Robert Atwood

Robert is the co-founder of Forest Partners, LLC, Atlanta and Sea Island, Georgia.  His expertise includes performing diligence, offering strategic and tactical recommendations to improve management and valuation of life science companies and providing financial management strategies. In the past he held senior positions at Corautus Genetics, Inc., Deloitte LLP, and the Catholic Foundation of South Georgia.

Steve Bachman

Steve is CEO Partner at Hi Tech Partners and CEO of AuditMyBooks, a SaaS supplier of FinTech solutions. Steve has taken multiple companies from idea, to first sales, to high growth, to commercial sale (McAfee, NetIQ, and CA) with no funding, angel funding, and venture funding. His expertise is in software, financial technologies, and mobile. Steve’s strength is startup sales and operations with insights on doing more with less.

Harold Ball

Harold has over 20 years of experience in marketing strategy and analytics consulting and holds a PhD in Economics from GSU. He created BellSouth’s Consumer Database Marketing group and led its efforts to quantify the effectiveness of marketing decisions through data analysis and modeling. Currently, Harold serves as the head of analytics for Five x Five.

Harold Brown

Harold is a serial entrepreneur & investor with over 20 years of startup experience in manufacturing and services. He has had several successful exits, most recently, a B2C e-commerce platform with sales in 15 countries. Earlier, he worked for fortune 100 companies and obtained an MBA. Currently, Harold works with entrepreneurs in launching and growing companies.

Russell Brown

Russell has over 30 years of software sales and sales management experience in large and small firms with expertise in new product introduction. He was an early employee at PeopleSoft, MSA, and Witness Systems and was integral to each company’s success. Currently, Russell is the Sales Director at Model N a startup revenue-management solution for the life science industries.

Hardin Byars

Hardin has over 30 years of experience in technology, business management, and consulting. His positions within the industry varied from vice president of private real estate investment firm to CEO of a national technology consulting firm. He founded Innovus Consulting, LLC where he coaches senior executives on strategic planning and organizational development to drive growth.

Peter Chronis

Peter Chronis is Director, Information Security and IT Risk Management for EarthLink, Inc. (NASDAQ: ELNK) a $1.3B consumer and business IT services company, where he is responsible for managing information security operations, architecture, compliance and business continuity teams focused on protecting the company and its 1.4M customers.

Pete has 15-years of experience using technology to manage risk in the ISP, financial services and telecommunications industries. He is the inventor of several innovative proprietary IT security technologies that together have blocked over 300 billion threats. In addition to his technical and security experience, Pete has preformed acquisition due diligence, developed technical integration and product development strategies.

Prior to EarthLink, Pete developed sophisticated proprietary fraud detection systems for Lynk Systems, now called WorldPay.

John Cobb

John is a commercial real estate agent specializing in helping technology companies make and execute real estate decisions. Prior to going into real estate, he earned an Electrical Engineering degree from Georgia Tech and spent 16 years working in engineering and sales roles in Atlanta’s power, technology, and construction sectors. His expertise includes all key decisions when considering real estate.

J Cornelius

J Cornelius is the President of Nine Labs, an experience and strategy consultancy based in Atlanta GA. His work focuses on computer/human interaction, user experience, application strategy, technical systems implementation, and process analysis. He served as VP of Operations at CoffeeCup Software for 14 years where he helped steer the company from startup to multi-national, is President of the Atlanta Web Design Group, founded the Web Afternoon conference series, lectures at the University of Georgia’s Terry School of Business, and has lectured on topics from software development methodologies to the psychology of customer experience to groups of all sizes at events across the country.

He has also worked on technical projects with companies like Mattel, Pantone, and General Electric; served as an advisor to the computer science department at Texas A&M University; and as a private consultant to numerous other enterprises and organizations.

Joseph Denny

Joseph has over 25 years experience in product management, marketing, and strategy delivering accelerated product development, revenue/share growth, and increased profitability of high-technology hardware, software, and services portfolios. He has led in both Fortune 100 such as Siemens and Lucent and startup firms such in the following industries: wireless, optical, digital, telecom, and broadband.

Angelika Domschke

Angelika is an accomplished & creative R&D leader with over 18 years of experience in design and implementation of novel materials and products for medical devices companies and start-ups (Eye Sense AG, BioCure Inc., Alcon, CIBA VISION, and Novartis). She holds a Ph.D. degree in polymer chemistry and has extensive know-how in program management from concept to launch. She has been awarded 25 patents, which generated significant revenue in the area of medical device, sensors, implants, material test methods. Her expertise includes technical consulting for biomaterials and test methods, development of emerging technologies: Identifying gaps and opportunities, strategy and execution of proof of concept, IP generation, product specification, product verification, risk analysis.

