Venture Fund Team

The Wolverine Venture Fund is a collaborative activity involving Ross School of Business faculty, staff, students, and an advisory board with expertise in the venture arena.

Faculty/Staff

Thomas C. Kinnear, Ph.D., Managing Director
Professor Thomas Kinnear is the Executive Director of the Samuel Zell & Robert H. Lurie Institute for Entrepreneurial Studies. For many years, Professor Kinnear has served as an advisor, investor, and board member in start-up companies such as BlueGill Technologies, Avail Networks, and Network Express. He distinguished himself as the University of Michigan's former Vice President of Development and the Business School's D. Maynard Phelps Professor of Marketing. In 1997, he was awarded the Eugene Applebaum Professorship of Entrepreneurial Studies. Professor Kinnear holds a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan, an MBA from Harvard Business School, and a bachelor's degree from Queens College.

Carolyn M. Maguire, Administrative Assistant
Ms. Maguire has more than 20 years of experience providing administrative support to the Business School and coordinating MBA student teams and projects. Ms. Maguire has an Associates Degree from Washtenaw Community College and several courses completed at Eastern Michigan University.

Students

Students participate in the business plan evaluation and investment decision-making process. They also track the activities of the Fund's portfolio companies. The Fund draws MBA students from a wide range of backgrounds, including finance, engineering, law, and medicine.

Student Advisory Board Members
*Justin Adams (MBA ’09)
Jamil Ali (MBA ’09)
Katie Austin (MBA ’10)
Marc Berkowitz (MBA ’09)
Gregory Boggy, (PhD)
Luis Calderon (MBA ’10)
*Julie Choi (MBA ’09)
*Meghan Cuddihy (PhD)
*Anne Delaney (MBA ’09)
Tony Ehrbar (MBA ’10)
Michael Godwin (MBA ’10)
Arie Jongejan (MBA/MS ’10)
*Himayat Khan (MBA ’09)
Thomas Leahy (MBA/MS '10)
*Adam Litle (MBA/JD ’08)
*Joseph Malcoun (MBA/MS '09)
*Josh Mandel-Brehm (MBA ’09)
Carlos Matos (MBA ’10)
Alex Melynk (MBA ’10)
James Mertz (MBA ’10)
Sheel Mohnot (MBA ’09)
*Aaron Nelson (MBA/MA ’08)
*Seema Prasad (MBA ’09)
*Nate Schmid (MBA ’09)
Eric Satler (MBA ’09)
Jeremy Sullivan (MBA ’09)
Luca Testa (MBA ’10)
Jason Townsend (MBA ’10)
*Nathaniel Troup (MBA ’09)
Aniebiet Udofia (MBA ’10)
*Christopher Whitehead (MBA ’09)
Michael Zarrilli (MBA ’09)

*Returning Wolverine Venture Fund Members

Advisory Board

Accomplished professionals volunteer their extensive experience, initiating venture capital investments and launching high performing start-up companies, to benefit the Fund.

Mary L. Campbell
General Partner, EDF Ventures
Alumni Investment Manager
Mary Lincoln Campbell is a founder and General Partner of the Ann Arbor venture capital firm EDF Ventures®. Previously, she joined the large venture capital firm Michigan Capital and Service, Inc., where she became President in 1987. Earlier, positions at the National Bank of Detroit and two Chicago-based mortgage and investment banking firms provided the foundation for Ms. Campbell to pursue her later career in venture capital. She has served as a founding member of the Institute's Wolverine Venture Fund, on the Ross School of Business National Campaign Committee, and as an adjunct professor in the entrepreneurship program. She earned her BA and MBA (1979) with distinction at the University of Michigan.

Peter Adriaens, Ph.D., P.E.
Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Michigan
Professor Peter Adriaens holds a primary appointment in Civil Engineering, with joint appointments in the School for Natural Resources and Environment, and the Zell Lurie Institute for Entrepreneurial Studies. He has 20 years of research and field validation experience in the CleanTech space involving industrial partners, and multiple academic institutions with over $22 M of funding from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. EPA), the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ), the U.S. Navy, the U.S. DOD/DOE/EPA-Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program (SERDP), and industry. His consulting experience with multi-national industries (Dow, Alcoa, Holcim, G.E.) emphasizes industrial sustainability issues, including site remediation pollution prevention, and new business development, and he is currently a strategic consultant for LimnoTech (Ann Arbor). He serves on Science Advisory Boards of Environmental Science and Technology Research Centers in the U.S., Germany, Taiwan, and China and on advisory panels of a number of Environmental Technology Development companies. Recently, he started Global CleanTech, LLC, focused on technology application in pollution control, microbial detection and bioenergy. Professor Adriaens holds a Ph.D. from the University of California, did postdoctoral work at Stanford University, and has an M.S. and a bachelor's degree from the University of Gent, Belgium.

