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
Co-Chairman Kingsley Gate Partners; Prior Office of the CEO and Chairman Kingsley Gate Partners, Managing Partner Pagemill Partners, Founder Owner, Chairman and CEO Taylor Winfield.
Radha Basu
CEO iMerit Technology, Dean’s Professor & Director Frugal Innovation Lab at SCU; Prior Board Vice Chairman ReSurge Intl, Co-founder Anudip Foundation, CEO Support.com, General Manager HP.
Gerard Brossard
CEO Denison Consulting, LP multiple VCs, Board of Advisors and Early Investor multiple enterprise SaaS start-ups; Prior COO Rimini Street, EVP and General Manager Rackspace Solutions and Services, EVP and General Manager Enterprise Applications Services and OpenStack Public Cloud Rackspace.
Janice Chaffin
Independent Director Synopsys and PTC, Member of the Board of Managers CareerBuilder, Advisory Board Member UCLA Anderson School of Management, Prior Board Member EFI, Board Trustee Montalvo Arts Center, Operating Committee Member Ancestry.com, Independent Director IGT and Informatica.
Caretha Coleman
Chairman Black Directors Health Equity Agenda, Board Director Mahmee and The RealReal, Board Member Facing History &, Ourselves, Sobrato Foundation, KIPP Public Schools (N. California), and The Leverage Network, Vice Chairman Accion Opportunity Fund, Advisor Black Corporate Board Readiness and African American Director’s Forum.
David Coulter
Special Limited Partner Warburg Pincus, Board Member Varo Money, ModivCare, and Innovu; Prior Vice Chair J.P. Morgan Chase, CEO Bank of America.
Jim Dai
Partner Altos Ventures; Prior CTO, Coupang, CEO CalmSea (acquired by Coupang), EIR Altos Ventures, Senior VP of Engineering & Products DemandTec, Head of Engineering Field Services Siebel, CTO Vivant!, SVP of Engineering DoubleTwist.
Claudia Fan Munce
Chairwoman of the Board NACD Northern California Chapter, Lecturer in Management Stanford Graduate School of Business, Board Member BMO U.S., Arteris, and Best Buy, Venture Advisor NEA; Prior Board Member Bank of the West, Parity.Org, CoreLogic, National Venture Capital Association, & LAVCA.
Liz Fetter
Board Director Fox Factory, Founder and Managing Partner Abundance Hill Enterprises, Principal Fetter Advisory Services; Prior Board Director McGrath RentCorp, NACD Northern CA, Cloudstructure, Talend SA, Alliant International University, Symmetricom, Quantum, and Ikanos Communications, President & CEO NxGen Modular, Jacent Technologies, & QRS Corporation.
Celeste Ford
Managing Director Stellar Ventures, Board Chair, Founder and CEO Stellar Solutions, Member of the Board of Trustees University of Notre Dame, Board Member Simpson Strong-Tie, Iris Automation Inc, and CHG-Chemring, Advisory Council Member Enterprising Women.
Sarah Friar
CFO OpenAI, Board Member Walmart and ConsenSys, Board Advisor Stanford Digital Economy Lab, Operation HOPE, and Blavatnik School of Government at University of Oxford, Co-launcher Ladies Who Launch; Prior CEO Nextdoor, Board Member Slack and New Relic, CFO Square, SVP Finance Salesforce.
Ken Goldman
President Hillspire LLC, Board Member GoPro, RingCentral, Zuora, and Value Reporting Foundation; Prior Chief Financial Officer Yahoo! Inc., SVP and CFO Fortinet, Member PCAOB Standing Advisory Group, Member FASB’s Primary Advisory Group.
Nancy Heinen
Board Member Empower Work, Chair of the Board of Directors First Place for Youth, SV2 Silicon Valley Social Venture Fund, Senior Fellow American Leadership Forum Silicon Valley, Advisor Duarte Inc., Advisory Board Member Northern California Innocence Project, UC Berkeley Center for Law and Business, and Lab4U.
Cliff Higgerson
Advisor Artiman Ventures and Walden; Prior Co-Founder/General Partner ComVentures and Vanguard Ventures, Managing Partner H&Q.
Sabrina Horn
Certified Executive Coach, Advisor Oppenheimer Energy, Board Member TadHealth and 4CRisk.ai, Professor and Affiliate Faculty Emerson College, CEO, HORN Strategy LLC, Senior Advisor Technology Practice Finn Partners, Advisory Board Member Dogly and JEGI CLARITY, Partner/Owner, Millennium Play LLC.
Amal Johnson
Board Member Intuitive Surgical and Essex Property Trust; Prior Chairman of the Board CalAmp, Board Member Author-it and Mellanox Technologies, Chairman & CEO MarketTools, Executive VP Verity, VP & GM Dell, VP IBM.
Robin Joy
Executive VP Partnership for San Francisco, Operating Advisor Bessemer Venture Partners, LP Operator Collective; Prior Board Member Acumatica, SVP Global Alliances & Partner Development DocuSign, VP Marketing Caring.com, Director QuickBooks.
Michele Klein
CEO Jasper Ridge, Co-Founder Gridtential Energy; Prior Senior Director Applied Ventures, CEO Boxer Cross, Management positions Knoll and HP.
Tom Kosnik, Ph.D.
