Advisors
Illuminate benefits from a world-class Business Advisory Council made up of more than 40 of the most successful members of the global high tech ecosystem - all of whom work closely with the firm and with the founding teams in our portfolio.
Advisory Council members come from four categories of experience – each with relevance to our enterprise tech focus:
- Tech entrepreneurs that have achieved large, successful outcomes in the enterprise space
- Corporate executives and board members of market-leading enterprise technology companies
- Investors and service providers experienced in achieving strategic exits
- Educators and non-profit Execs that mentor, educate and fund tech entrepreneurs, with a focus on diversity
Nancy Albertini
Chairman of executive search firm, Kingsley Gate, Inc.; Prior board member VT&T, advisory board member Monitise; prior co-founder and Managing Director Pagemill Partners, founder and CEO Taylor Winfield, Inc. and senior executive at RCA.
Radha Basu
CEO iMerit Technology Services, Santa Clara University – Center for Science Technology and Society; prior CEO Anudip Foundation, CEO SupportSoft.com, GM Hewlett Packard, EIR Simmons School of Management, Boards of Interplast, C.E.O. Women.
Gerard Brossard
Advisory Boards of multiple SaaS start-ups; prior EVP & COO Rimini Street, EVP and General Manager Rackspace Solutions and Services, EVP and Managing Director, Enterprise and Mid-Market Business Unit and IT Earthlink, and executive positions at Visa and Hewlett-Packard; BOD Mphasis.
Janice Chaffin
Board member for Synopsys, PTC, Informatica and CareerBuilder; Board of Advisors, Executive Committee Member and Co-Chair Nominating Committee, UCLA Anderson Graduate School of Business; prior Member Operating Committee of Ancestry.com, boards of International Game Technology and EFI, Group President Consumer BU, Symantec (now a part of Gem Digital) and VP/GM HP.
Caretha Coleman
Dignity Health board (prior Chairman) and member of the Board Emeriti Silicon Valley Community Fdn. Coleman Consulting; prior executive roles at HP, Interval Research, and Software Publishing, founding member of The Angels' Forum.
David Coulter
Special Limited Partner at Warburg Pincus, LLC; Board member at Varo Money, Inc., ModivCare, and Innovu; prior Managing Director, Member of the Executive Management Group and Vice Chairman, Warburg Pincus, Vice Chair J. P. Morgan Chase & Co. and Chairman and CEO BankAmerica Corporation.
Jim Dai
Venture Partner at Altos Ventures; prior founder and CEO CalmSea, Inc. Prior executive technology and operations management positions at Coupang, DemandTec, Vivant, Informix, and Siebel Systems.
Claudia Fan Munce
Venture Advisor, NEA Facutly: Stanford Graduate School of Business; Board Member of Best Buy, Arteris Semiconductor, BMO Financial, Parity.org; Chairwoman, NACD Northern California and Founding Chairwoman, Global Corporate Venturing.
Liz Fetter
Founder & Managing Partner, Abundance Hill, Board of Directors at McGrath Rent Corp, Fox Factory, and High Barr Media; prior CEO at Symmetricom, NxGen Modular, Jacent Technologies, QRS and NorthPoint, executive positions at US West and Pacific Bell; former board member at Symmetricom, Connexed, Quantum Corp and Ikanos.
Sarah Friar
CEO Nextdoor, Boards of Walmart and Concensys; prior CFO and Operations Lead Square, SVP of Finance and Strategy Salesforce.com, Managing Director Technology Business Unit Leader and lead software analyst at Goldman Sachs, and previously with McKinsey & Company. Prior board member of Slack, Spark, ModelN, New Relic, Inc.
Earl Fry
Board member at Hawaiian Airlines, Backblaze, Central Pacific Financial Corp., Univ. of Hawaii Pacific Asian Center for Entrepreneurship; prior boards Xactly Corp.; prior Informatica CFO, Chief Customer Officer and EVP Services & Support. CFO at Omnicell, Inc., C*ATS Software, Inc., and Weitek Corp. Five-time Institutional Investor CFO of the Year.
