Brian Ascher
General Partner, Venrock
Brian Ascher joined Venrock in 1998 as a Kauffman Fellow and is currently a Partner based in Palo Alto. Brian focuses on Healthcare IT and general internet investments. Brian’s current Healthcare IT investments include Vocera and Awarepoint, and he was a past director of RelayHealth up until its acquisition by McKesson. Brian also serves on the Boards of Retail Solutions, Inrix, Billfloat, Redbeacon, and Social Shield; and previous investments include ADiFY (acquired by Cox Enterprises), DATAllegro (acquired by Microsoft), and Unicru (acquired by Kronos.) Prior to Venrock, Brian was a Senior Product Manager at Intuit responsible for Quicken and Quicken.com, and earlier in his career was a Strategy Consultant at the Monitor Group. Brian has been named to the Forbes Midas List, which ranks the top venture capitalists, multiple times including the current edition. Brian received his B.A. from Princeton and his M.B.A. from Stanford.
Hear more from Brian >> YouTube video: “The rationale behind placing money today”
Jay Deady
President and Chief Executive Officer, Awarepoint
An experienced global executive leader with high personal commitment and ethics, Jay has demonstrated ability in delivering significant value to organizations. Jay Deady serves as president and chief executive officer of Awarepoint. In this role, Jay will drive the strategic vision for Awarepoint and manage all company operations focusing on new market development, revenue growth, profitability, and ensuring the long term success of our hospital clients. He has an outstanding record of building high performance teams and a strong focus on both internal and external client satisfaction.
Jay’s career has been in healthcare information technology for 21 years, including significant experience as a public corporate officer. He was most recently the executive vice president of client solutions for Eclipsys where he drove the corporate global go-to-market and solution delivery strategies, and successfully positioned the company for its merger with Allscripts. Prior to Eclipsys, he was senior vice president and general manager of revenue cycle at McKesson Provider Technologies. He also held general manager and vice president positions with Cerner Corporation and ADAC Healthcare earlier in his career. Jay received his Bachelor of Arts degree in political science with emphasis in economics from Tufts University in Massachusetts.
Douglas Downs
Avalon Ventures
Douglas Downs is a Member and Chief Financial Officer of Avalon Ventures. Doug possesses over 20 years of senior financial and operational experience in both public and private technology organizations. Doug has direct experience as a board member and audit committee chair and as CFO has led multiple public offerings, venture financings and has financed growth through domestic and international debt placements. In addition to the CFO role at Avalon Ventures, Doug plays an active role in several of the Avalon portfolio’s early stage companies.
Prior to Avalon Ventures, Doug provided part-time CFO services to a variety of high technology companies. Prior to starting his CFO services business, Doug was the CFO and VP of Operations for Extensis, Inc., a venture-backed, graphics Software Company that for several years was Oregon’s fastest growing enterprise. Additionally, Doug was the CFO of NASDAQ-listed GTI Corporation, a supplier of networking components and network access equipment to OEMs in the local, wide-area and telecommunications industries.
Doug began his career in financial planning and analysis for a Fortune 500 company. He has a B.S. in Accounting from San Diego State University.
Brandon Hull
General Partner, Cardinal Partners
Brandon is a co-founder of Cardinal Partners, a medical and life sciences venture capital partnership established in 1996. He entered the venture capital industry in 1991 as a principal of the Edison Venture Fund, where he directed Edison’s healthcare investing activities and served on the boards of its healthcare portfolio companies. His extensive investment experience includes all facets of health care services, health care information systems, medical products & devices, and encompasses a variety of information technology sectors outside of health care.
Prior to his venture investing experience, Brandon spent seven years in health services operations. Brandon has served on the boards of numerous healthcare and medtech companies, and currently serves as a director of AthenaHealth, CardioOptics, Replication Medical, CodeRyte, Awarepoint, and is a board observer at AccentCare. Brandon received his BA in Philosophy and Literature from Wheaton College and his MBA from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.
