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Derek Besenfelder
 Derek is a graduate of UC Santa Barbara and began his career assisting in Westfield Inc.’s San Francisco Centre’s $440 million dollar expansion, and later served as one of the company’s Regional Assistant Marketing Directors in Los Angeles. After leaving Westfield, Derek transitioned to the entertainment industry and focused on event planning, design and production and joined Bolthouse Productions as Brent Bolthouse’s Executive Assistant, where he coordinated and assisted with the production of numerous events for leading companies such as Maxim, T-Mobile, Victoria’s Secret, DirecTV, Showtime and NBC. At Bolthouse, Derek was also responsible for coordinating all office filming for the MTV’s hit show, The Hills. Following his time at Bolthouse, Derek joined as Director of Communications for Harvard-trained plastic surgeon, Dr. Rajesh Chopra, with responsibilities spanning from logistics to include all marketing initiatives, press/public relations and office/client events. Presently, Derek is back in San Francisco and working for Image Three Inc, an event design and production company responsible for crafting an unparalleled level of events that has revolutionized the industry, not only in the San Francisco Bay Area, but across the country and abroad for over two decades. Additionally, Derek is a sought after PR and marketing consultant, with extensive contacts in Los Angeles, New York and San Francisco.
Kayne Burk
 Kayne Burk is currently working with his co-founder on a new product designed to help professionals manage their personal networks. Prior to his latest venture, Kayne consulted IDEO on the launch of new ventures developed within the firm using their Human Centered Design Process. Kayne has also worked to with a variety of start ups–in industries including advertising, fashion, finance, and food–to help bring their products to market. Kayne relocated to California from Texas, where he managed real estate investments and key partnerships for Goldman Sachs in Argentina, Brazil, Canada, and the U.S. Before joining Goldman, Kayne founded and later sold Tribe Card, a company offering advertising and coupon products to small businesses in college markets. Kayne holds a Masters of Business administration degree from the Stanford Graduate School of Business and dual degrees in Plan II and Management Information Systems from the University of Texas. When not working, Kayne likes to relax by skiing, hiking, and watching live music.
Julie Crabill
 Julie Crabill is a senior public relations and marketing professional with nearly 10 years of experience in agency-side PR. She recently left her position as the vice president of the Consumer Lifestyle Practice at SHIFT Communications to forge out on her own in an attempt to create a very different kind of professional services company. She is currently working with live video learning site, eduFire, and cloud labor provider, Dolores Labs. In her role at SHIFT, Julie oversaw all consumer-related accounts within SHIFT’s west coast Consumer Lifestyle Practice and was responsible for leading the practice regionally. Ranging from consumer products like UGOBE’s robotic dinosaur, Pleo, and Wordlock’s word based combination locks, to services like the Gazelle consumer gadget buy-back site and Powerset’s semantic search offering. Prior to joining SHIFT, Julie worked at Edelman managing both consumer technology and semiconductor accounts and at Weber Shandwick supporting a variety of high-tech clients. Julie started her PR career at the Benjamin Group supporting clients like Peet’s Coffee and the Beverly Hills Conference & Visitor’s Bureau. Prior to her career in PR, Julie worked in the Global Advanced Technology practice at Korn/Ferry International, an executive search firm. Julie earned a bachelor’s degree in public relations from San Jose State University. While a student, Julie won PR Week’s prestigious PR Student of the Year honor.
Frederick Felman
 Frederick Felman’s career in marketing enterprise and security technology and services spans 25 years. At MarkMonitor, he is responsible for defining and promoting the company’s brand protection product offerings. He and his team created the Brandjacking Index®, an often-cited measure of the trends in online abuse targeting the world’s largest brands. As part of the MarkMonitor commitment to securing brands online, Frederick leads advocacy initiatives for brand owners rights issues that intersect Internet governance. Before joining MarkMonitor, Frederick was Vice President of Products and Marketing at Zone Labs, which was acquired by Check Point Technologies. He received his Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from the University of Southern California.
Ryan Lowther
 Ryan Lowther is an attorney in the Business Transactions Group and Securities Group at Farella Braun + Martel LLP. He has a wide-ranging general business practice which emphasizes the corporate, securities, financing and operational needs of early stage and maturing companies. He has helped entrepreneurs form their companies and secure financing, and regularly represents start-up, early-stage and middle-market companies in connection with private placements of common and preferred stock, stock options, warrants, convertible securities and debt. He has also represented private equity, venture capital and corporate strategic investors in negotiating and documenting investments in companies at any stage of development. He regularly works with investors and their portfolio companies on appropriate investments, management structures and exit strategies, including sales to strategic buyers and public offerings.
Ryan earned his J.D. from Columbia Law School in 2003, where he was Managing Editor of the Columbia Journal of Transactional Law and a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar. He received his B.S. from Florida State University in 1998. Ryan is admitted to practice in California and New York.
Gregory Miller
 Through August 2009, Greg was Director, Philanthropic Affairs for Google.org, leading Google’s philanthropic investments, grants and legal issues as a hybrid philanthropy; and was secretary, chief financial officer and general counsel of the Google Foundation. From launch in 2006 until 2009, as Google.org’s Managing Director, Investments and Legal, Greg’s responsibilities encompassed both philanthropic investments and grants across all program initiatives. Greg continues as an advisor to Google.org, and is a board member of several for- and non-profit entities. Greg began with a corporate finance career at Brown & Wood law firm in New York City, later joining Latham & Watkins as Of Counsel in San Francisco working with companies and leading investment banks structuring financing transactions. In 2001 Greg joined Gunderson Dettmer LLP in Menlo Park, CA as an equity partner advising emerging growth and technology companies and leading venture capital firms. Later he helped found and launch Cometa Networks, one of the pioneer wi-fi companies, securing top-tier venture and strategic funding. Greg has a BA in Economics and Philosophy from Colgate University, and a JD from the University of Virginia.
Mike Sullivan
 Mike Sullivan is a partner in the emerging companies group at Pillsbury, a leading San Francisco law firm. He has counseled entrepreneurs/startups and their investors for over 20 years. Mike has handled hundreds of angel and venture capital financings and over 50 public offerings, including an IPO for PlanetOut (owner of gay.com; Nasdaq symbol: LGBT) in 2004, eBay’s $1.3 billion stock offering in 1999, and the first-ever Internet IPO in 1994, for NetCom. His clients have included eBay, Digital River, PlanetOut, Grouper Networks, Urchin Software (now Google Analytics), H5 Technologies, Pie Digital, Inc., Real Girls Media Network, PBwiki, Cardstore.com and WebMynd. He has deep experience with Internet/digital media/software business models, but also works with consumer (St. George Spirits, maker of Hangar One vodka) and cleantech (BPL Global, a leading smart grid company) companies. He also represents a number of venture capital and angel investors, including Blumberg Capital, IDG Ventures, WaldenVC, Felicis Ventures, Levensohn Ventures, Blueprint Ventures and The Roda Group. Mike is a graduate of Williams College and Michigan Law School. His outside interests skew green – his book, the Trees of San Francisco, was published in 2004, and he was appointed by Mayor Newsom to the San Francisco Recreation and Park Commission in 2007. |
