Who we are
Board
Amir MashkooriCEO & Chairman of the Board
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.
Ajit NazreAjit joined Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers in 2003. His areas of investment focus are Greentech, New Materials and Enterprise IT. Ajit also leads KPCB’s India investment initiative. He presently is a director on the board of 10 companies and is a board observer at 4 additional companies. Previously Ajit was either an observer or a director on the board of 3DV (acquired by MSFT), Virsa (acquired by SAP), Visible Path (acquired by D&B) and InfoEdge (IPO in 2006). Ajit came to KPCB from SAP. At SAP he worked for Dr. Hasso Plattner, CEO, Chairman and co-founder, SAP. He co-founded SAPMarkets in 2000, a fully owned company of SAP, and was Managing Director of SAPMarkets. In 2002, he was SVP of SAP's New Venture Unit, SAP Inspire. Prior to SAP, Ajit worked in the medical device industry, first at Zimmer, Inc., a division of Bristol Myers and Squibb, and then at Mathys AG (Synthes) in Switzerland. Ajit has an undergraduate degree in Mechanical Engineering from the College of Engineering Poona (COEP), India. He holds an MS in Mechanical Engineering from Michigan Tech, a PhD in Biomechanics from the Technical University of Hanover, Germany and an MBA from the Harvard Business School.
Joe JacobsonJoseph 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. DavidA 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.
Executive Staff
Vik PavateVP 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.
Jiang LiVP 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.
Lisan HungVP of Legal Affairs and General Counsel
Lisan Hung, brings with her seventeen years of legal experience, twelve of which have been in the semiconductor industry. At Kovio, Ms. Hung is responsible for legal initiatives and strategy, using her extensive experience in balancing business interests with safeguarding against legal risks.
Prior to Kovio, Ms. Hung held various leadership positions in the law department at Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. During her ten years, Ms. Hung 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. Hung 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. Hung was in private practice focusing on fraud, commercial and general litigation, appellate work, and general transactions.
Ms. Hung 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.
Technical Consultants
Vivek Subramanian
Technical Advisor to Kovio
Vivek Subramanian received his BS in electrical engineering from Louisiana State University in 1994. He received his MS and PhD in electrical engineering, in 1996 and 1998 respectively, from Stanford University.
Dr. Subramanian co-founded Matrix Semiconductor, Inc., in 1998. Since 1998, he has been at the University of California, Berkeley, where he is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Electrical engineering and Computer Sciences. His research interests include advanced CMOS devices and technology and polysilicon thin film transistor technology for displays and vertical integration applications. His current research focuses
on organic electronics for display, low-cost logic, and sensing applications. He has authored or co-authored more than 40 research publications and patents.
Dr. Subramanian is a member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) and has served on the technical committee for the Device Research Conference and the International Electron Device Meeting. In 2002, he was nominated to Technology Review's list of top 100 young innovators (the TR100), and his work at Matrix Semiconductor was nominated to the Scientific American SA50 list for visionary technology. In 2003, he was nominated to the National Academy of Engineering's "Frontiers of Engineering", and was awarded a National Science Foundation Young Investigator Award (CAREER).
Vivek resides in Orinda, CA with his human, canine, and feline family. He enjoys woodworking, driving his electric vehicle and is an active advocate of alternative transportation solutions and animal rights. He enjoys playing touch football and squash.
Leigh Turner
Technical Advisor to Kovio
Leigh Turner is a graduate of the University of Adelaide having received his Masters degree in Electrical Engineering in 1994. He has been an active researcher, developer and visionary champion of RFID technologies for over 25 years having pioneered several novel HF / UHF RFID concepts and highly successful commercial products. Leigh holds numerous RFID related patents and is a Member of the IEEE, including the MTTS and APS. After a stint in academia he founded Invertech Electronics Ltd in 2000, an Australian based R&D and RFID technology consultancy company. His diverse international clients include several leading high profile companies such as UPM Kymmene / UPM Raflatac.
Leigh is well known by everyone of significance in the RF identification industry for his innovations and contributions to many ISO/IEC and MIT Auto-ID Center / EPCglobal RFID standards. He maintains a passionate interest in antennas, electromagnetics, RF and microwave engineering, RFID systems architectures and CMOS IC design including emerging fully printed “silicon ink” TFT label embodiments; all with a particular focus on optimizing future very low cost RFID / EAS labels and systems.