Frankel Commercialization Fund - Advisors

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Frankel Advisors
The Frankel Fund is directed by a board of advisors who are selected based on their in depth industry experience, experience founding and growing early stage companies, and or experience investing in early stage companies. The advisors serve as strategic advisors to the Frankel Fund as a whole and, based on the background of the advisor, as an advisor to one of the two Frankel Fund Teams. By complementing the experience of the Frankel Fund Team members, the Frankel Fund Teams are able to provide a very deep level of technical and business management expertise to the start-up companies in which they invest.

Tom Porter, Managing Director
In addition to his role as managing director of the Fund, Tom is general partner for Trillium Ventures in Ann Arbor. He has a broad range of experience in founding, managing and advising successful technology growth companies over a thirty-year period. Tom co-founded and is a general partner emeritus in EDF Ventures, an Ann Arbor-based venture capital firm investing in early-stage market-driven companies in health care and information technology.

Advisory Boards

Technology Board

Jim Adox, Venture Investors of Wisconsin
Jim is Managing Director of Venture Investors LLC, and heads up the firm’s Ann Arbor, Michigan office. He focuses on the firm’s Information Technology practice, works with the Venture Investors Health Care Managing Directors on medical device investments, and is the primary contact for all deals in Michigan for the firm. Jim also serves on the boards of Incept BioSystems and the Ann Arbor IT Zone. Jim earned a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering, a Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering, and a Master of Business Administration with High Distinction – all from the University of Michigan.

Tony Grover, RPM Ventures
Tony is the co-founder and a managing director of RPM Ventures, a seed and early stage venture capital firm based in Ann Arbor, The firm has a national reputation for investing in technology companies whose primary customers are the Midwest industrial base and is known regionally for their efforts in creating university spin-outs based on novel research that can be embodied to meet large market needs. Tony has engineering degrees from the University of Michigan, Purdue, and Northwestern and has served on numerous boards of emerging companies. Prior to becoming a venture capitalist, Tony co-founded a company of his own.

David Hartmann, President, Arbor Blue
Dave is currently the co-founder and President of Arbor Blue, an emerging technology company. Dave most recently served as Vice President and General Manager of Convergent Systems and Corporate Development for Sycamore Networks. He is an accomplished senior executive with successful experience in technology company startups, turn-around and public companies with extensive business development and operating experience in computing and communications technology. His experience includes the founding and management of a first wave internet equipment company from startup to IPO in 5 years. He then sold the business to a larger public company for $100 million. Dave has also had success unlocking the value of a semi-publicly held high technology company by creating a strategic plan to drive the next-step corporate investment strategy. The business grew 45% Y/Y with this new strategy and was acquired for $80 million.

Al Kortesoja, Formerly Capgemini/Ernst & Young
Al is a former vice president of the Critical Technologies Group at Capgemini/Ernst & Young, most recently focusing on enterprise integration services and the development of eCommerce strategies. He has extensive experience in the software, automotive, telecommunications, financial services and health care insurance industries. Al is currently an independent management consultant and an adjunct professor at the University of Michigan's computer science department.

Chuck Salley, Investor
Chuck is a retired General Motors executive. His background includes 30 years of experience as the sales leader/manager of sales teams for computer systems. Chuck has founded two entrepreneurial companies and currently serves as president of the Ann Arbor SPARK initiative. He has previously advised the Ross School of Business' Wolverine Venture Fund as a member of the board.

Gerard P. Spencer, Retired Partner, Arthur Andersen
Gerard has spent most of his career (28 years) as a partner at Arthur Andersen. While at Andersen, he specialized in technology based clients (8 IPO’s and numerous financings), small and medium sized manufacturing and service companies, and Japanese transplants. He was the manager of the Emerging Company Business for Arthur Andersen’s Michigan Region and manager of Andersen’s Ann Arbor office. Following Arthur Andersen, Gerard became CFO of a $50 million sales manufacturing company. As CFO of the manufacturing company, he was instrumental in increasing per share value 4 times in three years after more than a dozen years of no growth. He then oversaw the sale of the company. Gerard has served on numerous boards of directors during his career. He received his MBA from the University of Michigan and a BA from Ohio Wesleyan University.

Medical Technology/Life Sciences Board

Mary Campbell, EDF Ventures
Mary is a general partner and founder of EDF Ventures. She has been an active investor both in health care and technology companies and also leads the firm's fund-raising efforts. Mary is a director of HandyLab Inc. and has been active with the Ross School of Business, serving as an advisor to student-run venture activity, the Wolverine Fund and as a member of the Board of Visitors.