Ken Goldman
President Hillspire, LLC; boards of NXP Semiconductor, Fortinet, RingCentral, Zuora, GoPro, Gigamon and other private companies. Cornell University Trustee Emeritus and Presidential Councilor, Prior CFO Yahoo! Inc., Fortinet, Siebel Systems, Exite@Home, Sybase, VLSI and Cypress Semiconductor.
Nancy Heinen
Board Member, Verb Technology, Teen Success, Inc., First Place for Youth, SV2 – Silicon Valley Social Venture Fund, Senior Fellow American Leadership Forum; prior SVP, General Counsel and Secretary Apple Computer, VP, General Counsel and Secretary NeXT, attorney Tandem.
Cliff Higgerson
Venture Partner Walden International and Senior Advisor Illuminate Ventures; prior General Partner Vanguard Ventures and ComVentures (sample deals: AOL, Ciena, Digital Island, Xtera, Ygnition, Tellabs); former Managing Partner H&Q.
Roz Ho
Ford Chief Connected Vehicle Software Officer; prior Global Head of Print Software, HP, SVP & GM at TiVo, VP Ericsson, GM/CVP Microsoft; inducted into the Women of Technology Hall of Fame in 2018, holds many patents in hardware and software.
Sabrina Horn
CEO, Horn Strategy, LLC, board member 4CRisk.ai, KloudGin, Boston University Alumni Council, Dieu Donné, Dogly.com, German Accelerator Group; prior Managing Partner, US Technology Practice Finn Partners, Founder, President and CEO of Horn Group, positions at Blanc & Otus and Edelman.
Amal Johnson
Board member Intuitive Surgical, CalAmp, and Ezzex; prior CEO and Board chair MarketTools, board member Mellanox Technologies, and Author-IT, founding General Partner Lightspeed Venture Partners, President of Baan NA, President of ASK and senior executive at IBM.
Robin Joy
Fellow in the Distinguished Careers Institute, Stanford; Former: DocuSign, Global Alliances & Partners, SVP, Digital Sales & Marketing; prior VP Marketing, Caring.com, other positions at Intuit, Digeo, AltaVista, Odwall, and Clorox; Board member at Acumatica.
Don Keller
Board of Overseers Boston College Law School; prior Partner and Exec Committee Member, Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe where he advised clients on hundreds of IPOs, acquisitions, and venture financings, partner Venture Law Group.
Tom Kosnik, Ph.D.
Partner, FoundersX Ventures; prior Fenwick and West Consulting Professor, Stanford Technology Ventures Program, Dept. of Mgmt. Science and Engineering, Stanford University. Teaches workshops about entrepreneurship for startups and accelerators as well as new product teams in global technology companies.
Jean Kovacs
Partner, Hillsven Ventures; Board member Retail Zipline, ALW; prior co-founder & CEO Comergent, co-founder & EVP Qualix Group, executive at Sterling Commerce (AT&T), Sun Microsystems, Frame Technology and Compugraphic. Interim CEO/CEO Advisor including as CEO, SomersaultOrthopedics.
Amy Millman
Managing Partner at Stage Next LLC, EIR at Georgetown University and Yale University, Board member, WomenInBio, Advisory Board, Enterprising Women Magazine, Advisor, Illuminate Ventures, Founder, Springboard 20000 Enterprises, Inc.
Carol Mills
Board of Directors Entertainment Partners, Zynga; prior Board Chair/Director Xactly, WhiteHat Security, Alaska Communications, Ingram Micro, Adobe, Blue Coat, Tecelek, EVP of Juniper Networks, CEO of Acta Technology and GM at HP.
Rebecca Norlander
VP of Software - Personal Systems HP, Boston University Board of Overseers; prior Venture Partner Illuminate Ventures, Co-founder & CEO Health 123, Microsoft Executive – General Manager Online Ad Platform, Technical Assistant to the Chief Software Architect.