Peter Bardwick
CFO, Zecco Holdings Inc.
Mr. Bardwick began his career in investment banking, working with Salomon Brothers and Citicorp Investment Bank in New York. Peter transitioned to corporate management when he became VP Finance for WestWood One, a Solomon Brother’s client and the world’s largest radio network company. Since then, he has held CEO, COO, and CFO positions for both public and private companies including Zecco Holdings, Reactrix Systems, Inc., Digital Path Networks, infoUSA.com, CBS MarketWatch, and the Beasley Broadcast Group. As CFO, Peter was responsible for CBS MarketWatch’s highly successful IPO. Peter’s experience includes board and advisory board positions—he was the founding investor and is a member of the board of Healthcare Data Solutions, a successful healthcare direct marketing company. He holds Advisory Board positions on the Wolverine Venture Fund, Glam.com, and Personiva.com. In total, he has raised $10.4 billion for companies where he was an executive or which were investment-banking clients. Peter holds an MBA in Finance and BA in Political Science (cum laude), from the University of Michigan. More information is available at www.jpbardwick.com.

Timothy M. Mayleben
President, ElMa Advisors
Timothy Mayleben has nearly 20 years of experience with entrepreneurial companies. Most recently he was President and Chief Operating Officer and a Director of NightHawk Radiology Services. Previously, he was Chief Operating Officer of Esperion Therapeutics, now a division of Pfizer Global Research & Development, a company founded in July 1998 and located in Ann Arbor, MI. Esperion was acquired by Pfizer in December 2003 for $1.3 billion. Mr. Mayleben joined Esperion in late 1998 as Chief Financial Officer and was responsible for raising more than $200 million in venture capital and institutional equity funding. Prior to joining Esperion, Mr. Mayleben was an executive with Transom Technologies, Inc., a simulation software company acquired by what is now EDS in July 1998. Mr. Mayleben raised capital for the Company and co-led the negotiations for the sale of Transom to EDS. Earlier, he held various financial and operating management positions with Applied Intelligent Systems, Inc., a machine vision company acquired by Electro-Scientific Industries, Inc. in 1997. He started his started his professional career with an international public accounting firm in 1984. Mr. Mayleben is a director with several companies including Aastrom Biosciences, Intelliject, and Lycera and has helped found, consult with, and invest in a number of companies in the life science industry since 2003. Mr. Mayleben has a BBA from the University of Michigan Business School and an MBA, with distinction, from the Northwestern University Kellogg Graduate School of Management.

Jonathan P. Murray
Managing Director, Early Stage Partners
Mr. Murray has followed a bumblebee’s path through American business. After graduating in 1980 from George Washington University, where he double-majored in Biology and English Literature, he worked in medical journalism in Washington, D.C. for a subsidiary of Capital Cities/ABC. An interest in business led him away from the Nation’s Capital and its concerns to New York, where he worked in pharmaceutical marketing for J. Walter Thompson. This job exposed him to corporate strategy, which became an enduring fascination that spurred him to return to school for an MBA, which he received from the University of Michigan in 1988. Venturing to Silicon Valley upon graduation, Mr. Murray worked in consulting before taking a job with Spectra Laboratories, a provider of clinical testing services to kidney dialysis clinics. During his tenure there, he simultaneously built and managed the marketing and software development departments, as well as directing the telecommunications department. This experience imbued him with a love of entrepreneurial endeavors that helped to solidify his continued move away from the corporate world. When Spectra was acquired in 1997 by the large, multinational corporation Fresenius AG, Mr. Murray accepted a position as President of Volk Optical, a Mentor, Ohio manufacturer of lenses used by ophthalmologists and optometrists to examine eyes for disease. Following his tenure at Volk Mr. Murray was President of Incubation Services, a consulting firm that provided strategy development, business planning, and financial consulting to early stage companies in life sciences and information technology. Among his clients were Athersys Inc., Aelita Software, ConnectSpace, IdeaStar, and the Edison BioTechnology Center (EBTC). As an advisor to EBTC, Mr. Murray authored a report recommending significant additional investment in Ohio's life sciences industry. Mr. Murray has been Managing Director of Early Stage Partners since the autumn of 2000. The fund focuses on investing in early stage technology-based companies in industries in which Northeast Ohio has distinctive competence. He sits on the boards of Ayalogic, Unitask, Imalux, TOA Technologies, Intelligent Clearing Network, and the Ohio Venture Association and is a past Board Member of Ohio’s Singing Angels.

Timothy B. Petersen
Managing Partner, Arboretum Ventures
In 2002, Tim joined partner Jan Garfinkle in launching Arboretum Ventures, a venture capital firm focused on the medical device and healthcare sectors that has $85 million under management.. Tim serves on Board of Directors of Arboretum portfolio companies Accord Biomaterials, Accuri Cytometers, Advanced ICU Care, HealthMedia, and KFx Medical. Immediately prior to Arboretum, Tim was the Managing Director of the Zell Lurie Institute for Entrepreneurial Studies at the University of Michigan. He also directed the activities of the Wolverine Venture Fund, an evergreen fund that includes the active participation of Michigan’s MBA students. Previously, Tim spent nine years at Industrial Economics, Inc., becoming a member of the firm’s senior management team in 1991. Industrial Economics, founded in the early 1980’s in Cambridge, MA, is a leader in the fields of natural resource economics and environmental science. Tim holds a BA in Economics from Williams College (with highest honors), an MS in Economics from the University of Wisconsin, and an MBA from the University of Michigan (with high distinction). Tim serves on a number of advisory boards, including the Michigan Universities Commercialization Initiative and Rocket Ventures.

