Using Boards of Advisors and Directors: August 11, 2011

Management Team, Board of Directors, Advisory Board – How to Best Utilize

Later this week, on Thursday, August 11 at 730am, I will serve as moderator for the meeting of 128 Innovation Capital Group, at the IBM Conference Center,  404 Wyman Street, North Entrance in Waltham, Massachusetts.  Our speaker, whom I recruited, will be Jenny Freeman, M.D., member of Boston Harbor Angels and co-founder & CEO of Respiratory Motion, Inc. in Waltham, who has over 25 years of broad hands-on experience in medicine, research, entrepreneurship and investment.  Jenny will share her experiences and advice about how to identify the best talent for your company’s success and the best way to deploy them.

Successful companies seek talented individuals to provide expertise in the various areas a start-up requires to be successful. Not all of these people are (or should become) part of the management team or an employee. A place on your Board of Directors and / or Advisory Board can provide a role where these people can contribute to your firm. But who should go where? What are the unspoken and unwritten rules you need to know? Our speaker will share her experiences both as an entrepreneur who has been successful in raising money and as an Angel Investor.

In addition to her investing with Boston Harbor Angels and current CEO position, Dr. Freeman has been CEO of JEF Core, Inc., a company focusing on medical device innovation. Previously she founded and ran HyperMed, Inc., a medical imaging company based on a technology to measure tissue oxygenation. Dr. Freeman built the company to 20 people, obtaining over $10M in grant and venture capital financing. Prior to Hypermed, she founded Argose, Inc. a medical device startup and as CEO raised $17 million from institutional investors and built it to a 50 person company. She was also the co-founder of Cheirologic Partners, Inc., a Wall Street research analysis and consulting firm and has run several surgical practices. She received her BA from Yale University, MD and general surgery residency from NYU/Bellevue.  She practiced cardiovascular surgery in both academia and private practice.

For more information or to register for this meeting, go to http://www.128icg.org/

Hopefully, this topic and meeting will be helpful to entrepreneurs in small and early stage companies I represent.

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I remain active at 128 ICG, a Waltham-based group that aids and provides a networking opportunity to entrepreneurs, small and early stage companies, and people who invest or work in those companies.

128 Innovation Capital Group (www.128icg.org), is now in its 7th year since, as a founder, I helped that group re-emerge from the 128 Venture Capital Group (founded in 1982).  I’ve been a 128 ICG board member since 2004 and recruited speakers and moderated nine of the nineteen prior meetings of 128 ICG in 2010-2011, including the following:

  • Clean Energy Investments:  How they are the same and how they differ from other investments, April 14, 2011, with Dennis R. Costello, Managing Partner of Braemar Energy Ventures.  
  • How Social Marketing Transformed the Gaming Sector: Social Gaming vs. Traditional Gaming, February 10, 2011, with Dayna Grayson, Principal at North Bridge Venture Partners.   To see slides: http://www.128icg.org/SocialGaming.pdf
  • The 5 Things you MUST KNOW about Raising Angel Investment, October 14, 2010, with Hambleton Lord, Managing Partner of Launchpad Venture Group. To see slides: http://www.128icg.org/Lord_101014.pdf 
  • Soaring Through the Cloud with Murat Bicer of Battery Ventures, July 8, 2010 where Murat was good enough to substitute for Sunil Dhaliwal, a partner at Battery Ventures.  To see slides: http://www.128icg.org/Battery-Cloud.pdf
  • Mobile Innovation in New England: Entrepreneurial Opportunities for the Future, April 8, 2010, with Sean Marsh, CoFounder and General Partner, Point Judith Capital.  To see slides:  http://www.128icg.org/sean_PtJudith.pdf

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