Robert Goldberg, Managing Partner, Crossroads Ventures

Robert is the founder and Managing Partner of Crossroads Ventures. He is a seasoned entrepreneur, technology leader and investor with more than 30 years of experience building companies from early-stage startups to established enterprises.

Most recently Robert was a member of the early executive team at Zynga serving as its first senior vice president of business operations and corporate development. His work resulted in key revenue initiatives, global partnerships, and strategic acquisitions, which contributed to Zynga reaching over $1 billion run rate in revenue, growing its employee base to over 2,500 worldwide and expanding distribution to 100 countries worldwide in less than three years. Robert also established and led Zynga’s operations in Asia where he guided the company’s expansion onto multiple SNS and mobile platforms.

During his career, Robert helped lead three companies to initial public offerings and has been involved in numerous successful exits. Previously, Robert has been the Managing Director of managing director of venture operations at Idealab where he pioneered the capital-efficient strategy of “innovation through milestone investing” which tied frequent operating and innovation milestones to successive capital investments.

Prior to Idealab, Robert spent more than 20 years in senior management, corporate investment and strategy positions at media, e-commerce and enterprise software companies.

Robert holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Engineering and Applied Science from Columbia University in New York City.

Jim Barnett, Parnter, Shasta Ventures

Jim Barnett has been a highly successful serial CEO and entrepreneur. Jim is currently chairman and co-founder of Turn, chairman of Extole and Sojern, and a board member of RelayRides. From 2004 until 2009, Jim was CEO, chairman and co-founder of Turn, the leading platform for managing data driven digital advertising. Before that he was president of Overture Search, a division of Overture Services, Inc. Jim joined Overture via its acquisition of AltaVista Company, where he was president and CEO. In this role, he led the company’s successful turnaround and sale to Overture.
Jim was also president of Ancestry.com (MyFamily.com) and president and CEO of ThirdAge Media, which was acquired by Ancestry.com. Prior to that, Jim was president and CEO of Infogrammes North America, a leading global publisher of video games and entertainment software. He was also chairman, president and CEO of Accolade Inc, Infogrammes’ predecessor company, and prior to that was chief operating officer of an “Inc. 100 Fastest Growing Private Companies.”
Jim has served on the boards of many private and public companies including SideStep, Inc. where he was chairman and Petco where he was also an early investor.
Jim earned a bachelor’s degree, MBA and J.D. from Stanford University.

Sumeet Jain, Partner, CMEA

Sumeet Jain is a data junkie, always has been. At age 11, he blew through his primary school math courses and began studying math at the University of Buffalo. His strong affinity for analytics drew him to degrees in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. In college, he was part of a funded research team building tools and algorithms to analyze massive streams of electrocardiogram data to detect and predict catastrophic cardiac events months and years in advance.

Sumeet’s obsession with actionable data led him to join the team that started and grew Personify, one of the first online analytics companies that analyzed user browsing behavior to deliver actionable analytics data and predictive marketing products. Personify fueled Sumeet’s passion for products whose value accelerates with increasing data. Following Personify’s merger with Angara, he joined iManage, a knowledge and content management company where he led sales and business development. The company allowed enterprises to manage the information created in all unstructured formats and delivered solutions for better leveraging a Company’s data and content; iManage was acquired by Interwoven in 2003 for $171mm.

Ajay Agarwal, Managing Director, Bain Capital Ventures

Mr. Agarwal joined Bain Capital Ventures in 2003, and he focuses on early stage mobile, internet, and software investments. Prior to Bain Capital Ventures, Mr. Agarwal spent over seven years as a senior executive at Trilogy Software, a privately-held enterprise software company based in Austin, Texas. As head of sales and marketing, he grew Trilogy’s annual revenues to $300 million and led Trilogy’s product expansion into new areas such as enterprise pricing and enterprise incentive management. Prior to Trilogy, Mr. Agarwal was a consultant with the Los Angeles office of McKinsey & Company.
In addition to his firm and portfolio company responsibilities, Mr. Agarwal serves as the National Board Chair for BUILD, a not-for-profit dedicated to helping underprivileged high school students attend college. Mr. Agarwal grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and currently lives in Palo Alto, CA with his wife and three daughters.

Kamran Elahian, Global Catalyst Partners

Kamran Elahian has co-founded more than ten high-tech companies and two nonprofit organizations (see list below), in addition to co-founding Global Catalyst Partners. He serves as chairman of the board for Actelis Networks, the Global Catalyst Foundation and is Chairman Emeritus of Relief International-Schools Online, and serves on the board of SoundHound.
He also serves as co-chair of UNDESA-GAID, The Global Alliance for Information and Communication Technologies and Development is a United Nations global forum that promotes the use of information and communication technologies in developing countries.
In December 2006, Mr. Elahian was presented The Dr. Morris Chang Exemplary Leadership Award, in recognition of his exceptional contributions to the development, innovation, growth and long-term opportunities of the fabless semiconductor industry.
Mr. Elahian received his BS in computer science, BS in mathematics, and masters of engineering in computer graphics from the University of Utah.