Mike Eckert

Mike was on the startup team of The Weather Channel and its CEO for 14 years. Under Mike’s aegis The Weather Channel grew into a leading media brand and from its analog cable television network roots into a distributor of weather information via digital technologies.

Kent Elmer

Kent is a partner at TechCFO providing comprehensive business infrastructure services and executive level financial management to emerging, growth-stage and established companies in the software, technology, life sciences, manufacturing and services industries. As an accountant he had expertise in helping startups with all things financial.

Nick Farsi

Nick advises technology entrepreneurs with development and marketing of products and services, he has extensive background in technology solution development and implementation. His proficiencies lie in a variety of areas such as merger strategy and planning, e-commerce, CRM, team and staff development, P&L management, vendor management, technology roadmaps, and customer care solutions.

Jeff Fisher

Jeff’s strengths are strategic thinking, decision making, marketing and sales. He is a partner in Hi Tech Partners, LLC and works as an investor, advisor, and Board of Directors member for several technology companies to support their efforts to compete, grow and prosper in today’s highly competitive global economy. Jeff works as an investor, advisor, and Board of Directors member for several technology companies to support their efforts to compete, grow and prosper in today’s highly competitive global economy.

Richard Friedman

Richard is a former executive and officer of public and private telecommunication, healthcare and manufacturing businesses with domestic and international operations. His deep knowledge of board and corporate governance, financial and operational internal controls, federal, state and industry compliance, risk management and HR issues have enabled him to successfully serve key stakeholders.

Bo Hagler

Bo has leadership experienced from startup through disposition. He focuses on building methods for reaching new markets and clients as a collaborator and partner. His areas of expertise include technology, manufacturing, startup and growth management. Currently he is Sr. Director of Research and Development for QAD, Inc., a technology firm that provides innovative enterprise software, services and support.

Chris Hagler

Chris is Founder and Managing Partner of HaglerHomrich, a sustainability consulting and project resourcing firm. Prior to founding HaglerHomrich, she was the Global Managing Director for Resources Global Professionals where she built a $100million+ technology consulting business. Her broad experience includes founding and selling a technology company, executing process improvement projects at Deloitte Consulting, and holding roles in manufacturing and real estate.

Rhonda Hills

Rhonda is an innovative, forward-thinking marketing executive who has built, launched and marketed digital products and services for nearly 20 years. Rhonda joined AOL shortly after their IPO in the early 1990′s and has been with several other digital companies as they prepared to go public. She has significant experience addressing scale issues – growing businesses from $10MM to $100MM or from $100MM to $1B and has demonstrated success in positioning or repositioning brands to effectively compete in the marketplace. With marketing leadership roles at Kudzu.com, Cox Interactive Media and an advertising agency, she is well versed in all aspects of B2C and B2B marketing strategy and operations, including traditional, digital, social media, PR and trade advertising.

Michelangelo Ho

Michelangelo is a product management professional with end-to-end experience commercializing new products and services from ideation, strategy, roadmaps, development, launch and P&L management. His expertise lies in mobile, eCommerce, and telecom with recent experience in mobile payments/commerce, mobile apps, cellular, location based services (lbs), and social shopping.

Sandy Hofmann

Sandy is an innovative and inspiring executive who understands and drives the value of alignment across the enterprise. Her broad management experience, including 14 years with IBM, has enabled her to effectively guide teams to realize goals and deliver results. Sandy’s management philosophy, leadership characteristics and business results have been acknowledged through recognitions including 2003 Georgia CIO of the Year.

Ron Hollis

Ron is founder of Quickparts.com, which he helped grow from startup to successful exit. His passion is the systems of business in technology areas that make it easier for the customer and drive operational efficiencies.

His strengths include strategic planning, leadership, organizational management and successful entrepreneurship. His website is www.ronhollis.com.

Robert Horne

Robert is a business executive with experience in bringing new products to market and managing organizational change. After obtaining an MSc in Chemical Engineering from Cambridge and an MBA from Harvard, he worked for large and small firms including DEC and Nortel as well as two Silicon Valley startups. His focus is on information technology and healthcare — devices and biotech.

Chuck Johnson

Chuck is a technologist, entrepreneur, and angel investor with a passion for creating innovative, technology-based products and services. He has 20+ years of technology leadership experience in advanced development and startup organizations. His interests lie in social, mobile, geo-spatial, cloud and big data-based products & services. Chuck has assisted entrepreneurs and startups with business plans, product planning, competitive analysis, revenue models, go-to-market strategy, and raising investment capital. He is an active member of ATA and serves on its deal screening committees.

