His research focuses on the investment and financing decisions made in entrepreneurial ventures at all stages in their development.

Mr. Sahlman has written numerous articles on topics including entrepreneurial management, venture capital and private equity, deal structuring, and the role of entrepreneurship in the global economy. He is completing work on a trade book tentatively titled "Being Entrepreneurial," which describes lessons learned from studying hundreds of successful and unsuccessful ventures over the past 25 years. Mr. Sahlman has published over 150 case studies on entrepreneurial ventures around the world.

Mr. Sahlman and an HBS co-author, Paul Gompers, published a casebook in 2002 entitled Entrepreneurial Finance (Wiley). In 2000, he helped introduce and teach a new course in the first year called The Entrepreneurial Manager. In 2006, he and HBS co-authors, Michael J. Roberts, Howard H. Stevenson, Paul Marshall, and Richard G. Hamermesh, published a casebook entitled New Business Ventures and the Entrepreneur (McGraw Hill - Irwin).

Mr. Sahlman is Senior Associate Dean for External Relations. He was co-chair of the Entrepreneurial Management Unit from 1999 to 2002. From 1991 to 1999, he was Senior Associate Dean, Director of Publishing Activities, and chairman of the board for Harvard Business School Publishing Corporation. From 1990 to 1991, he was chairman of the Harvard University Advisory Committee on Shareholder Responsibility. He is a member of the board of directors or board of advisors of several private companies and not-for-profit organizations.

In 1987, Mr. Weber started his own public relations company, The Weber Group, which within a decade became the world’s largest public relations firm. The Interpublic Group of Companies purchased The Weber Group in late 1996, and in early 2000, he was named chairman and CEO of Interpublic’s Advanced Marketing Services, a $3 billion unit with 12,000 people and including the company’s public relations, research and analysis, and entertainment holdings.

Mr. Weber serves on a number of Boards of corporations, non-profit organizations and academic institutions. He is the co-founder and Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Massachusetts Innovation and Technology Exchange (MITX), the largest interactive advocacy organization in the world. Larry’s first book, The Provocateur: How a New Generation of Leaders Are Building Communities, Not Just Companies, was published by Random House/Crown Business in 2002. He is currently at work on his second book, Marketing to the Social Web: How Digital Customer Communities Build Your Business.

Prior to joining SoftBank, he was the CEO of Phoenix Technologies Ltd., the leading developer and marketer of system software products for personal computers, from 1990 to 1995. Mr. Fisher joined Phoenix from Interactive Systems Corporation, a UNIX software company that was purchased by the Eastman Kodak Company in 1988. At Interactive Systems he served for five and one-half years as President, initially as COO and then CEO. Mr. Fisher’s experience prior to Interactive Systems includes senior executive positions at Visicorp, TRW, and ICL (USA).

Mr. Fisher serves on the boards of several public and private companies, including E*Trade Group, GSI Commerce, DoveBid, and LiteScape Technologies. He is also on the investment committee for the SB Asia Infrastructure Fund.

Mr. Fisher earned an MBA from Columbia University, New York, and a Bachelor of Commerce from the University of Witwatersand in South Africa.

Mr. Ruda’s career spans over thirty years in the information and communications technology marketplace. Mr. Ruda co-founded Softricity as its CEO in June, 1999 when the company was still in the business planning stage and continued in that role until March, 2006, when he assumed the role of Chairman. In April, Softricity agreed to be acquired by Microsoft and the transaction completed in July. This was considered one of the most strategic acquisitions Microsoft has ever made and it was one of the largest software transactions in New England, valued at greater than 17x previous year’s revenue. Since Softricity’s inception, Mr. Ruda had raised over $60 million from top-tier venture funds all of whom realized significant returns on their investments.

Prior to Softricity, Mr. Ruda was President and CEO of ITS, a manufacturer of video access equipment for IP and ATM networks. ITS was acquired by Artel Video in March 1999, just prior to the closing of its first round of funding. Mr. Ruda also co-founded and was VP Sales and Marketing for a VC-backed start-up, Network Switching Systems, a manufacturer of integrated voice and data switching equipment which was later acquired by BBN Communications. Post-acquisition, Mr. Ruda served as BBN’s VP for Integrated Network Sales, responsible for worldwide deployment of integrated T1 networks to enterprise accounts. Mr. Ruda also founded and operated a global telecomm consulting business, Global Technologies, whose clients were composed of many of the world;s leading telecomm service providers; including, Bellcore, NYNEX, France Telecom, PacBell and GTE Services.

Mr. Ruda has also held the following positions: VP Field Operations for Bell Atlantic (a NE public communications carrier), VP Sales and Marketing for Bridgeway Corporation (a network management software company based in Redmond, WA) and President and CEO of Glyph Systems (an Andover-based software company specializing in international software and typefaces).

