Michael Gale
Chief Executive Officer
Michael has over 20 years of business, investment and managerial experience in the Asia-Pacific and US markets.
In 2001, Michael co-founded Gramercy Venture Advisors, a boutique investment bank focusing on the technology industry, digital media and sustainability. As CEO of Gramercy Venture Advisors, he has established the company as a leading merchant bank building business models, value chains and cross-industry partnerships on a global scale. Prior to the founding of Gramercy, Michael spent the previous eight years as CEO of Double Impact, a leading San Francisco based venture catalyst.
Michael has helped in the development, funding, growth and exit of over 100 early stage technology companies from around the world. He has extensive international experience in building, funding and managing start-up companies.
Prior to Double Impact, Michael was Managing Director of Macromedia's Asian operation during the three years leading to its very successful NASDAQ listing in December 1993.
As well as his involvement across the full range of activities at Gramercy Venture Advisors and Gramercy Private Equity and serving on the various group Boards and Investment Review Committees, Michael is also Chairman of Chat Ventures (New York) – www.chattheplanet.com and E Ball Games (Melbourne) – www.eballgames.com.au . In addition Michael also sits on the Boards of Qwidget Inc. (New York) –- www.qwidget.com, Logic100 (Melbourne) - www.logic100.net , SinoTech Group (Beijing) – www.sinotechgroup.com.cn and Digital Marketing Solutions (Bangkok) –www.dmsasialimited.com
Amy Swartz
Director, Corporate Development
Amy Swartz holds a Bachelor of Science in International Business,
Marketing from San Francisco State University. She is one of
the three co-founders of Gramercy Venture Advisors. She is involved
in the management of all aspects of the company, including finances,
process management, overall corporate development and customer
management.
Prior to this Amy spent several years as a consultant with
Double Impact, Inc., a leading San Francisco based Venture Catalyst.
At Double Impact, Amy worked with early stage companies from
concept through to mezzanine stage. On behalf of clients, Amy
was responsible for research and analysis, business development,
sales and marketing. In a corporate role, Amy was responsible
for corporate development which included relocating to and setting
up a new office in New York including recruitment and business
development. Later, she was responsible for and determining
which new geographies the company should address as part of
its expansion strategy. Earlier Amy worked in pharmaceutical
and neutraceutical companies in the US and France in sales and
marketing. She has studied and worked in France and speaks French
and conversational Spanish. Amy is on the board of the Light
of Lanka Foundation www.lightoflanka.org.
Dave Weinstein
Partner and Director
Dave is an accomplished entrepreneur and technologist. He is well known in the Silicon Valley community for his incisive analysis of technology trends and is a regular contributor to the technology press. He holds the position of Senior Editor for Gizmag Magazine (www.gizmag.com) since 2004, serving as technical expert. Prior to joining Gizmag Dave was VP of Business Development for Visto Corporation (www.visto.com) of Redwood Shores , CA, a leading mobile messaging and synchronization software provider . Prior to Visto, Dave founded and was Chairman and VP of Product Marketing for netdrive.com, an innovative online storage provider. Visto Corporation acquired netdrive.com in 2000.
Dave has served in a number of executive positions at The Wollonging Group, Quaterdeck Office Systems, and Pittsburg Powercomputing, which he founded in 1988 and sold to Quaterdeck in 1993.
Throughout his career he has been highly effective combining a detailed understanding of technology trends with a well honed instinct for user behaviour so as to place himself at the crossroads of technology and its commercial uptake.
Dave holds Bachelor of Science degrees in Electrical, Computer and Biomedical Engineering from Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania.
Roger Akers
Advisory Principal
Roger has over 25 years of experience in technology related environments. As an IT Services executive, Roger managed the development and delivery of large-scale software systems in over 80 client environments. Efforts included technical and management assignments of national consulting firm, Systems and Computers Technology Corp., as well as the building of regional IT consulting firm as Managing Partner (PRODATA, Inc.). With a staff that ultimately grew to 480+, PRODATA, Inc. provided management and technical IT consulting to public and private sector clients in the western US. Upon the successful merger of PRODATA with a national IT services firm, Roger developed a consulting to industry leaders such as Intel and Cisco Systems. In addition, Roger helped develop and invested in a number of technology companies in the US and internationally.
In 1998, he co-founded Akers Capital LLC. After successfully raising the Pac West Technology Fund in 2000, Roger and the team have invested in, mentored and matriculated a number of emerging technology companies. His enjoyment of working with the best and brightest teams possible has been Rogers’s primary motivation throughout his career. Managing projects, participation in the building companies and investing capital has provided a great opportunity and provided many insights into the intricacies of technology based business development. Roger enjoys providing emerging companies support by participating on their boards, and acting as sounding board as the companies develop. He also enjoys working with other community minded individuals to develop an environment where such companies can thrive.