Mina Patel Sooch
Founder & General Partner, Apjohn Ventures Fund
Mina Sooch is general partner at Apjohn Ventures Fund, a new early stage life sciences venture capital fund located in Kalamazoo Michigan with a focus on investments in the Midwest. Mina brings with her over a decade of pharmaceutical and healthcare experiences as an entrepreneur, strategy & finance advisor, and venture capitalist. Prior to launching the Fund, Mina was a founding partner of Apjohn Group and entrepreneur in residence at North Coast Technology Investors ($100 million venture fund in Ann Arbor). In those roles, she served as founding CFO of Afmedica and CEO of SenseGene/ProNAi Therapeutics and led several investments including Nephros Therapeutics. She is also a board member of the Midwest Healthcare Investment Network and Michigan Venture Capital Association. Prior to local biotech entrepreneurial and venture capital activities, Mina spent eight years as a global account manager at Monitor Group, a top tier global strategy consulting firm based in Boston, with her client base consisting of mid-cap and large-cap healthcare companies and multi-billion dollar private equity companies. With a focus on M&A, she has worked on over 30 deals including $7B Pharmacia & Upjohn merger in 1995 and $1B merger of PharMerica in 1997. Mina was also a founding leader of Monitor’s Corporate Finance practice in 1998 with Tom Copeland. Mina began her career spending several years in research and product development at Ford Motor Company, Dow Chemical Company, and Proctor and Gamble. Mina received a MBA from Harvard in 1993. She graduated summa cum laude and commencement speaker from Wayne State University in 1989 with a B.S. in Chemical Engineering.

Donald Walker
Managing Director, Arbor Partners
Don Walker is co-founder and Managing Director of Ann Arbor-based Arbor Partners. He has over 25 years of experience in high-tech sales and marketing. From 1974 to 1996, as the Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Comshare, he directed the company through the successful integration of two acquisitions. That coupled with Mr. Walker's proven track record of partnering with other software companies, helped Comshare to increase market share while creating barriers for the competition. He is a private investor in several early-stage companies and serves on the Board of the New Enterprise Forum. He also serves as a board member at Bulbs.com, CMS Technologies, and Innovative IT Solutions. Mr. Walker attended Holy Cross College in Worcester, Massachusetts, where he studied business. He also holds a BA in philosophy from St. Paul's College in Washington, D.C.

Steven D. Weinstein
Managing Director, Novartis Venture Fund
Steve joined the Novartis Venture Fund in 2006 as a Managing Director. From 2001, Steve was a Principal at Prism Venture Partners, where he focused on investments in medical devices and life sciences. He led the investments and/or served on the boards of iScience Surgical, ROX Medical, Sensitech (acquired by Carrier/UTX), and MedManage Systems. With over 15 years of operating, entrepreneurial, and venture experience he started his career in the turnaround of a $26 million electrical distribution business. He subsequently bought the assets of the defunct business out of bankruptcy and for the next five years, re-built the business to 30 employees and $8 million in annual revenue. Prior to Prism, Steve was a Principal and Kauffman Fellow with Mid-Atlantic Venture Funds. There he invested in and served as a board observer for several early stage communications and software companies. Steve holds an MBA with distinction from the University of Michigan Business School and a BS in mechanical engineering from Columbia University's School of Engineering and Applied Science. He serves on the board of the Family to Family Project.

Marc Weiser
Managing Director, RPM Ventures
Marc is founder and managing director of RPM Ventures, a seed and early stage venture capital firm based in Ann Arbor, Mich. At RPM, Marc is involved with the boards of AutoTradeCenter, Oxlo Systems, and Xtime, all serving clients in the automotive industry. Additionally, he is on the board of RiverGlass, a software spinout from the University of Illinois. Prior to forming RPM Ventures, Marc co-founded QuantumShift, a provider of web-based business-to-business telecommunications technology and services. Marc was also one of the first employees at MessageMedia, where he was a member of the road show team for the company’s Initial Public Offering and pioneered some of the original methods for e-commerce transactions. Marc has also worked in business development for Dell, and as an associate at Arbor Partners, an early-stage venture fund. In addition to his role at RPM, he serves on the board of McKinley, a $1.5 billion real estate company, and as an advisor to several startup businesses. He is also an active member on the board of two public non-profit foundations, the Ann Arbor Area Community Foundation, and The McKinley Foundation. Marc graduated cum laude from the University of Michigan with a BSE in aerospace engineering and a Master of Business Administration with highest honors.