Mr. Ruda serves on several private company boards as an Independent Director and also sits on several Advisory Boards for early stage companies.

Mr. Ruda holds an MBA from Boston College, and MS in Operations Research from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) and a BS in Management Science from RPI.

Mr. Daniels was the Director of Asian Operations of Rogers Corporation a USD300M manufacturer of advanced materials used in the computer, handheld electronics, office automation and telecommunication industries. During his tenure, Mr. Daniels established a network of commercial offices, service centers and a manufacturing campus in Mainland China. In a seven-year period, he increased sales from USD6M/USD109M.

Mr. Daniels also worked in executive roles for GE Plastics and Taconic Plastics, where he launched several successful subsidiaries and joint ventures in the Asia-Pacific region. He is a graduate of Northeastern University and holds a combined Environmental Engineering and Regional Planning degree.

Mr/ Daniels lives with his wife and twin children in Boston, Massachusetts. He is a board member and trustee of several non-profit organizations in the Boston area.

Prior to joining Nortel, Mr. Buttermore was vice president of Data and Voice engineering and operations at Adelphia Communications Corporation, a position he held since May 2003. He was responsible for implementing comprehensive provisioning, change management, baseline reporting, and operational metrics systems across the enterprise, while simultaneously replacing and upgrading all aspects of the high speed network. In addition, Mr. Buttermore implemented mission-critical applications such as a complete security re-engineering effort to include Digital Signing capability, firmware and IP management software suites to prevent hacking of service levels, and Sarbanes-Oxley compliant internal data security. He also standardized product definitions, service definitions and rate codes for all Small and Medium Enterprise products.

Before joining Adelphia, Mr. Buttermore was president and COO at Ucentric Systems, a leading provider of software to the cable industry for the on-demand delivery of digital entertainment services throughout the home. Mr. Buttermore was also founder, chairman and CEO at BroadRiver Communications, Inc. where he was responsible for the strategic planning and day to day tactical operations of BroadRiver, a next generation CLEC. BroadRiver offered small and medium sized businesses integrated high-speed Internet access, local and long distance voice services and secure virtual private network solutions using a QoS (Quality of Service) enabled IP platform.

Mr. Buttermore holds an M.B.A. in general management from Georgia State University and a B.S. in computer science from University of Georgia.

Prior to joining Ironside, and its predecessor, MF Private Capital, Mr. Kelly served as a consultant and research analyst for companies such as The PACE Group and Sylvan Learning, Inc., in the areas of new business and product development. Mr. Kelly has assisted numerous start-up companies in the development of business plans and market research. He also served as Finance Manager for the Boston venue of the 1994 World Cup Soccer Tournament and directed the western New England sales and marketing efforts for the pharmaceutical division of the BASF Group.

Mr. Kelly received his B.S. in Biology from Tufts University in 1990, and an M.B.A. in Entrepreneurship from the Olin Graduate School of Business at Babson College in 1996.

Prior to joining BBN Corp., Mr. Puckett was the executive manager of global business development at Sun Networks, a division of Sun Microsystems. Before that he held various managerial positions at The Foxboro Company, ultimately directing all of the company’s network and systems integration.

In May of 2000, Mr. Puckett was named one of the "Premier 100 IT Leaders" by Computerworld. Previously he had been selected as one of the top visionaries in "information technology for enterprise networking" by Network World and also had received an award for "open networking excellence" from Communications Week and the Corporation for Open Systems International (COSI).

Kosnik has worked with over 100 startups since 1978. He also provides consulting and executive education to global companies in imagination-intensive industries. Some of his past clients include: American Management Systems; Apple Computer; Applied Materials; Electronic Arts; Ericsson; Ernst & Young; Genesys; Hewlett Packard; Microsoft; Nuance Communications; and numerous startups.

Kosnik earned a BA in History and International Relations from Duke University (1972), an MBA from the University of Virginia (1977) and a Ph.D. from Stanford Graduate School of Business (1986).

As an entrepreneur, Rodriguez has started and sold several companies in his career. Mr. Rodriguez was the founder and CEO of Invenio, a start-up he founded in 2003 based on a secure communications intercept system he patented and licensed to the DoD. As founder and CEO of NTA he grew the company to $10MM in revenues before it was successfully acquired by an Internet consulting company in 1999.

Prior to NTA he was a Principal Strategy Consultant for Treacy & Company, a management-consulting firm, led by Dr. Michael E. Treacy, the former MIT Sloan professor and coauthor of The Discipline of Market Leaders and author of Double-Digit Growth: How Great Companies Achieve It - No Matter What. At Treacy, Ralph specialized in emerging technology for Fortune 500 clients in the IM&E (Information, Media, and Entertainment) industries, as well as for clients of Treacy Ventures, LLC, the firm’s venture capital arm.