Frank Keith

After receiving his MBA at Golden Gate University, Frank built over 25 years of business development experience in the IT industry. His areas of focus include creating, developing and leading high performing professional sales teams, new business development and implementation, customer care operations, and program development. Currently he is a VP at Symon Communications, a provider of fully integrated visual communications solutions.

Bill Kunz

Bill built a tremendously successful sales management career at IBM, Stratus, and Cisco selling directly to end users at “Fortune 1000” firms. His experience includes guidance on big ticket, complex long cycle sales, hiring and managing sales people (especially a firm’s very first salesperson), new account sales, and helping a firm make its first 5 sales.

Badri Lokanathan

Badri has co-founded and managed startups, worked at small, mid-size and large companies and as an independent consultant. Before his current position as Manager at Accenture Analytics, he was CEO of Enkia Corp, Principal Consultant with Market Plan Engineering, and co-founder/CEO of Ardext Technologies. A graduate of the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi and a PhD in Electrical Engineering from the University of Rochester, NY, he spent the first 10 years of his professional career as a system architect and senior developer in the Electronics Design Automation industry, working at Mentor Graphics and Tera Systems.

Reach out to him if you need advice in: market analysis; product concept development; marketing requirements; software planning and development; R&D team management and leadership. He has a lot of experience commercializing emerging R&D software technology for industrial applications.

Mike Lowry

Mike has experience in IT management, software development and sales, energy generation and energy storage technology, and technology startups. His interests lie in energy-related technologies, software, database-driven applications, and biomedical electronics technology applicable to stroke rehab. He enjoys helping technologists with an idea figure out how to become real companies. Mike currently owns Lowry Properties, an IT services consultancy.

Dan McBreen

Dan is a 15 year veteran of the software industry with specific expertise in building and executing “Go To Market” strategies for emerging software technologies that result in accelerated customer acquisition and revenue growth. Dan has experience and relationships with enterprise customers and strategic partners in markets across North America, Europe and Latin America. The majority of his career has been with Quest Software which has seen revenues grow from $75m to over $800m during Dan’s career with Quest.

Jeffrey McConnell

Jeff has over 20 years experience in improving organizations from venture capital backed to Fortune 500 and is Whisper Communications’ current CEO. He holds well-developed venture capital, private equity and investment banking relationships that have enabled acquisitions, divestitures, and financial and operational restructurings. His areas of expertise lies in leading during rapid change, product development, brand management, agent/distribution management, and financial management.

Brian McCormack

Brian has experience in technology industry sales, marketing and management (IBM, Nortel, Cisco, Alcatel). He has grown startups since 1999 and participated in two successful Nasdaq IPO’s. He seeks to help early stage technology companies develop market-entry strategies and launch initial revenue streams.

Larry McHugh

Larry has decades of successful sales and marketing management experience. Starting his career with the world’s largest consumer packaged goods company, he has extensive experience with higher education and advertising organizations. He has worked with numerous national advertisers, developing innovative marketing strategies utilizing local television, network cable, public broadcasting and interactive media.

Russell Medford

Russell is founder and CEO of AtheroGenics, Inc., a pharmaceutical company focused on the discovery, development and commercialization of novel drugs. He was Director of Molecular Cardiology at the Emory University School of Medicine, and currently holds the appointment of Adjunct Clinical Professor. He is a molecular cardiologist who has researched and published extensively, while taking part in pharmaceutical startups.

Michael Meyer

Michael’s focus is on tangible product companies, such as hardware and manufacturing. His areas of expertise lie in operations, fund raising, international business, M&A, cash management, forecasting, budgeting, treasury, activity based costing, strategic planning, change management, technology startups, and turnaround situations. He has worked in industries including medical, fiber optic, wireless data equipment, lithium batteries, solar cells, video boards and construction.

Nat Milburn

Nat has +20 years experience in helping Fortune 500 companies create and grow alternative revenue streams. For the past seven years, Nat built and led Newell Rubbermaid’s Corporate Business Development function, responsible for global development of alternative growth models, technology and brand licensing. For Newell Rubbermaid’s Early-stage Venture Fund, Nat identified, selected, and led investments in start-ups that could accelerate Newell Rubbermaid’s innovation pipeline. Prior to joining Newell Rubbermaid, Nat was Director of North and Latin America Licensing for The Coca-Cola Company.

