Join us for an informative and interactive discussion featuring leading technology sector investors within public equity, private equity, and venture capital.  Participants will gain a deeper understanding of the opportunities and challenges facing entrepreneurs and investors as they attempt to bring innovative ideas to market.   Many of the publically-traded technology companies of today can trace their early origins back to their local university-communities where their break-through ideas were nurtured. These early entrepreneurs were aided by private equity investors and venture capitalists who provided both financial and mentoring support.  Challenges to success include preparing new technologies for patents, licensing and regulatory compliance.  The presentation will be followed by a robust question and answer session.

Our panelists include, Catherine Wood, CEO, CIO, Ark Innovation Funds, Todd Sherer, CIO, Emory Research Ventures, Harold Solomon, President, Georgia Tech Venture Labs and Alan Taetle, NMP.

Catherine Wood, Chief Executive Officer/Chief Investment Officer. Having completed twelve years at AllianceBernstein, Catherine founded ARK Investment Management in January 2014. At AllianceBernstein, she was Chief Investment Officer of Global Thematic Strategies, with $5 billion in assets under management and superior long term investment returns. Catherine joined Alliance Capital from Tupelo Capital Management, a hedge fund she co-founded which, in 2000, managed $800 million in global thematic strategies. Prior to her tenure at Tupelo Capital, she worked for 18 years with Jennison Associates as Chief Economist, Equity Research Analyst, Portfolio Manager and Director. Cathie started her career in Los Angeles at The Capital Group as an Assistant Economist. Catherine received her B.S., summa cum laude, in Finance and Economics from the University of Southern California in 1981. 

Todd Sherer, PhD, Associate Vice President & Executive Director, Office of Technology Transfer, Emory University.  Todd is Associate Vice President for Research Administration and Executive Director of Technology Transfer at Emory University. He has worked in academic technology transfer for nearly three decades at public and private universities on both coasts. Before coming to Emory, Todd was the Director of the Office of Technology and Research Collaborations at Oregon Health & Science University in Portland, Oregon. He earned his Doctorate in Toxicology from Washing State University in Pullman, Washington where he studied gene expression in the developing brain. Todd became a registered patent agent with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in 1995. 

Todd is Past President of the Association of University Technology Managers (AUTM) where he has held numerous board positions and volunteered for several decades.  He is also Vice Chair for Southeast BIO and participates on the selection committee for various translational support programs. Todd is a Certified Licensing Professional (CLP) and a Registered Technology Transfer Professional (RTTP), as both programs are aimed at encouraging the development of new professionals.  He continues to be an active speaker at technology transfer, economic development, and commercialization conferences across the globe.

While at Emory, Todd developed a strategy to attract crucial support by focusing attention on its world class, product pipeline driven by the success of its licensees.  He received support to add new positions focused on startup support, translational funding, technology scouting, marketing and license compliance.  Emory continues to be one of a handful of universities with an in-house patent division focused on drafting, filing, and prosecuting un-licensed technology.  The office oversees a $600K Proof-of-Concept fund to prepare technologies for patent, license or larger funds.  Recently, the office broadened its focus on industry relations through the realignment of Emory’s industry contracting function with the technology transfer office.

My current activities, include: 
Cancer Tumor Monorail device
Artificial Intelligence applications in banking

I team up with the researcher to test market acceptance and find a business model. If we pass that gate, we bring in grant funding to further remove technical and market adoption risk. Finally, we form the entity, license the technology from Ga Tech, Emory or Children's Healthcare and match a start-up CEO, SBIR, angel or venture funding and spin the entity out of Georgia Tech. 

Former CEO, Decision Services International, LLC an Atlanta, GA based decision software company. With Fidelity Information Services (www.fisglobal.com), DSI developed VIE(tm), a verification of income and employment service. DSI's investors include senior financial and data industry executives and strategic, social venture capital funds. 

Co-founder & former COO, RentBureau, the largest consumer reporting agency for the apartment industry. RentBureau was acquired by Experian in 2010.

Alan Taetle joined NMP in 1998 and has focused his investment activities on software and information technology companies. He currently represents NMP on the boards of PureWRX, Red Canary, Salesfusion and TrendKite. Alan was previously a director or observer for several prior NMP investments, including Clearleap (sold to IBM), Virtustream (sold to EMC), Vocalocity (sold to Vonage Holdings Corp.), Acumen Brands (sold to General Atlantic), SecureWorks (sold to Dell), Adjoined Consulting (sold to Capgemini), OpenSite Technologies (sold to Siebel Systems), CipherTrust (sold to Secure Computing), and PRE Holdings (sold to InComm).

Prior to joining NMP, Alan was the Executive Vice President of Marketing and Business Development for MindSpring (which merged with EarthLink in 2000). Alan joined MindSpring as its 13th employee in 1995, and oversaw the company’s subscriber growth from 4,000 to over 325,000 in just three years. Prior to MindSpring, Alan served in various systems and product management roles with CogniTech Corporation, makers of contact management software; Itochu International, a Japanese trading company; and Electronic Data Systems, a systems integration consulting company. Alan is a previous board member of ChoicePoint, Inc., a NYSE company (acquired by Reed Elsevier in 2008) focused on providing information that helps companies make educated, intelligent choices to reduce risk and fraud.

Alan currently serves as Chairman of Venture Atlanta and is the Past Chair of the Florida Venture Forum. He is a member of the Board of Advisors of the Georgia Tech College of Computing. He is also a charter member of TiE Atlanta. Alan serves on the Board of Directors of GivingPoint, a nationwide community-based youth development organization. Alan received a BA from the University of Michigan and an MBA from Harvard Business School.