Mr. Rodriguez is also a prolific inventor who has successfully licensed his technologies and has several patents pending: an advanced underwater target detection system, an adaptive biometrics system and an enterprise database migration tool. His patent US 20040254988 is a real-time secure communications intercept system to deal with national security, detection and regulatory compliance of electronic messaging.

Mr. Rodriguez has co-authored two books on information security within technology environments which were published by the SANS Institute. He also co-authored two books targeted to the legal community; both were published by Massachusetts Continuing Legal Education, Inc. (MCLE), an organization in Boston focused on legal technology and electronic practice management where Ralph serves on the faculty. Ralph sits on the Board of Directors at the Academy of Applied Science and is also serving a 2-year appointment on the Advisory Board of IBM Rational.

Mr. Rodriguez is a graduate of the management program at IESE Business School, University of Navarra, Barcelona Spain. He is also a graduate of several programs on technology management and research at MIT’s Sloan School of Management and The Center for Information Systems Research (CISR). He is currently a Research Fellow at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) working on intellectual property issues and advanced biometrics based on artificial intelligence (AI) at the MIT Media Lab. Ralph also holds a BS in Computer Science and Technology from the US Army Institute (SOCAD) and is an Honors Graduate of several technical, operational, and communications schools in the United States Army, where he was a member of the elite 10th Mountain Division and the XVIII Airborne Corps; he is a veteran of the Persian Gulf War.

Ms. Pravda’s practice focuses on mergers and acquisitions, venture capital and securities transactions. She represents high-growth and emerging businesses, including companies in the telecommunications, Internet, software, wireless and service industries, as well as life science and biotechnology companies, from start-ups to public companies.

Ms. Pravda also frequently acts as special mergers and acquisitions counsel for "middle-market" private and public companies in the manufacturing, service, consulting and technology sectors, including buyers, sellers and management groups. She advises clients with respect to valuation issues, stockholder relationships, incentive compensation plans, director and officer liability and contractual issues.

Ms. Pravda lectures frequently to businessmen/ businesswomen and professionals on buying and selling middle-market companies and is a frequent keynote presenter for Vistage International meetings nationwide. Her articles on mergers and acquisitions, creative financing tools, and negotiating techniques appear in a variety of business publications. Ms. Pravda’s extensive knowledge as a negotiator of mergers and acquisitions is highlighted in the book, "Swim with the Dolphins: How Women Can Succeed in Corporate America on Their Own Terms," by Connie Glaser and Barbara Steinberg Smalley. She is the co-editor of MCLE’s Buying and Selling a Privately Owned Business in Massachusetts.

Ms. Pravda received her J.D. from Harvard Law School (cum laude, 1983) and a B.A. from Wesleyan University (magna cum laude, 1980).

Ms. Pravda is a director of the Boston Public Library Foundation and the YWCA Boston, and serves on the boards of a number of technology and life science companies. In 2004, 2005 and 2006, Ms. Pravda was named a Massachusetts Super Lawyer, an honor received by only 5% of Massachusetts attorneys. She has also been selected by her peers for inclusion in The Best Lawyers in America 2007©.

Ms. Pravda is admitted to practice in Massachusetts, New York, and the District of Columbia. She is a member of the Massachusetts Bar Association and Boston Bar Association, where she is co-chair of the Mergers & Acquisitions Committee.

Prior to Microsoft, Mr. Hanson served as Vice President of Worldwide Marketing for Neutrogena Corporation, a skin-care and cosmetics company. After achieving phenomenal growth during his tenure through new product introductions and global joint ventures, the company was acquired by Johnson & Johnson for a significant premium, largely attributable to the value of the Neutrogena brand. It was Hanson’s success at Neutrogena that attracted the attention of Bill Gates, who personally recruited him with the expressed mission of developing and executing an equally effective brand strategy for Microsoft.

Mr. Hanson’s other achievements include the following:

• Served as President, CEO, and Chairman of Amaze Inc., a multi-media software publisher with such popular products as The Far Side, Trivial Pursuit, Bloom County, and Berlitz theme computer calendars and screen savers
• Negotiated the sale of Amaze to Delrina Corporation
• Founded and served as CEO and Chairman of iTravel Corporation, an exclusive developer of multi-media travel guides for United Airlines, United Vacations, and the travel agency network
• Negotiated the successful sale of iTravel to StarPress
• Fulfilled roles of business development consultant, branding consultant, and board member of ColdHeat, where the company’s "instant heat, instant cold" proprietary material science led to the successful introduction of consumer small appliances
• Served as business development consultant, branding consultant, and board member of The Nautilus Group, developer and marketer of such brands as Bowflex, Nautilus, Schwinn Fitness, and StairMaster

In January 2002 Mr. Hanson founded The b EQUAL Company. The company’s mission is to strengthen the bonds between children and parents by creating games that make learning a fun, interactive, family event. Its partners include A&E (The History Channel / Biography), National Geographic, DreamWorks and Discovery, to name a few. The company recently merged with Specialty Board Games of Toronto Canada. SBG partners include the popular TV show CSI, NASCAR, and the World Wrestling Entertainment. Together, SBG/bEQUAL, is now one of the leading companies in digital games designed specifically for the entire family.

