Robert R. Bennett is an independent executive business strategic growth advisor specializing in making the impossible possible. He is a talented facilitator, mentor, entrepreneur, and implementer with a track record of results in line management positions prior to becoming an independent advisor. He serves as a trusted strategic advisor, and facilitator to leaders to enable them to clearly articulate a future growth or turnaround vision and strategy, and then engage their followers to achieve it. Bob is known for his ability to synthesize discussion to its essence and integrate seemingly disparate data and points of view together into agreement and action. He is a serial entrepreneur having started up three companies and mentoring 19 in the last two years. Bob serves a wide spectrum of worldwide organizations. His client base is a diverse mix of non-profit organizations, national governments, professional services firms, private equity firms, and private companies, as well as Fortune 500 organizations. Bob enjoyed a successful corporate career with Westinghouse Electric Corporation where he held roles in engineering, manufacturing and marketing rapidly transitioning into a variety of Executive Management roles, both domestic and international, before becoming an independent advisor and entrepreneur in 1998.

Michael was previously Director of Corporate Venture Capital and Planning Director for Science and Technology at DuPont. He began his career at DuPont in Research & Development. where he held technology, marketing, and business leadership positions in DuPont Nonwovens and DuPont Advanced Fibers Systems until becoming Business Director for DuPont Nonwovens in Europe. In 2000 he became Planning Director for DuPont Central Research and Development, and added responsibility for DuPont’s venture capital investments in 2006. He worked across DuPont on R&D portfolio and innovation management and with external parties on collaborative research and open innovation. Michael holds a BA in chemistry from Columbia University and a Ph.D. in chemistry from Yale University. Michael Blaustein is Principal of the MAB Innovation Group. He is working with early stage companies and the entrepreneurial ecosystem on business development, innovation strategy, and corporate collaborations and venture capital investments, and with larger organizations on strategy and innovation. He serves as a member of the Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Southeastern Pennsylvania materials science investment advisory board.

Dr. Eugene Buff is a Registered Technology Transfer Professional (RTTP) and Certified Licensing Professional (CLP) with over twenty years of combined scientific, consulting and management experience. He has substantial expertise in a wide variety of industries, including but not limited to healthcare, biotechnology, medical devices, consumer products, materials and chemical manufacturing. Dr. Buff is a Founder and President of Primary Care Innovation Consulting (PCIC), a new type of innovation management and business development firm supporting companies’ growth through open innovation. PCIC provides technology strategy consulting for both large and small companies globally and has unique access to cutting edge innovation at universities, incubators and accelerators worldwide. Its signature product, Innovation Navigator™ offers comprehensive business development support by combining known theories (such as Lean Start Up, “Jobs-To-Be-Done” and Disruptive Innovation) with years of successful consulting practices. Dr. Buff also designed and teaches “Customer Driven Technical Innovation for Engineers”, a core course for Entrepreneurship Minor at Northeastern University, Boston. Dr. Buff earned his Master degree in Biochemistry as well as his Medical Doctor degree from Russian State Medical University. He is a Ph.D. in Genetics and is a coauthor of 14 papers in peer reviewed international journals. Eugene is an active member of the Licensing and Technology Transfer community and serves on several committees and task forces at AUTM and LES. He is a member on many consulting and professional network organizations and often mentors and presents on issues of Entrepreneurship, Intellectual Property, Innovation and Technology Transfer both in US and internationally.

Ron Epperson is a seasoned energy, chemical and clean tech entrepreneur with over 35 years of experience as a corporate executive, consultant, entrepreneur, investor and mentor. Ron spent 20 years at Royal Dutch /Shell where he was responsible for commercializing seven new energy and chemical technologies. He also built and managed an international licensing business that successfully licensed technologies into Korea, Japan, Mexico, Spain, Austria, Germany, France and South Africa. Ron’s chemical expertise includes alpha olefins, synthetic fatty alcohols, ethylene oxide and ethylene glycol, surfactants, lubricant and fuel additives, polyolefins, polyesters, hydrogen and syn gas. As a consultant, Ron was the leader of Intellectual Property practices at the international firms Ernst & Young and Grant Thornton. As an entrepreneur, he has had C level leadership roles in several startups that include renewable energy project development, renewable energy financing, petrochemical project development, electric motor technology, hydrogen fuel technology, energy storage, fintech and water clean up. As an investor, Ron managed corporate venture teams at Shell, and has been an angel and A Round investor in numerous clean tech companies covering renewable energy production, energy storage, advanced bio materials, carbon fiber composites, enhanced oil and gas recovery, environmental mitigation, novel gas fired power generation and energy efficiency.

