Management
Jo Tango, General Partner
Jo Tango founded Kepha Partners. He has invested in the e-commerce, search engine, Internet ad network, wireless, supply chain software, storage, database, security, on-line payments and data center virtualization spaces.
He has been a founding or first institutional investor in AutoVirt, Azuki Systems, Bit9, ByLedge, ExaGrid, StreamBase Systems, Vertica Systems, and Virtual Iron, getting involved nearly always at the company inception phase. Other investments include Ask Jeeves (Nasdaq: ASKJ), Digital Market (acquired by Agile Software), and NextCard (Nasdaq: NXCD).
Jo previously was at Highland Capital Partners for nearly 9 years, where he was a General Partner. He also spent five years with Bain & Company, where he was based in Singapore, Hong Kong and Boston, and focused on technology and start-up projects.
Jo attended Yale University (B.A., summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa) and Harvard Business School (M.B.A., Baker Scholar). He serves on the board of NECINA (New England Chinese Information and Network Association) and is very active with the MIT Deshpande Center.
Ed Hamilton, Chief Financial Officer
Ed Hamilton has over 25 years of financial management experience in venture capital and early stage technology companies. Previously, Ed was a General Partner at Dover Medical Ventures and Chief Financial Officer at North Bridge Venture Partners. At North Bridge, he managed more than 130 portfolio company financings, representing more that $500 million in invested capital, as well as limited partner distributions, capital calls and partnership tax matters. Prior to this, Ed held positions as Chief Financial Officer of ServiceSoft Corporation, American Superconductor Corporation (where he led the company’s initial and secondary public offering), Safer, Inc. and Concord Data Systems. As Chief Financial Officer, he raised equity funding from venture capital investors, negotiated corporate partnership, licensing and distribution agreements and managed accounting operations, systems development, treasury operations, investor relations and human resources. Prior to Concord Data Systems, he worked for ROLM Corporation and Peat, Marwick, Mitchell & Co. Ed holds an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School and a B.A. in Economics from Tufts University.
Technical Advisory Board
Torrence Boone
Torrence Boone is the Worldwide Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Enfatico, the new agency that WPP has built from the ground up to meet the worldwide marketing needs of the agency’s first client, Dell Inc. Prior to joining Enfatico, Boone served as president of Digitas Boston. As president of Digitas Boston, Torrence was responsible for driving the strategy and execution of Digitas services across the office client base, and for the development of the office and its people. Torrence was also a leader in the Digitas Retail and CPG practice areas, helping to shepherd client relationships with The Home Depot, Staples, and Sara Lee.
Prior to joining Digitas in 2001, Torrence was vice president/general manager for the interactive agency Avenue A, where he was in charge of strategy, account management, media, and creative services for the New York client services operation.
Previously, Torrence was a senior manager at Bain & Company, where he was a leader in the healthcare/pharmaceuticals and consumer products practice areas, and advised a broad range of clients on corporate and business unit strategy, mergers and acquisitions, new product development, and interactive strategy.
Torrence holds a B.A. in economics, with honors, from Stanford University, and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School. Torrence was recently recognized as one of the “Top 40 Under 40” business executives in Massachusetts by the Boston Business Journal. Torrence serves on the board of the Joyce Theater in New York.
Tim Brady
Tim is presently CEO of QuestBridge. Previously, he spent eight years at Yahoo! Inc. during which time he held several positions, the last of which was as the company's Chief Product Officer. As Yahoo!'s third employee, Tim played a key role in successfully managing all marketing, operation and business development to launch Yahoo! commercially, and to help make Yahoo! into one of the most recognized brands and successful businesses on the Internet. From writing the business plan that attracted the first venture capital financing to helping to scale the business, he helped lead the company through multiple stages, challenges and opportunities. Prior to Yahoo!, Tim spent three years with Motorola in Tokyo. He holds an M.B.A. from Harvard University and a B.S. degree in electrical engineering from Stanford University.
Sean Burke
Sean Burke is vice president of engineering for the Fidelity Technology Group, the IT provider for Fidelity Investments, the largest mutual fund firm in the United States, with more than one trillion dollars under management. He is responsible for setting and executing strategy for Fidelity’s Windows and Messaging environment from the data center to the desktop. Sean joined Fidelity Investments in 1996 as a technical advisor on the platforms for trading and cash and combined holding systems. In 1998 he joined Fidelity’s investment group, Fidelity Management and Research Company, as director of end user support. In 2001, he was made vice president of technology operations, responsible for Computer Operations, Production Services, Performance Analysis, Capacity Planning, and Facilities Management. His current areas of focus are protection of intellectual property, thin client computing, pervasive connectivity, and unified communications. Prior to joining Fidelity Investments, Sean managed technology operations for Morton International, Cablevision Systems Corporation and Safety Insurance Company.
Michael Dearing
Michael currently teaches at Stanford University. Previously, he spent more than six years at eBay. As SVP & General Merchandise Manager of eBay North America, Michael was responsible for more than $1.7B in annual revenues and nearly $20B in gross merchandise sales across thousands of merchandise categories. He also led the development of many of the features and services of the eBay.com site including Buy It Now, eBay Stores, ProStores, and Want It Now. Michael also designed and built the company's first onsite, direct, and product marketing teams to leverage the world's largest database of online consumer activity. Prior to eBay, he held leadership positions at Industrial Shoe Warehouse, The Walt Disney Company and Bain & Company. Michael graduated from Brown University, where he earned an AB in Economics, and from the Harvard Business School, where he earned an MBA with Distinction.
David Fike
David Fike has over 25 years of technology leadership experience. Presently, Dave is Senior Vice President and CTO of the MMC Global Technology Infrastructure (MGTI) group. He is responsible for managing 1400 FTE and consulting staff globally as well as a $650MM technology infrastructure budget. Dave joined MMC from Putnam Investments, where as Managing Director of Enterprise Computing and Communications, his responsibilities spanned all aspects of voice and data networking, data center engineering and operations, information security, disaster recovery and business continuity, desktop engineering and support, call center technologies, help desk, and the network operations center. Prior to joining Putnam, David was Director of Consulting at Gartner Group in Stamford, Connecticut. Previously, David was with the United States Senate in Washington, DC for 13 years where he was responsible for all of the Senate’s nation-wide voice and data networking systems. David holds a B.S. in Finance from the University of Maryland, and an M.S. in Telecommunications Management also from the University of Maryland.
Keith Schorsch
Keith Schorsch has more than 20 years of experience envisioning and building high growth consumer technology businesses. Keith is currently the Founder and CEO of Trusera. As a senior executive at Amazon.com from 1997 to 2002, Keith was an integral part of Amazon's early rapid growth from $16MM to $3.2B in sales and from 90,000 to 35MM customers. Prior to joining Amazon, he was a senior member of McCaw Cellular/AT&T Wireless' PCS team that managed the national development and rollout of next generation wireless service to 100MM potential US customers. Keith currently serves as a Board Trustee of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and has had extensive experience advising and investing in early stage technology businesses. Keith has an MBA from Harvard Business School and an AB, magna cum laude, from Harvard College.
Ron Strout
Ron recently served as a Senior Vice President at State Street Corporation, where he headed the 250-person Corporate Systems Group and managed a $1.3 billion IT budget. While at State Street, his responsibilities included financial systems, Basel II, HR and Payroll, and Treasury applications. He also helped start offshore development programs in China and India. He previously was a Managing Director at KPMG Consulting. Ron earned a BS in Accounting at the University of Maine.