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COMPANY OVERVIEW
Incomparable companies benefit most when the Board of Directors includes extraordinary members whose special vision guides the management team and company personnel to produce at the highest levels. Discera is pleased to have the participation of just such a group.
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Tom Willey - President and Chief Executive Officer
Tom is an experienced CEO and General Manager who spent the last 15 years growing successful businesses within the communications and wireless semiconductor marketplace.
Tom’s recent accomplishments include doubling Philips Semiconductors TDMA/CDMA Cellular chip business to $270M and developing and executing a complete “chips through handset” CDMA customer solution strategy that enabled the successful penetration of the fast growing local manufacturing Chinese cellular handset market.
Most recently, Tom was President & CEO of Innovics Wireless where he successfully developed and delivered the industry's first WCDMA data PC card using Innovics’ internally developed baseband 3G-modem chip.
Tom has successfully managed all aspects of the semiconductor business cycle from product strategy and vision, product development through customer design wins and order fulfillment. Previous posts include President and CEO at Innovics Wireless, Vice President and General Manager at both Philips Semiconductors and VLSI and senior positions at National Semiconductor and Hewlett Packard. |
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David Silverman
David Silverman joined the 3i US team in 2000. He is focused on 3i's late stage efforts, with experience investing across all aspects of the Internet, software and semiconductor industries. David currently sits on the Board of Directors of BlueLithium, Discera, Forte Design Systems and Speakeasy. He is also involved with 3i’s investments in Omniture and Vonage.
David represents 3i as a member of the Venture Capital Advisory Board for the Fabless Semiconductor Association.
Before joining the 3i team, David spent three years as vice president in technology investment banking at Robertson Stephens. He has extensive transactional experience in equity corporate finance, leveraged buyouts and recapitalizations. David also worked as a corporate lawyer at the law firms of Ropes & Gray and Sidley & Austin. Prior to graduate school, he served during the Bush Administration as an aide to the Counsel to the President, acting as a liaison to several Washington research institutes and to the Executive Office during the President's Deregulation Initiative.
David earned his JD from Stanford Law School and graduated summa cum laude from Dartmouth College.
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Rick Snyder
Rick is Chairman of the Board, CEO, and a co-founder of Ardesta. Since 1991, his primarily business activities have focused on the technology industry and the development of emerging and high growth companies.
In 1997, Rick founded and led Avalon Investments, Inc., a venture capital company targeted at investments in technology-oriented ventures. Avalon was established as a $100 million fund targeting early stage technology investments.
From 1991 to 1997, he served as executive vice president and then president and COO of Gateway, Inc. His responsibilities included overseeing all company operations and assisting in the strategic direction of the company. Rick was appointed Chairman of the Board of Gateway in 2005 and has been the Interim CEO since February of 2006. From 1982 to 1991, Rick was with Coopers & Lybrand (now Pricewaterhouse Coopers). From 1982 to 1984, Rick served as an adjunct assistant professor of accounting at the University of Michigan. He earned a Bachelor of General Studies degree with high distinction in 1977, a Masters of Business Administration with distinction in 1979, and a Juris Doctor in 1982, all from the University of Michigan.
Currently, Rick serves as Chairman of Ann Arbor SPARK, and is a member of The University of Michigan’s National Advisory Boards of Technology Transfer, College of Literature, Science, and the Arts, Samuel Zell & Robert H. Lurie Institue for Entreprenurial Studies, and the Comprehenseive Cancer Center . Rick is also active on the board of directors or advisory boards of several privately held companies and community and educational organizations, including The Henry Ford, The Nature Conservancy – Michigan Chapter, and The Sphinx Organization. Rick is also a member of the Michigan Bar Association.
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Tim Wilson
Tim joined Partech International in 2001 and focuses on communications and components investments.
Between 1997 and 2001, Tim was the Chief Marketing Officer for Digital Island, a Partech portfolio company.
During his tenure the company grew from $.2M to more than $100M in annual revenues, completed five private financings, an IPO, secondary and three acquisitions. The company was acquired by Cable & Wireless in 2001 for $350M. Prior to Digital Island, Tim was a General Manager at Lucent Technology where he led the international voice communications product management team (now Avaya) with P&L for product lines generating over $2 Billion in annual sales and coauthored a VOIP related patent.
Before Lucent, Tim held a variety of senior management positions within AT&T (North America and Australia) and AT&T Bell Labs from 1983-1995.
Tim's current portfolio companies include ARIO Data Networks, Discera, Invensense, Spudnik and Teknovus where he holds a board seat with each company.
He graduated summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa from Bowdoin College receiving his undergraduate degree in Physics. He received his MBA from Duke University's Fuqua School of Business where he was named a Fuqua Scholar.
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Jim Jones
Jim's investment focus is in semiconductor and MEMS components and enterprise systems. Jim joined Scale Venture Partners in 2000 and currently sits on the boards of Auvitek, CipherMax, Discera, Entone, Enuclia, NComputing, and Xceive. Jim was also responsible for ScaleVP's investment in Monolithic Power Systems (NASDAQ: MPWR).
Prior to Scale Venture Partners, Jim led product management, product marketing, and business development groups at 3Com Corporation, where he managed a diverse $1.2 billion product line. He also spearheaded the company's entry into and market leadership of Fast Ethernet and Gigabit Ethernet solutions as well as its foray into the home networking market. Prior to 3Com, Jim worked in integrated circuit development and marketing with National Semiconductor, focusing on analog, ATM, FDDI, and Ethernet controller and transceiver solutions.
Jim holds a BSEE from the University of California, Davis.
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