Mary R. Flack, Vice-President, NanoBio
Dr. Flack has nearly 20 years of clinical research experience at the NIH and in the pharmaceutical industry. Before joining NanoBio in 2002, Dr. Flack was Clinical Director of Endocrinology and Women’s Health Care at Pfizer (formerly Parke-Davis/Warner Lambert) where she was responsible for clinical development of pharmaceutical products for osteoporosis, hormone replacement therapy, fertility and contraception. She directed the completion of multiple clinical studies (Phases I-IV), leading to four approved NDA submissions, and has extensive experience with three different divisions of the FDA, including dermatology, endocrinology and reproductive health.

Larry Hagerty, President, RLP Technologies (sub. of RL Polk)
Larry is a recognized leader in the health care information industry. A successful entrepreneur, he led Ann Arbor-based Medstat Group, Inc. through tremendous growth as the company's president. Medstat was successfully sold to Thomson, and Larry served as president and CEO of the wholly owned subsidiary. He recently became president of RLP Technologies, which specializes in building data solutions that serve as a foundation for focused in-depth research and analysis across multiple industries, enabling the tools and applications to mine intelligence from the data. His leadership has been recognized by Forbes' Corporate Honor Roll and Best Small Companies lists.

Michael P. Kurek, Biotechnology Business Consultants
Mike Kurek is currently a partner at Biotechnology Business Consultants (BBC) in Ann Arbor. For the past 20 years, he has held senior management positions in marketing, sales and business development for a number of life science companies—two of which completed successful initial public stock offerings. Dr. Kurek was also Vice President of Business Development at the Michigan Center for High Technology, where he was responsible for the business incubator program that served over 50 start-up technology companies. He holds a Ph.D. in Genetics from Florida State University and an M.B.A. from Boston University. Dr. Kurek currently serves as President of the Michigan Biosciences Industry Association, MichBio.

Roger Newton, Investor
Roger founded Esperion Therapeutics Inc., a company that successfully licensed and developed cholesterol-reducing compounds. Under Roger's leadership, the company raised several rounds of equity financing, conducted a successful IPO in 2000 and was sold to Pfizer in 2003. An active entrepreneur and advisor to emerging companies, Roger recently formed a new venture capital fund.

Tim Petersen, Arboretum Ventures
Tim Petersen is a Managing Director of Arboretum Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm specializing in the healthcare sector. Tim specializes in investments in medical device, equipment, and healthcare service companies, leveraging his broad business background working in and with entrepreneurial firms. He focuses on 510(k) medical technology companies and healthcare service firms in orthopedics, critical care and other clinical areas. Tim currently sits on the Michigan Universities Commercialization Initiative (MUCI) advisory board, and is also an advisory board member of the Biogenerator (St. Louis, MO) and the Wolverine Venture Fund. Tim earned a BA in Economics from Williams College, an MS in Economics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and an MBA from the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan.

Lisa Shapiro, Shapiro Solutions Inc.
Lisa is a pharmaceutical industry consultant specializing in corporate strategy and new product development. Previously, she led several product launch teams at Pfizer. Lisa has experience in all phases of health care product development, including pre-marketing, clinical and manufacturing. She is a recognized expert and speaker on global teamwork in the health care industry and is a director of the Healthcare Businesswomen's Association.

Shelby Solomon, Senior Vice-President and General Manager, Ingenix, Inc. (sub. of United Health Group)
Following experience in New York with a major investment banking firm, Shelby served as the budget director for the State of Michigan. He then joined Medstat, a leader in the healthcare information industry as Vice President of Marketing and grew the government business. Following Medstat, Shelby served as president of the U.S. Subsidiary of ETAS Inc, a global supplier of hardware and software engineering tools for the automotive industry. He currently serves as senior VP at Ingenix, a division of United Health, which offers next-generation data connectivity tools and solutions to all health care system participants.

Member-at-Large

Ken Nisbet, U-M Office of Technology Transfer
Ken is the executive director of the Office of Technology Transfer and has strategic and operational responsibilities for all technology transfer activities at the University. He has more than 20 years of experience in the commercial sector in engineering, finance, marketing and management. Ken also was a co-founder and president of Memorybank Inc., a storage systems provider.