Donna Petkanics
Retired Partner, Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati; prior Board of Directors and co-chair of the Compensation, Hiring, and Nominating Committee, head of WSGR Operations and Board of Directors of the WSGR Foundation.
Ron Rasmussen
Co-founder Latitude 39.0; prior CTO Xactly Corp, VP Engineering Quova and Lithium Technologies, CTO & VP Engineering KnowNow, SVP Engineering and Operations Digital Impact, VP The Santa Cruz Operation, Architect/Senior Engineer, Computer Language Lab HP.
Tami Reller
Executive Chair, Duly Health and Care; Boards of SPS Commerce, Avalara; prior Chief Marketing & Experience Officer of UnitedHealth Group, Executive Vice President Optum (acquired by UnitedHealth Group), EVP, CMO and CFO for the Windows Division at Microsoft; prior CFO of Great Plains Software (acquired by Microsoft).
Judy Robinett
Founder & President, JRobinett Enterprises; prior Advisor Newpark Capital, MD Golden Seeds, CEO Senta Technologies and Medical Discoveries, Inc., Boards Magic Valley Medical Center, Universal Frozen Foods and Idaho National Engineering Laboratory.
Sanjay Sadhu
VP & General Manager at Hitachi Vantara, Board of Advisors at Aviso.ai, Abzooba; prior management roles, HP Enterprise, Oracle, Qwest Communications, and Hewlett-Packard in Asia.
Avanish Sahai
Board member, Birdie.ai, BayBrazil, and World Affairs, Venture Partner with Synapse VC; Prior board at Hubspot, VP ISV & App partnerships at Google Cloud, executive at ServiceNow, Salesforce and multiple startups in the enterprise space, early career at Oracle and McKinsey.
Sonali Sambhus
Board of Director at AvidXchange Inc [NASDAQ:AVDX]; Advisory Board for multiple startups; prior Board of Director at CommonBond Inc, CTO/VP roles at multiple companies including Square Inc, Realtor.com, Vuclip; USFintech Rising Star of the Year 2023 award, Top 50 Women in 2020; Book Author on Women Leadership.
Lucy Sanders
CEO and co-founder National Center for Women & IT, Trustee Colorado School of Mines; prior Executive-in-Residence for the ATLAS Institute at the University of Colorado at Boulder, executive positions at AT&T Bell Labs, Lucent Bell Labs and Avaya Labs and BOD of Gold Systems, Solidware and Upsource.
Nancy Schoendorf
General Partner at Mohr Davidow Ventures since 1993, Board member Shutterfly and several private companies; prior engineering management positions at HP, Software Publishing Corp and Sun Microsystems.
Leyla Seka
Co-Creator, Black Venture Institute, Boards of Proofpoint, UC Berkeley Coleman Fung Institute for Engineering Leadership, Girls Who Code; prior COO, Ironclad, Partner, Operator Collective, General Manager and SVP Salesforce.com, product management and marketing roles at Primavera Systems, Evolve Software, Vivant and Eutron SPA.
Chris Shipley
Co-founder, Constituent Connection, Author of The Empathy Advantage and The Adaptation Advantage, advisor to startups, Curator Newsgeist, Member of the Board of Rocket50 and La Foundation du Startup de Montreal; prior Executive Producer, DEMO Conferences, CEO Guidewire Labs.
Steve Strandberg
Director Crescent Capital BDC, Inc., Nominating & Audit Committees, Co-Founder and Managing Partner Albany Road Real Estate Ptrs., board roles with numerous companies and several non-profits; prior Managing Director and Co-Founder of WestBridge Ventures, ARAMEX Co. Ltd., technology investment banker with Morgan Stanley, DLJ and Merrill Lynch.
Shanna Tellerman
Cofounder and CEO Modsy, Inc., prior Partner Google Ventures, Cofounder and CEO Wild Pockets (acquired by AutoDesk), Cloud Product Line Manager Autodesk.