President of Burnside Development & Associates LLC, Mr. Fraser now teaches academic technology transfer in several countries in South East Asia with colleagues on behalf of WIPO. He consults to the Serbian Innovation Fund on accelerating technology commercialization in the four largest Serbian universities on behalf of the World Bank. He is the Entrepreneur-in-Residence at the National Institutes for Standards and Technology (NIST), near his home in Bethesda, Maryland, amongst other consultancies. He left Florida State University in 2014, from his position as Assistant Vice President - Research and Economic Development and Executive Director of the Office of IP Development & Commercialization, FSU, Tallahassee, Florida. He was elected the 2006/2007 President of AUTM, the global association of academic technology transfer professionals and remains active in Association activities. Prior to FSU, he co-founded three companies and assisted entrepreneurs launch another twelve technology based firms. At FSU, he served as midwife for 30+ spin-out companies. Mr. Fraser holds a Masters Degree in Biochemistry from the University of California - Berkeley.

Steve is a former DuPont executive. He developed and implemented science strategies that supported corporate growth in the mid-term and long-term. He was also a spokesperson for DuPont materials science to the external community, including national labs, customers, partners, and academic institutions. He generated multi-billion dollars in new product revenue by building and implementing multi-generational strategies for energy materials. He also established technology strategies for existing and new company businesses, leading to growth opportunities in rapidly growing, technology-rich markets using cutting-edge science and engineering.

David Hayes is a serial entrepreneur, innovator, and university instructor with an extraordinary record of business creation. Mr. Hayes has an advanced educational background and proven, dynamic startup leadership and visioning capabilities. Mr. Hayes has much experience and success in both business and academic environments.

Art has been at the crossroads of business and technology for his entire career. This began with a first of its kind waste to energy plant in the 70s, hazardous solvent reuse as fuel in cement kilns in the 80s, outsourced chemical reduction services in the 90s, and then development of environmentally friendly chemicals and processes. He has been involved in starting 3 businesses from scratch, and introduced 2 other innovative business models in existing companies. During this time he has worked with university professors and students in SBIR/STTR projects, ICorps mentoring, and mentoring co-op engineering students in business projects for 8 years.

Dr. Maya is an expert in executive management and strategic planning, with successes in commercial start-up/early stage high technology businesses and university research centers, and in leading high technology industrial and academic R&D and technology transfer/transition. He has practical in-field experience in DOD/DHS/industrial/commercial & academic environments. Dr. Maya is proficient in a broad spectrum of technical and non-technical disciplines, including nuclear engineering science, program/project management, information technologies, risk and decision analysis, economics assessment, and social sciences. His technical preparation complements practical corporate experience with fiscal P&L responsibility.

David McFeeters-Krone is an experienced commercialization executive with over 25 years of experience at MIT, NASA, and Intel. He started his firm in 2001 to facilitate R&D business development with between institutions and industry. His clientele includes Sharp Technology Ventures, P&G, Deloitte, DoD, NASA, many smaller firms, various research hospitals, and the ManufacturingUSA Institutes. He has served on NSF SBIR review committees, and prepared winning NSF SBIR, NIST, Business Oregon and other grant proposals. He has leveraged his knowledge of technology, business processes and relationships to establish dozens of strategic R&D partnerships. His technical breadth spans alternative energy to armored glass and software to sand flies. He has created technical partnerships with the U.S. Air Force, U.S. Army, U.S. Navy, USDA, DHS, NASA, and DoE as well as relationships with NIST, FAA, and DHS. In the course of his practice, he has reviewed dozens of commercialization plans, founded two successful companies (Scribe-X, Rute Foundations), is an adjunct professor at Portland State University, and serves on the advisory board of several firms (Innovation Assets Group, Rute Foundations, Kerstech, TangiTek, and Oregon Inc.). He speaks regularly on Open Innovation and Technology Commercialization. He holds a Physics degree from the University of Michigan and an MBA from the University of Pittsburgh..