Roger has undergraduate degrees in accounting (CPA) and Computer Science and a Master of Business Administration. He is currently Chair of the Golden State Capital Network board; is immediate past Chair of the Sacramento Area Regional Technology Alliance (SARTA); and immediate past Chair of McClellan Technology Incubator (MTI). In addition, Roger is a CSUS CBAC and University of California Davis Connect Program Board member. He also participates on advisory boards of the Graduate School of Management and the Department of Research (ERAB member) at the University of California, Davis. He is also a member of their Board of Trustees. Roger also serves as treasurer of the Sacramento Angels investment group.
Joe Bruzzaniti
Advisory Principal
Joe was a founder and one of the driving forces behind Learning Seat, an exceptionally successful online eLearning company that was acquired by News Corporation in 2006. Joe holds a Bachelor of Engineering Degree and Master of Business Administration, and has 17 years industry experience with senior leadership, management and technical experience. Prior to Learning Seat, Joseph acted as General Manager and European Director for MR/Red Sheriff (since acquired by Nielsen NetRatings), and as Business Development Manager, South East Asia for Honeywell. Joe’s professional experience includes positions in Europe, Asia, Australia and the US.
Martin Cooper
Advisory Principal
Martin is a solicitor and businessman who has worked for a number of major law firms in Sydney, New York and London as well as operating his own practice for the last 25 years. As a lawyer he has a higher degree in tax and trade practices law and has always specialized in entertainment and copyright law.
As such a specialist, he spent 4 years at Network Ten and was subsequently General Manager Corporate Planning at News Corporation Limited. Here he worked closely with Rupert Murdoch on the evolution of his plans for TV and film in Australia and world wide as well as on the acquisition of the London Times, Ansett Airlines and The Herald & Weekly Times. At this time he was also CEO of the production company for the film “Gallipoli”- a joint venture between the Robert Stigwood Organisation and News Corporation Limited.
As a lawyer he has been involved in the financing of approximately 70 feature films and many documentaries and television programs. He has also advised on more than 20 Offer Documents For public offers on films and has issued seven in the name of his licensed dealer company.
He has been a director of a number of companies in the Beyond International Group, television stations Ch10 in Sydney and Melbourne and has owned and operated a television station in Western Australia.
More recently, Martin has been CEO of multimedia investment fund, the Australian Multimedia Enterprise Limited and has worked in venture capital for information industry start-ups and related businesses. He has worked closely with Allen & Buckeridge, which acquired the AME, and has had extensive experience in international financing arrangements for games, completion bonding for games and the games market place. He has attended every E3 since 1996 and all but one ECTS in that period. He has extensive connections with publishers, financiers and bonding companies as well as lawyers in those areas in UK and US.
Martin is now pre-occupied with professional directorships in a number of start-ups in the new media and IT areas including Pre Angels Management Pty Limited, a VC investment facilitator, Team Bondi Pty Limited, which operates in the video game industry, Eball games Pty Limited, IDSecure Pty Limited, a leading provider of customer relationship management software, Hubonline Global Pty Limited (until April 2006), Rising Sun Pictures Pty limited (a film and computer special effects developer) and Depth Analysis Pty Limited, each of which is developing new technology for the internet. He is also a director of Barmetrix Pty limited, a provider of software to the liquor industry and a consultant to Global Optics Pty Limited and Brainbow Films Pty Limited.
He is and has been director of several listed companies and, through his directorship of Lloyd Cooper & Associates Ltd has had a dealer’s license with which he issued a number of prospectuses for films.
Martin is a keen yachtsman, has been a Trustee of the Ted Noffs Foundation for 30 years and is currently a Director of the Gut Foundation of Australia.
Chris Laurie
Advisory Principal
After a short career in medical practice, Chris Laurie has been a serial entrepreneur. After establishing a series of horticultural and floricultural enterprises, he founded Hillstowe Vineyards in South Australia in 1979 and Hoddles Creek Vineyards in the Yarra Valley in 1986. Following the sale of his horticultural and winery interests, he founded Micromet Pty Ltd, an IT irrigation management technology.
He is a Founding Trustee of the Australian Institute of Horticulture and was Chairman of Carrick Hill Trust (1985-1991) and Chairman of The Botanic Gardens of Adelaide (1985-1994).
Stephen Tolchin
Advisory Principal
Stephen Tolchin is currently an advisor, board member and investor in early stage technology companies and he is an Advisory Principal at Gramercy Venture Advisors. Tolchin is a limited partner in several venture capital firms. He has served on the boards of directors of MizBiz.com, Web Flow Corp., PowerPlan Corp., Movaris and Double Impact, Inc. He was an executive advisor for many years to Veritas Software Corp, and has been an advisor to Relational Technology Corporation (later Ingres), Bridge Communications (prior to the 3Com merger), Pyramid Technology Corp., Ramp Networks (from early stage through IPO) and Détente Technology (prior to acquisition by Cadence) and to the Johns Hopkins Hospital.
