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 Co-Founder & Managing Partner Pagemill Partners, Founder Albertini Group and Taylor Winfield; Prior Board Member VT&T, Sr Exec RCA, Advisory Board Member Monitise.
Radha Basu
CEO iMerit Technology, Dean’s Professor & Director Frugal Innovation Lab Santa Clara Univ; Prior IPO CEO SupportSoft.com, GM Hewlett-Packard; Prior Co-Founder Anudip Foundation, Board Vice Chair ReSurge Int’l.
Gerard Brossard
CEO Denison Consulting, LP, Board Advisor & Early Investor enterprise SaaS start-ups; Prior COO Rimini Street, EVP & GM Rackspace Solutions & Services and Enterprise Apps & OpenStack Public Cloud, EVP & MD EarthLink, CEO Rich Media Mgmt & BPM Hewlett Packard, SVP Visa.
Edgard Capdevielle
CEO Nozomi Networks, Investor & Advisor Various Startups; Prior EIR Charles River Ventures, VP Product Management & Marketing Imperva, Founder & Managing Director Cloud Strategy Group, VP of Product Management Nirvanix, Sr. Director of Server Connectivity Brocade Comm Systems, Director Business Dev Orbital Data, Principal Outlook Ventures.
Janice Chaffin
Independent Board Director Synopsys, Informatica & PTC, Advisory Board Member UCLA Anderson School of Management, Board Member CareerBuilder; Prior VP Enterprise Marketing & Solutions HP, Group President Consumer Business Symantec.
Caretha Coleman
Board Director Mahmee & The RealReal, Board Member Sobrato Foundation, KIPP Public Schools N. California & The Leverage Network; Prior Chair Dignity Community Care (Dignity Health), Executive Hewlett-Packard, CAO Interval Research, CHRO Software Publishing Corp.
David Coulter
Special Limited Partner Warburg Pincus, Board Member Varo Money, ModivCare & Innovu; Prior Chairman & CEO BankAmerica Corp, Managing Director & Vice Chair Warburg Pincus, Vice Chair J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.
Claudia Fan Munce
Board Member Best Buy, BMO U.S. & Arteris, Venture Advisor NEA, Chairwoman Emeritus NACD N. California Chapter, Lecturer in Management Stanford GSB; Prior Managing Director & VP IBM Venture Capital Group & Corp Development, Chairwoman Global Corporate Venturing. Prior Board Member CoreLogic, Bank of the West, Parity.Org, NVCA & LAVCA, Children’s Discovery Museum of San Jose.
Liz Fetter
Board Director High Barr Media, Fox Factory & McGrath RentCorp, Founder & Managing Partner Abundance Hill Enterprises; Prior IPO CEO Northpoint, President & CEO NxGen Modular, Jacent Technologies & QRS Corp; Prior Board Director NACD N. CA, Cloudstructure, Alliant Int’l Univ, Symmetricom, Quantum & Ikanos Communications.
Celeste Ford
Managing Director Stellar Ventures, Board Chair & Founder Stellar Solutions; Prior Trustee Univ of Notre Dame, Board Simpson Strong-Tie, Iris Automation & CHG-Chemring, Advisory Council Member Enterprising Women.
Earl Fry
Board Member Backblaze & Central Pacific Financial Corp.; Prior CFO & EVP Informatica, CFO Omnicell, C*ATS Software & Weitek Corp, Sr Auditor Ernst & Whinney, Controller VLSI Technology; Prior Board Member Hawaiian Airlines & Xactly Corp.
Ken Goldman
Board Member RingCentral, Zuora & Value Reporting Foundation, Trustee Cornell Univ; Prior President Hillspire LLC, CFO Yahoo!, Fortinet, Siebel Systems, Excite@Home, Sybase & Cypress Semiconductor.
Nancy Heinen
Chair First Place for Youth, Board Member Empower Work & SV2 Silicon Valley Social Venture Fund, Advisor Duarte Inc., Lab4U & UC Berkeley Center for Law & Business, Advisory Board Northern California Innocence Project; Prior SVP & General Counsel Apple, VP & General Counsel NeXT, Attorney Tandem Computers; Prior Board Member Verb Technology & Teen Success.
Sabrina Horn
Certified Executive Coach, CEO HORN Strategy LLC, Author Make it, Don't Fakee it, Advisor Oppenheimer Energy, Sr Advisor Tech Practice Finn Partners; Board Member TadHealth, 4CRisk.ai & Boston Univ Alumni Council; Prior Managing Partner Finn Partners, Founder, President & CEO HORN Digital.
Amal Johnson
Board Member Intuitive Surgical, Essex Property Trust; Prior GP Lightspeed Venture Partners, President Baan North America, ASK Mfg Systems, GM IBM, MarketTools' Prior Exec Chair Author-it, Board Member Mellanox Technologies, Chair CalAmp.
Robin Joy
Operating Advisor Bessemer Venture Partners, LP Operator Collective; Prior SVP Global Alliances & Partner Dev DocuSign, VP Marketing Caring.com, Dir QuickBooks Marketing Intuit; Prior Board Member Acumatica.
Michele Klein
CEO Jasper Ridge Inc, Board Member Aviat Networks, Intevac, Rockley Photonics & Gridtential Energy; Prior CEO & Founder Boxer Cross & High Yield Technology, Sr Director Applied Ventures (Applied Materials), Exec Knoll & HP.
Tom Kosnik, Ph.D.