Tom Mawhinney
JAFCO Ventures
Tom Mawhinney joined JAFCO Ventures in 2003 as a General Partner, bringing a 15-year background in the technology industry as both a venture capitalist (with Summit Partners and Canaan Partners) and an entrepreneur (having run North Systems for five years). Having been in the “startup world” for more than 20 years when he joined the Awarepoint Board of Directors, he brings a passion for helping to scale young, rapidly growing companies.
Prior investment successes include AmeriPath (PATH), Brion Technoligies (ASML), DATAllegro (Microsoft), Infinera (INFN), IntelliQuest (IQST), Microbank Software (SunGard Data Systems), Mimosa Systems (Iron Mountain), Pediatrix Medical Group (PDX), PostPath (Cisco Systems), Powerwave Technologies (PWAV), Solidcore Systems (McAfee) and SteriGenics International (STER). Current investments include The 41st Parameter, ClairMail, Groundwork Open Source, Hara Software, Voltage Security, Xambala and Yodle.
Tom received his MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business and graduated with honors with a Bachelor of Arts degree from Harvard College.
Dana Mead
Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers
Dana Mead joined Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers as a partner in May 2005 to work in the firm’s life sciences practice. He leverages experience accrued from his venture-funded, startup management roles and board participation to support entrepreneurs and innovators dedicated to making a real difference in the lives of millions suffering from life-limiting diseases. Dana serves on the boards of Apnicure, Awarepoint, Corventis, Inspire Medical Systems, Intersect ENT, Invuity, Navigenics, Pulmonx, Spiracur, Spinal Modulation, Teladoc and Voyage Medical.
For the past 28 years, Dana’s career has focused on identifying new medical technologies, developing new markets and therapies, and building world-class management teams. He has worked with physician thought leaders around the world representing 10 medical specialties. Before joining KPCB, Dana was president of Guidant Vascular Intervention, a fully integrated billion-dollar division with more than 4,500 employees. He joined Guidant in 1992 and held positions of increasing responsibility during his tenure, including vice president and general manager, Cardiac & Vascular Surgery; vice president and general manager, Stents, Vascular Intervention Group; president, Japan and A/P Operations based in Tokyo; and vice president, Corporate Relations and Policy, with responsibility for investor relations, corporate communications, corporate marketing and public policy initiatives. Earlier in his career, Dana worked in various sales and marketing roles at Allergan, Inc. and Johnson & Johnson.
Dana formerly served as a director of the Cardiovascular Research Foundation, Aesthera (acquired by Solta [Nasdaq: SLTM]) and OtisMed (acquired by Stryker [Nasdaq: SYK]). He currently serves on the boards of the California Healthcare Institute and Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford University, and he is the chair of the Lafayette College West Coast Advisory Council. A native of Connecticut, Dana received his B.A. degree from Lafayette College and holds an M.B.A from the University of Southern California.
Edward J. Zander, Ph.D.
Director, Netezza Corporation
Edward J. Zander has spent more than 35 years in the technology sector. He has played a key role in shaping some of the major paradigm shifts in technology that impact the world today. Mr. Zander was most recently chairman of the board and chief executive officer of Motorola. During his four-year tenure, he sharpened Motorola’s edge in technology innovation; delivered on 12 consecutive quarters of revenue growth, and the company doubled its revenue and achieved double digit earnings for the first time in over a decade. Prior to Motorola, Mr. Zander was president and chief operating officer of Sun Microsystems until 2002. During his 15 years at the company, he grew Sun to $18 billion in revenues; established the company as number one in the server market; and built it into the pre-eminent supplier of network software infrastructure with Solaris and Java.
Before Sun, Mr. Zander worked at Apollo Computer as vice president of marketing and at Data General in a number of marketing and engineering positions. He was also managing director at Silver Lake Partners, a leading private equity fund, in 2003, and has served on the board of directors for several technology companies. Today he is a director of Netezza Corporation and also served as chairman of the Technology CEO Council in Washington D.C. and has been on a number of civic and philanthropic boards. Mr. Zander is a member of the Board of Trustees at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and a member of the Dean’s Advisory Council of the School of Management at Boston University.
Mr. Zander received an undergraduate degree in electrical engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and a master’s degree in business administration as well as an honorary Ph.D. from Boston University.