He is a Technology Partner at El Dorado Ventures. He ran a small VC fund and organized substantial angel investment rounds. He has also advised Toggle Entertainment, Optimize Solutions Inc., PeopleMover. Inc., and Intelic. He has been an advisor to Common Loop, Celunite, Enterprise Appliances, and a podcasting company.
Tolchin was previously CEO of Webflow Corp. (now Accentuate) and HAL Software Systems, the multi-platform application software products division of HAL Computer Systems, where he also was Vice President of software engineering for the computer systems business. HAL is a Fujitsu owned company.
Prior to that, Tolchin was Vice President of software development at Pyramid Technology, a public manufacturer of high performance, scalable Unix server computers (now owned by Seimens), and also had responsibility for various marketing functions, including the $80 MM Telecom Business Unit. Tolchin was also vice president of engineering and chief technical officer at NetLabs.
Tolchin was Technical Director at the Johns Hopkins Hospital, where he developed a large-scale client-server based clinical information system in the early-mid 1980’s, Tolchin was supervisor, software engineering, Unix systems and Principal staff at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, a $400 MM defense contractor, where he led the development of HIOS, a large-scale integrated office automation and collaboration system for the US Army. At APL he also led development of local area network technology and database technology during 1979-1986. He was also vice-chairman of the graduate computer science program in the Johns Hopkins University GWC Whiting School of Engineering, and was an assistant professor with joint appointments in the School of Medicine and the School of Engineering.
Prior to this, Tolchin managed major information system projects for Blue Cross-Blue Shield of greater NY, and worked for Analytic Services Corp. He also founded and operated a manufacturing business in the consumer goods market.
Tolchin holds a B.S in Physics from City College of New York and an M.S and PhD. in Physics from New York University.
Silvio Salom
Advisory Principal
Silvio is a proven chief executive, change agent and entrepreneur. His expertise in successfully growing technology companies has been acquired and proven through considerable experience. Silvio is an experienced chief executive and non-executive Board member of private and public companies. He has operational expertise with start-ups, as well as with large, rapidly growing companies. Silvio has deep strengths in technology commercialisation, international expansion, mergers and acquisitions, capital raising and publicly listed operations.
The focus of Silvio’s work has been as a technology supplier to Aerospace & Defence, Telecommunication, Aviation, E-commerce, Enterprise and Training markets on a global basis. In 1987 Silvio founded Adacel Technologies Ltd, in Melbourne, as a private company to service the aerospace and defence markets with leading edge technology solutions. Silvio built Adacel to be a $100m world leader in its markets, listing the company in 1998, acquiring a major global player in North America and transitioning the business to the USA. Silvio is Managing Director of Adacel.
In 1990 Silvio co-founded Lochard Pty Ltd to deliver best-of-breed environment monitoring solutions to airports. Silvio remains a non-executive director of Lochard and today, the $20m company is the clear leader in its global market. As with Adacel, Silvio used advanced technology to secure customer preference and acquisition of a USA major to realise global market leadership.
Silvio currently serves as an Advisory Principal for Gramercy Venture Advisors, as an ITC Advisory Board member for the CSIRO, in the Cooperative Research Centres for Intelligent Decision Systems and Smart Internet Technology and as a non-executive director of LogoMedia Inc, a company Silvio founded in Boston to address the on-line machine translation market. He has also served as a director for Melbourne University Private, Vice Chairman of Airport Industries Australia and as founding Board member of the IT&T Skills Hub.
Barry Amor
Principal
Barry’s entrepreneurial business development skills manifested themselves early in his 40 year career spanning the sectors of telecommunications, industrial equipment and information systems. He is based in Brisbane, Australia. The focus of these skills has been on laying solid foundations for organizations intent on developing and exporting a range of complex products and equipment targeting industrial and commercial applications. Barry has cultivated a solid understanding of the issues associated with building export-oriented business which have targeted various south-east Asian countries, the USA and New Zealand.
With a solid background in engineering, Barry began his career in telecommunications, subsequently gaining extensive experience in industrial automation, mining equipment, computer and communications hardware and enterprise software systems. The "hands-on” experience gained founding businesses in several of these sectors has given him the ability to see the broad picture as well as the detailed nuances at work n the entrepreneurial environment.
Immediately prior to joining Gramercy, he oversaw the foundation of a company which has set a new benchmark for enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems for mid range organizations. Those systems boast a growing customer base in domestic and international markets. As chief executive charged with driving both product development and market growth, he gained an in-depth understanding of government grants for research and development and exports and the tax concessions appropriate to a company operating at the leading edge of technology development.