Partner FoundersX Ventures, Consulting Professor NUS Overseas Colleges, Adjunct Professor Stanford Univ, Board Member Markable AI; Prior MD TCG Advisors, Visiting & Asst Professor Harvard Business School, Consultant, American Mgmt Systems.
Jean Kovacs
Partner Hillsven Venture Capital, Co-Chair Harvard Business School Alumni Angels Association; Prior IPO EVP & Co-Founder Qualix Group, M&A CEO & Co-Founder Comergent Technologies, President HBSAA N. California, Director Frame Technology; Prior Board Member ALW & Survox.
Kira Makagon
President & CMO RingCentral, Board Member Calix; Prior Co-Founder & Chief Product Officer Octane Software (acq. by Epiphany for $3B), Founder & CEO/President Red Aril & NebuAd, President Ventures & Alliances & EVP Mktg & Biz Dev Exigen Group, VP Products Scopus Technology (IPO & acq. by Siebel Systems).
Amy Millman
Managing Partner StageNext LLC, Founder Springboard 2000 EnterprisesEIR Georgetown Entrepreneurship & Yale Univ; Prior Co-founder and President Springboard Enterprises; Prior Board Member Women in Bio, Exec Director Nat’l Women’s Business Council, Advisory Board Dell EIR.
Carol Mills
Board Member Entertainment Partners, Zynga and RELX; Prior CEO Acta Technology, Corp VP & GM HP, EVP Juniper Networks; Prior Board Chair/Director Xactly, WhiteHat Security, Alaska Communications, Ingram Micro, Adobe, Blue Coat & Tekelec.
Rebecca Norlander
Founder Stealth AI Startup, Board Trustee Boston Univ; Prior VP Software Personal Systems HP, CEO Samepage Health & Co-founder/CEO Health123, GM Microsoft; Prior Advisory Board Lyfebank, Board Director AAUW.
Donna Petkanics
Prior Partner Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, Board Alzheimer’s Association of NorCal, Board Member WSGR Foundation; Assisted hundreds of VC-backed companies with successful IPOs & M&A negotiations.
Danielle Porter
Prior CFO & Board Bungie, CFO Flowroute & Lighthouse eDiscovery, Chief of Staff to the CFO T-Mobile, VP Int’l Finance & GM Clearwire, Senior finance positions at drugstore.com, Nextel Int’l Wireless, and AT&T Wireless.
Ron Rasmussen
Founder & CTO Latitude 39, Strategic Advisor Xactly Corp; Prior CTO Xactly Corp, VP Eng Quova & Lithium Technologies, CTO & VP Eng KnowNow, SVP Eng & Ops Digital Impact, Architect/Sr Eng HP.
Janice Roberts
Partner BGV, Board Member NETGEAR, MivervaCQ, Totango, Uneeq, Zebra Technologies & RealNetworks, Advisory Board Member INSEAD; Prior MD/President BICC Data Networks, Managing Director Mayfield Fund.
Judy Robinett
Founder & President JRobinett Enterprises, Author of Crack the Funding Code & How to Be a Power Connector, Board Member Resilinc; Prior CEO IPO MDI Group, Managing Director Golden Seeds, Exec Director InVectus (Daisyclip), Director Willowbend Partners.
Doug Rybacki
Advisor and Fractional CPTO; Prior Chief Product Officer Vanilla, Chief Product & Technology Officer UpKeep and Conga, Senior Director of Product Management Docusign and LexisNexis.
Avanish Sahai
Fellow Stanford Center on Longevity, Board Member Birdie, Flywl & Meta Brazil, VC Partner SynapseVC; Prior Corp VP Google, Global VP ServiceNow & Salesforce.com, Sr VP Demandbase & InsideSales.com, Co-Founder Escalon Services & CareVault; Prior Board Member HubSpot.
Sonali Sambhus
CTO Butter Payments, Fractional CTO & Startup Growth Advisor Thrive Ventures, Board Member AvidXchange; Prior SVP/Head Developer & ML Platform Square, VP Eng Vuclip, Head Consumer Eng Realtor.com, Co-Founder 10jumps.
Lucy Sanders
CEO & Co-Founder NCWIT (National Center for Women & IT), Trustee Center for American Entrepreneurship, Colorado School of Mines & Int’l Computer Science Institute, Exec-in-Residence ATLAS Institute Univ of Colorado Boulder; Prior VP R&D & CTO Avaya Labs.
Leyla Seka
Co-Founder Side Project HQ & Black Venture Institute, Chair Operator Collective, Board Member UC Berkeley Coleman Fung Institute & Girls Who Code, Member Board of Trustees Oakland Museum of California; Prior COO Ironclad, EVP Salesforce (Mobile & AppExchange), Prod Mgr Vivant; Prior Board Member SetSail & Proofpoint, Advisory Board Xero.
Steve Strandberg
Co-Founder & Managing Partner Albany Road Real Estate Partners, Trustee US Ski & Snowboard Fdn, Director Crescent Capital BDC; Prior MD & Co-Founder WestBridge Ventures, MD ARAMEX Co., Tech Investment Banker Morgan Stanley, DLJ & Merrill Lynch.
Shanna Tellerman
CPO Lennar, Member YPO; Prior Founder & CEO Modsy & SimOps/Wild Pockets, Partner Google Ventures, Prod Line Mgr Cloud Platform & Services Autodesk, Entertainment Tech Center Carnegie Mellon University.
