3 in the 'Power 50' by Executive Technology magazine in 2003.