Prior to launching his business career, Mr. Hanson earned a BBA from Loyola University and an MBA from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

Prior to Pegasus, Mr. Pianelli was the Vice President of Wireless Innovation at Radio Shack Corp. where he was responsible for the development of new business ventures and product innovation. At Radio Shack he also held Director and Sr. Director Strategic Development roles that focused on creating a technology innovation sourcing strategy in collaboration with venture capital firms and Corporate R&D groups.

His prior experiences include: Special Limited Partner of TechStar, (tech-transfer and the commercialization of University research and innovations), Senior Vice President Curtco-Freedom Group, (B to B tech publisher/digital media), Co-Founder and Vice President Business Development, Communication Expo. During this time period, Mr. Pianelli led business formation, strategic growth efforts, launched several successful initiatives to raise capital funding and implemented successful exit strategies for shareholders.

Mr. Pianelli spent the first 10 years of his career as a financial analyst for Scandinavian Airline Systems (SAS) and Senior Broker and Director for public and private investment firms (Moseley/Gruntal, MHF investments ) with a focus on technology, media and wireless telecom industry investments. During his tenure at the investment firms he identified and led investments into companies at the forefront of the global build out of the cellular industry and the transition from analog to digital technologies which created a $1 trillion market today.

Mr. Pianelli holds a BA in Economics from the City University of New York.

Mr. Fillat personally focuses on companies in the telecommunications equipment, wireless, infrastructure, software, and services sectors. He has been directly responsible for approximately 40 deals and had active roles in another 50+ as group manager, mentor, sponsor, and advisor to non-US technology dealmakers at Advent. Before Advent, he spent four years as a partner at Fletcher Spaght working with their venture capital clients, and 13 years in operations, including 3 years as CTO of Fidelity Investments and 2 years as CEO of an early stage information services company.

Mr. Fillat holds an MBA degree from the Harvard Business School, as well as a Master of Sciences and Bachelors of Sciences from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, with a major in computer science.

Currently, Mr. Mathews is a partner at Idea Works, a consulting company where he creates the go-to-market strategies for consumer electronic and service companies. His expertise in consumer palatability and product readiness comes from inventing, testing and reviewing thousands of devices in his career. In addition to his consulting and public speaking, Dave is also a regular contributor to Ziff Davis’ PC Magazine, O’Reilly’s Make and other consumer-tech publications as well as The Guidewire Report.

Before his tenure at Idea Works, Mr. Mathews served as the Forward Thinker at Sling Media Inc, in San Francisco. There he identified consumer trends leading to the development and creation of the latest in digital media products. Previously, he was brought in by the former chairman of RadioShack as the Director, Product Innovation to develop their modern home strategy, introducing products such as the RadioShack USB Electronic Scale, Cinego portable DLP with integrated DVD player and power line transmitted whole-house audio systems. Before joining RadioShack, Mr. Mathews was co-founder of Digital:Convergence - creator of the CueCat - a first-ever consumer barcode reader, distributed through Forbes, Wired, Parade and Nielsen Media publications. He also launched a TV to web broadcast hyper-linking technology licensed to NBC called CueTV.

Mr. Mathews resides in San Francisco, California where he enjoys his daily views of the Golden Gate Bridge. He can be reached via www.davemathews.com online.

Some of Mr. Randall’s representative investments include Dynamicsoft (acquired by Cisco), Bitfone (acquired by Hewlett Packard), FusionOne and Visage Mobile. Before becoming a venture capitalist, Mr. Randall had been Chief Marketing Officer at Lucent’s Service Provider Group, which he joined in 1999 upon the acquisition of Ascend by Lucent for $24 billion. At the time of acquisition, Mr. Randall was the Vice President of Worldwide Marketing helping re-position Ascend. Prior to Ascend, Mr. Randall held the position as Vice President of Worldwide Marketing and General Manager at Stratus Computer and Vice President of Strategic Market Development at Madge Networks.

Prior to Madge Networks, Mr. Randall co-founded Teleos Communications in 1987. During the nearly 10 years Mr. Randall spent building Teleos, he held several roles including CTO, Vice President of Business Development, and Vice President of WAN Access Technology. Mr. Randall helped guide Teleos until its acquisition in 1996 by Madge Networks. Mr. Randall began his career in technology at AT&T Bell Labs in 1981 as a Member of Technical Staff and later as MTS Supervisor. Mr. Randall holds several US Patents.