Partner FoundersX Ventures, Investor Kapital, LunaJoy Health, Turion Space, Orbillion Bio, 1910 Genetics, and Markable AI, Consulting Professor NUS Overseas Colleges, Adjunct Professor Stanford University; Prior Judge YouNoodle, Managing Director TCG Advisors.
Jean Kovacs
Partner Hillsven, Co-Chair Harvard Business School Alumni Angels Association; Prior Board Member ALW and Survox, President HBSAAA of Northern California, Board of Trustees Compass High School Bay Area, Interim CEO Somersault Orthopedics, SVP Corporate Marketing & Strategic Alliances Sterling Commerce.
Amy Millman
Managing Partner StageNext LLC, Ambassador SBE Australia, EIR Georgetown Entrepreneurship and Yale University, Advisory Board Enterprising Women Magazine, Founder Springboard 2000 Enterprises Inc; Prior Board Member Women In Bio, President Springboard Enterprises, Co-producer New York Fashion Tech Lab.
Carol Mills
Member Board of Directors Entertainment Partners and Zynga; Prior Member Board of Directors Xactly, Ingram Micro, Alaska Communications Systems Group, Bluecoat, Adobe, and Tekelec International.
Rebecca Norlander
Co-Founder Stealth AI Startup, Member Board of Trustees Boston University; Prior Advisory Board Member Boston University and Lyfebank, VP of Software Personal Systems HP, CEO Samepage Health, Board Director AAUW, Co-Founder & CEO Health123, General Manager Microsoft.
Donna Petkanics
Retired Corporate Partner Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati; Prior Managing Director Operations Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati.
Danielle Porter
Prior CFO and Board Member Bungie, CFO Flowroute & Lighthouse eDiscovery, Chief of Staff to the CFO T-Mobile, VP International Finance & General Manager Clearwire, Board Chair The Sophia Way, Board Treasurer Eastside FC.
Ron Rasmussen
Founder & Chief Technology Officer Latitude 39, Strategic Advisor and Prior Chief Technology Officer, Xactly Corp; Prior VP Engineering Incent Right and Quova, VP Engineering Lithium Technologies, CTO & VP Engineering KnowNow.
Janice Roberts
Partner BGV, Public Board Member ARM Holdings plc, Zebra Technologies Inc, and RealNetworks Corporation, President Board of Directors Ronald McDonald House at Stanford; Prior Managing Director Mayfield Fund, SVP Global Marketing and Business Development 3Com Ventures.
Judy Robinett
Founder & President JRobinett Enterprises, Advisor, Consultant, and Speaker; Prior CEO MDI Group, Managing Director Golden Seeds, Executive Director InVectus (Daisyclip), Director Willowbend Partners, Author of Crack the Funding Code and How to Be a Power Connector, Award-winning business book author & Keynote Speaker.
Doug Rybacki
Advisor and fractional CPTO; Prior Chief Product Officer Vanilla, Chief Product & Technology Officer UpKeep, Chief Product & Technology Officer Conga, Senior Director of Product Management Docusign and LexisNexis, Deputy State Court Administrator for Texas.
Sanjay Sadhu
Head of Sales Auradine, Strategic Advisor AI Innovation Advisors; Prior VP & GM Global Sales Alliances and OEM Partnerships, Hitachi Vantara, Managing Director - Sales Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Partner and Advisor InSinu Advisors, Sr. Director Global Alliances & Channels and Embedded Sales Oracle.
Avanish Sahai
Fellow Stanford Center on Longevity, Board Member Birdie, Flywl, and Meta (Brazil), Venture Partner SynapseVC, Tidemark Fellow and Host The Platform Journey, Mentor Capitalist Exbourne Group; Prior Fellow Stanford Distinguished Careers Institute, Board Member and Audit Committee HubSpot, Corporate Vice President Google.
Sonali Sambhus
Startup Advisor and Fractional CTO Thrrive Ventures, Board Member AvidXchange; Prior SVP/Head of Developer & Machine Learning Platform Square, Board Director CommonBond, Head of Consumer Engineering Realtor.com, VP Engineering Vuclip, Co-Founder 10jumps and Cisco.
Lucy Sanders
Founder & Executive in Residence NCWIT (National Center for Women & IT), Trustee Center for American Entrepreneurship, Colorado School of Mines, and International Computer Science Institute, Executive-in-Residence ATLAS Institute at University of Colorado Boulder; Prior VP of R&D, CTO Avaya Labs.
Leyla Seka
Co-Founder Side Project HQ, Chair Operator Collective, Co-Founder Black Venture Institute, Member Board of Trustees Oakland Museum of California, Board Member UC Berkeley Coleman Fung Institute for Engineering Leadership; Prior Board Member Girls Who Code and SetSail, COO, Ironclad.
Steve Strandberg
Co-Founder, Managing Partner, and Board Member Albany Road Real Estate Partners, Director Crescent Capital BDC, Director U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Foundation, President, U.S. Ski and Snowboard Foundation.
Shanna Tellerman
CPO Lennar, Member YPO; Prior Founder and CEO Modsy, Partner Google Ventures, Product Line Manager Cloud Platform and Services, Autodesk, Founder and CEO Wild Pockets, Project Manager Entertainment Technology Center at Carnegie Mellon University.