This venture was preceded by a project in which he restructured and managed the sale of a national business distributing software and hardware. He has also run businesses distributing industrial control equipment, computer components and specialized equipment for application in coal mining and the oil industry.
Irina Svirid
Analyst
Irina Svirid has diverse experience in the areas of competitive intelligence, M&A processes, due diligence and financial analysis. Prior to joining Gramercy Venture Advisors, Irina held a Senior Analyst position at Double Impact, Inc., where she worked with a select roster of talented companies and entrepreneurs, primarily in the Internet and Wireless Telecommunications fields. On behalf of the clients, she conducted quantitative and qualitative market analyses, determined company valuations, screened potential partner and M&A candidates, and provided information and insight from these activities for business and negotiation strategy development.
Before Double Impact, she worked as a market analyst at ISTAR, a French software company providing digital imaging solutions for the wireless telecommunications industry, where she identified, researched and analyzed new wireless market opportunities in selected East European countries.
Irina also spent several years with Worldwide Aeros Corporation where she was Director of Public and Government Relations and managed a project introducing former Russian military aerospace technology into the commercial and US government markets. As a result of this successful effort, the Russian start-up gained world-wide recognition as a leading industry player.
Irina holds an MBA in International Finance, a BA in Philology and is pursuing the CFA designation.
Rihui Tan
Principal
Tan is a Chinese national with over twenty years experience in technology transfer to China. From 1982-1999 he worked for the State Science and Technology Commission focused on bringing foreign technology into China. In this role he worked with many foreign technology companies to assist them in entering the market. He was based in Hong Kong from 1984-1991 with the Xinhua News Agency (Hong Kong) Branch.
In 1992 he was responsible for establishing Macology Trading, the highly successful state-owned distribution company created to distribute Macromedia’s products in China. As General Manager of Macology he built a very successful market presence for Macromedia. In 1999 Tan left the Commission, which had become the Ministry of Science and established Allitech a software company focused on providing software applications for government ministries. In 2003 he established Wanlitech, a Hong Kong based developer of high end software for the location based entertainment industry. Tan joined Gramercy in early 2005.
John Warwick
Client Services Manager
John has had an extensive career progressing from professional engineering in the power, mining and telecommunications industries, via technology and general management in the IT sector and through to the development, growth and sale of his own product manufacturing business. This journey has taken him through working stints in Europe, Africa, the USA and Australia.
In recent years, John has focused on consulting within the high-tech SME marketplace. Typical assignments have involved aligning technical product development and marketing operations, or introducing innovative practices, products and technology to small high-growth companies, while helping them to grow organically. He has also run workshops designed to enable entrepreneurs to self assess the investment readiness of their enterprises.
John has spent a number of years working within the investment advisory sector, assisting companies to become investment ready and to find appropriate sources of funding that marry with the founders’ fundamental objectives. John's role in Gramercy is an extension of his previous consulting interests, emphasizing market research, marketing and technology development plans, business planning, re-focusing of key staff and general growth strategy implementation.
Owen Matheson
Principal
Owen Matheson is widely recognised as a consummate networker and business development specialist. Owen has been involved in the funding, strategic growth and trade sale preparation of many private companies across various industries.
His greatest business development achievements include growing a private company from 5-60M revenue in 2 years and a number of start-ups into profit within a short period.
Owen also successfully consulted as business development manager and contributor to start-up www.wholesaleinvestor.com.au providing back to back issue revenue growth over a 5 month period.
Owen co-founded and helped raised seed capital for fast-growth start-up’s Eco Manage Pty Ltd www.ecomanage.com.au and www.solvepoverty.com.
David Zimmerman
Advisory Principal, General Counsel
David is a qualified lawyer who has practised Communications, Media & Technology Law (including the commercialization of intellectual property) in Australia, Asia, the US and Europe for over 10 years. David has gained both private practice and in-house expertise working as a senior lawyer within one of Australia's leading law firms and in an in-house capacity for a number of listed technology companies.
In addition to his legal expertise, David spent three years in Boston working for a leading provider of applications and platforms with the telecommunications space, NMS Communications (NASDAQ: NMSS). David commenced work with NMS initially as a Contracts Manger but was soon promoted to the role of Director, Business Operations where he was responsible for increasing revenues and reducing the costs associated with an elongated sales cycle. Prior to its sale to Dialogic Corporation, NMS Communications was a publicly listed US company with offices in 12 countries and revenues exceeding US$100 Million.
Earlier in his career David also founded and subsequently completed a trade sale of Global Sims, a company selling pre-paid sim cards for several countries around the world.
David holds a Bachelor of Commerce, Bachelor of Laws and a Master of Laws (Internet & Electronic Law).
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