Richard Otto

Richard has over 20 years in the life sciences industry. His leadership experience includes being director of Endeavor Technologies, which became WebMD, and CEO of Corautus Genetics, Inc which is focused on treating ischemic myocardial disease. He also co-founded Forest Partners, LLC, a life science consulting firm. His experience lies in corporate financing, M&A and collaborations, and FDA regulatory strategies.

Julie Priess

Julie is director of marketing at Cbeyond, a technology company serving small to mid-sized businesses. She is responsible for strategy, communications, advertising, media and public relations, digital properties and events. Julie has worked in the telecom and technology industries for start-ups and FORTUNE 100 companies. Her experience includes nearly 11 years with MCI Telecommunications where she directed marketing communications for the commercial launch of MCI Local Service, a multi-billion dollar initiative. Julie also worked at Teligent, a start-up fixed wireless broadband provider. She launched 42 markets and trained more than 1,000 sales reps. Following Teligent, Julie led marketing communications at StorageTek, a $2B company, where she re-launched the brand and established the company’s go-to-market launch strategy.

After her corporate experience, Julie started a boutique marketing consulting company, JKP Group. She led strategic and project-specific work for startups and established companies in telecom, high tech, sports, entertainment and media.

Jose Quintana

Jose has 15 years experience as a CFO in venture and private equity backed technology companies, in the Atlanta and Boston markets. His financial expertise includes strategic and business planning, equity and debt capital raising, building effective financial operations, and M&A transactions. His background also includes strong operational experience as a GM. He has worked with companies at various stages of growth, from startups to later stage growth businesses.

John Richard

John is a founding Partner of Georgia Venture Partners, and is involved in all aspects of GVP investment activities. John is also a strategic and commercial development advisor to the biotechnology industry. He was also co-founder and original CEO of IMPATH Laboratories, Inc., a leading cancer pathology reference laboratory (now a part of Genzyme).

JJ Roberts

JJ is a serial entrepreneur with a strong background in marketing and sales. He was a founder of two ATDC hardware companies that produced machine vision systems. JJ was president and CEO of Systronics. He was vice president of sales and marketing at Accucentry, an ATDC graduate company. JJ is eager to help ATDC companies.

Gordon Rogers

Gordon is an active investor and adviser to startups in educational technology, social gaming and digital media. The software company he boot-strapped in 1988 created a pioneering product in the e-learning and talent management field and later merged with Asymetrix Learning Systems. He now helps early stage digital-media and edutainment ventures refine their product and marketing strategy.

Peter Rosen

Peter is a Human Resources leader with over 30 years’ experience in various industries. He has built HR capability and the infrastructure in environments ranging from startups to fortune 500 companies. Peter is founder and President of HR Strategies & Solutions, a boutique HR consultancy, and is a member of the Georgia and New York Bars.

David Sung

David is a senior executive with a unique combination of business and technology strategy expertise, operations experience, and an investment background. He has been CEO and product manager in a number of early, mid stage and IPO technology companies. His positions have included general partner in venture capital firms both in Boston and the Southeast.

John Von Hollen

John has experience in management and information systems. He has worked both in non-profit organizations and in information technology consultancies. He currently is a risk consultant at Protiviti and has expertise in protecting firm value by helping them solve business problems in finance, transactions, operations, IT, litigation, governance, risk and compliance.

Marc Wallenstein

Marc has extensive sales experience in both public and private companies. He was a Director of Sales for NICE Systems, an intent-based solutions provider that mines real time transactional data. He is currently VP of Sales at Recordant, which records and analyzes employee-customer interaction to provide key business intelligence. His experience includes sales to automotive, retail, government, and hospitality markets.

Lior Weinstein

Lior is a serial entrepreneur with extensive startup experience from concept to exit both as a founder and as a consultant. Lior brings creative thinking and a no BS approach to getting things done topped with over 8 years of online marketing experience specializing in anything related to Search Engine Marketing (PPC and SEO), PR launches, software, mobile apps and more – whether it’s a service, a product or just another ‘squat a bug’ app – you’ll want to hear what he has to say.

Devon Wijesinghe

Devon was one of the original members of e-VERIFILE.COM™. His high energy and success rate quickly built the company into one of the largest privately held screening companies in the nation. He is also the founder and CEO of Triple Threat Strategies, his own personal investment firm that provides capital and mentoring to young growing enterprises.

Graham Wood

Graham is an accomplished financial executive with a strong track record of providing financial leadership to emerging growth companies. He has deep experience in fundraising (equity and debt), contract negotiation, profit/loss analysis, planning, reporting, cash management, accounting, and budgeting. He has demonstrated skills in team leadership as well as interfacing with banks, investors and auditors.