Howard M. Gitten
Having worked both in-house at a cutting edge photonics company, and in private practice, Howard brings a unique perspective to technology law. He brings a business perspective to technology issues and his technology background to business issues. As a registered patent attorney, Howard not only knows how best to protect a client’s unique assets, but how best to make them marketable and best use intellectual property for competitive advantage. Howard has advised his clients in raising venture capital, forming strategic partnerships, and instituting cradle-to-grave IP regimes, to licensing IP and building joint development programs around a client’s IP.
Jerry Bailey
Jerry Bailey is a Principal with FrontStreet Partners, LLC a private financial investment partnership primarily focused on energy related investment opportunities for private investors and energy related consulting and advisory services. He has held executive management positions as Treasurer of Caltex Corp., a Singapore based refining and marketing operation, CFO of Texaco Inc.’s European and Eurasian upstream and downstream units in London, England., Marketing Manager in Atlanta for Star Enterprise, a Texaco-Saudi Aramco retail marketing joint venture, and Executive Assistant to the Vice Chairman of Texaco in White Plains, NY. Jerry also served as General Tax Attorney for Texaco’s Latin America-West Africa Division in Coral Gables, FL. Prior to joining Texaco he was Director International Taxes with RJR Nabisco Inc.
Peter Haines
Peter is the founder and Managing Director of Horizon Growth Advisors. The business of Horizon Growth is making companies larger and stronger tomorrow, than they are today. He began his career as an entrepreneur in the Boston area and was asked by a group at MIT, Venture Founders, to assist a new client making exercise equipment in a basement in Holliston, Massachusetts. The company was named for its founder, Ed Trotter, and was called Trotter Treadmills. Haines engineered, implemented and directed a growth plan that built the business to a global brand with distribution in 70 countries worldwide.
Jacques Hart
Jacques Hart is CEO of Roar Media, is nationally known in digital media for his laser-sharp focus on delivering winning results during more than a decade of launching new ventures, managing Internet marketing programs and growing revenue for leading Internet enterprises and Fortune 500 companies. For Jacques, the key is a bias for media-agnostic programs, quality customer and user experiences, along with innovative ideas, quantitative analysis and effective communication.
Andrew Heitner
Andrew Heitner is founder and director of Alcon Partners, a buy-side advisory firm that assists Private Equity firms and corporate M&A departments source and evaluate acquisition opportunities., with offices in Miami, Boston, and Vermont. He also owns Alcon Technology Consulting, Inc., a telecommunications consulting firm based in Boston. Mr. Heitner was previously co-founder of New Frontiers Information Corporation (NFIC), a Cambridge, MA software company that sells enterprise-level digital content management systems. NFIC was subsequently acquired by the Banta Corporation (now RR Donnelley NYSE:RRD) and he served for several years following the acquisition as Director of Banta Integrated Media. Mr. Heitner is on the executive board of the MIT Enterprise Forum of South Florida, has been a lecturer at the University of Miami School of Business in Entrepreneurship, and serves as a judge for the Leigh M. Rothschild Business Plan Competition. He is involved in a number entrepreneurial ventures, including angel investments in 4 start-up companies. He holds BS and MS degrees in mechanical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Christine A. Cannella
Senior level investor relations officer with successful track record of experience in high profile roles within both domestic and international companies ranging from consumer products – Fresh Del Monte Produce Inc. – incorporated and governed by the laws of the Cayman Islands; to construction equipment leasing, rental and sales with NationsRent, part of the H. Wayne Huizenga family of businesses; housing and land development with Levitz and Sons and Core Communities, former subsidiaries of BFC Financial; and office management.
Albert B. Maggio, Jr.
Albert B. Maggio, Jr., is Of Counsel to Carey, Rodriguez, Greenberg & Paul, LLP, a boutique law firm focusing on intellectual property transactions and litigation and other complex commercial litigation. He is also the principal of Scopra, a consultancy focused on providing ethics, compliance, due diligence, and IP verification services to technology, venture capital, and investment banking firms. Mr. Maggio holds both Series 7 & 66 securities licenses. Prior to founding Scopra, he was a financial advisor with Merrill Lynch and UBS in Palm Beach. Mr. Maggio was formerly head of finance, administration and law for a California software company and during the course of his 16 year legal career, served as a trusted advisor and legal counsel to the management teams, board members of, and major investors in, several venture-backed and public companies, including Netegrity (acquired by CA), SpeechWorks (acquired by Nuance), Unveil (assets acquired by Microsoft), Kavado (acquired by Protegrity), and InterSec Research (acquired by State Street Bank). Prior to his admission to practice law, Mr. Maggio held sales and management positions with several major computer companies, where he was responsible for managing relationships with their largest accounts.
Luis Pedemonte
Realizing he could offer something more than most recruitment firms do, Luis Pedemonte founded Lead Professionals with a vision; to offer global corporations his brand of personal, diverse recruiting expertise in addition to robust and versatile, tailored talent management solutions. Luis targeted, tracked and pursued rare, like-minded recruitment specialists from across industries, each with experience and expertise that complemented his own. As a team, they set the bar high for themselves as well as their handpicked clients.
Luda Kpeikina
Luda Kopeikina is currently a Visiting Scholar at MIT Leadership Center and President and CEO of Noventra Corporation (www.noventra.com) – a strategy consulting firm focused on innovation and growth. Ms. Kopeikina spent six years at General Electric in various senior leadership positions where she had an opportunity to work with Jack Welch and observe his methods in action. Later she was President and CEO of Celerity Solutions, Inc., a publicly traded company. Under her leadership, the company executed a complete turnaround in two years and grew six-fold. Interactive Week’s Executive Worth Survey ranked Ms. Kopeikina within the top twenty CEOs of US high-tech public companies for her performance and total return to shareholders.
Gabriela Sanchez
Gabriela Sanchez is President of CIJ Administrative Services, LLC (“CIJ”), an association management company providing administrative and management services to membership based non-profit organizations. Prior to founding CIJ, Gabriela had over 10 years experience supporting high levels of management in both administrative and human resources functions at JP Morgan, Arthur Andersen and Korn/Ferry International. Gabriela holds a Bachelor of Business Administration in Management from Florida International University.
Lynn Schweitzer
Lynn assisted the MIT Enterprise Forum with some of their events while working at the Business School at Nova Southeastern University as an Administrative Assistant in the Office of the Dean. She is a graduate of University of Miami, School of Communications with a Minor in Sociology. She was a member of Sigma Delta Chi Society of Professional Journalists. Upon graduation, she acquired experience working in radio news reporting.
