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 19 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 has been pursuing her business degree 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.

2007-2008 Student Advisory Board
Justin Adams MBA '09
Jamil Ali, MBA '09
Marc Berkowitz, MBA '09
Gregory Boggy, Ph.D.
Julia Choi MBA '09
Erin Cready MBA '08
Meghan Cuddihy PhD '09
Anne Delaney MBA '09
Shantanu Dhamija MBA '08
John Gearen MBA/MS '08
Himayat Khan MBA '09
Thomas Leahy, MBA/MS '10
Jeffrey Lebrun MBA/MS '09
Eugene Lee MBA '08
Adam Litle MBA/JD '08
Joseph Malcoun MBA/MS '09
Josh Mandel-Brehm MBA '09
Shripal Meghani MBA '08
Sheel Mohnot, MBA '09
Seema Prasad MBA '09
Eric Satler, MBA '09
Nate Schmid MBA '09
Puneet Singh MBA '08
Renata Soares MBA/MS '09
Jeremy Sullivan, MBA '09
Nathaniel Troup MBA '09
Sriram Viji MBA '08
Christopher Whitehead MBA '09
Jason Yang MBA '08
Michael Zarrilli, MBA '09

2007-2008 Returning Student Advisory Board Members
Ryan Baxter, MBA '08
David Forsythe, MBA '08
Karl Kyriss, MBA '08
Catherine Lee, MBA '08
Jing Liang, MBA '08
Aaron Nelson, MBA/MA '08
Kati Prause, MBA '08
Deborah Robbins, MBA '08
Sahana Shetty, MBA '08
Vikram Vaishya, MBA '08
Devi Vijayakumari, MBA '08
Christopher Wilson, MBA '08

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 is hold 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.

William D. Johnson
Consultant/Venture Investor
Will is an experienced venture investor, having led or co-led 7 investments, inherited several additional deals, and played a supporting role in others. His experience and investments have spanned the areas of enterprise infrastructure, security, application software and services, and internet commerce/marketing. Most recently, Will was a Partner with In-Q-Tel, the venture capital firm associated with the CIA. At In-Q-Tel, Will focused primarily on data center infrastructure, enterprise software, and security while also evaluating material science opportunities. Prior to joining In-Q-Tel, Will focused on technology investments at JP Morgan Partners and was a founder of the firm's enterprise software investment group. Earlier in his career Will worked in information technology consulting with Andersen Consulting and Ernst & Young, where he scoped and implemented a variety of IT solutions. While at In-Q-Tel, Will led investments in Nextreme Thermal Solutions and Initiate Systems. At JPMorgan Partners he served as a board member or observer at Callvision (acquired by Verisign), Open Network (acquired by BMC), ProfitLogic (acquired by Oracle), SquareTrade, Tantau Software (acquired by 724 Solutions), and Zilliant. In addition, Will currently serves on the board of advisors for the Wolverine Venture Fund at the University of Michigan Business School.

Timothy M. Mayleben
Executive VP & COO, NightHawk Radiology Services
Timothy Mayleben has nearly 20 years of experience with entrepreneurial companies. Most recently 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, Nighthawk Radiology Services, Rubicon Genomics, and is an advisor to several biotechnology companies in the Ann Arbor area. He is also an active angel investor in Michigan life sciences companies. 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.

Timothy B. Petersen
Managing Partner, Arboretum Ventures
In 2002, Tim joined partner Jan Garfinkle in launching Arboretum Ventures, a $24 million venture capital firm focused on the medical device and healthcare sectors. Tim serves on Board of Directors of Advanced ICU Care, HealthMedia, KFx Medical, and Thermocure, four of Arboretum’s portfolio investments, and previously sat on the Board of Asterand (LSE: ATD). 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 the Biogenerator (St. Louis).

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.