Brian McIlroy, Ph.D., took on the role of new executive director of the Buffalo Institute for Genomics and Data Analytic at the University at Buffalo in April 2016. As executive director of BIG, Dr. McIlroy will develop and implement a comprehensive plan for advancing BIG’s mission, with a focus on driving innovation and generating economic impact through industry collaboration. He will lead the team at BIG in engaging industry and other partners on projects that transform genomic research advances into tools for treating, preventing, managing and diagnosing disease. Brian was recruited to GE Global Research in May 2007 as the Senior Bioinstrumentation Leader. Brian was responsible at GRC for advanced technology for four business units within GEHC – Interventional Systems, Life Care Solutions, Ultrasound & Surgery. Leading a group of approximately sixty technologists at GE Global research and responsible for the inception & development of the advanced technology roadmap for this group. Brian’s current role focus’s on commercial avenues to monetize GE’s intangible assets through partnership and licensing agreements with partners. Overall, Brian has over 20 years’ experience in all aspects of medical device development together with management of clinical trials ranging from preclinical through phase III FDA controlled global trials.

Kevin McLaughlin brings over 30 years of experience in technology commercialization and executive leadership, working for Motorola, Cray Research, SGI, Cisco Systems and Avid technology. McLaughlin recently served as adjunct lecturer for the University of Arizona, McGuire Center for Entrepreneurship. He currently works as a Startup Development Officer with NCET2 (www.ncet2.org) and Mentor in Residence with Tech Launch Arizona on early technology assessments in the areas of optics, engineering, and physical sciences. McLaughlin is Co-founder and CEO for Luma.ai (www.lum.ai) a UA startup and a founding advisor for Pitch Vantage (www.pitchvantage.com). McLaughlin holds degrees in physics and business.

Mr. Pradhan is a pioneer in the field of technology transfer. He is a former president of the Association of University Technology Managers (AUTM) and the AUTM Foundation and was on the on the AUTM Board of Trustees from 2006 to 2010. Mr. Pradhan is an expert in negotiation, strategy, management and operations and forging multi-partner, multi-national alliances. His experience spans a number of industrial sectors. He has been involved with the launch of over 75 startups and currently consults with entrepreneurs to create and refine business and commercial development plans, raise capital, and mentor entrepreneurs. Mr. Pradhan also works closely with several universities on technology transfer program development and provides training and workshops in several countries.

Morris is a highly accomplished and proven Serial Entrepreneur/Investor, C-Suite Officer, Senior Executive, Consultant, and Board Member with significant success in technology, financial services, merchant and investment banking, asset management, distressed debt, green energy, cleantech, solar, geothermal, smart grid, renewables, mobile toxic waste management, pharma, telecom, internet, manufacturing, import/export, consumer goods (CPG), metals, private equity (PE), venture capital (VC), and consulting. Leveraging extensive experience in international business and capital raising, he is a valuable asset for a range of startup to midsize companies and social enterprises looking for acumen in market analysis, strategic planning, fundraising, and financing. His broad areas of expertise include corporate development and finance; executive consulting and management; leadership; entrepreneurship; investor relations; financial analysis, models, and structures; business strategy, planning, and development; competitive market analysis; emerging markets; mergers and acquisitions; due diligence; valuation; feasibility; integration; IPO; and LBO. As a Serial Entrepreneur/Investor and Managing Partner over 17 years, Morris has founded and directed multiple successful private energy, private equity, and telecom ventures focused on green and solar energy, geothermal, and biomass. He structured and marketed a $500M private equity fund to acquire small to midsize alternative energy companies held for long-term; developed a $320M waste to energy project in Guatemala; and served as Chair, Interim CEO, and Consultant for several geothermal and smart grid entities.

Laura currently serves as Technology Transfer Officer for Versiti, a set of blood centers in the Midwest which includes the Blood Research Institute. She has broad experience in bringing inventions to market through her roles as a scientist, a general research administrator, a co-founder of a biotech start-up, and in her current role in technology transfer. Her early career in medical research focused on vaccine trials, molecular virology, stem cell biology, transplant/oncology, and cellular assays. Her past roles include Vice President and Chief Operating Officer for Prodesse, a molecular infectious disease diagnostics company now part of Hologic. She is currently serving on the board for the Alliance of Technology Transfer Professionals, helping set the accreditation standards for the field. Additionally, she is a board member for AUTM, the largest international society for tech transfer and knowledge transfer professionals.

John Seman is CEO of REVITALE Pharma, a clinical stage company advancing a transformative treatment for anemia of chronic inflammation licensed from Brigham Young University. Mr. Seman began his career in global life science corporations working for E. R. Squibb & Sons and multiple divisions of Johnson & Johnson, holding various management positions in sales, marketing and business development, and executive management at Corning. During his tenure at Squibb, he was a team member responsible for the introduction a new cardiovascular drug that achieved highest first sales in company history. At Johnson & Johnson, he managed a portfolio of eight biotech products at various stages of pre-clinical and clinical development, and actively participated in the licensing and acquisition of multiple pharmaceutical products. His leadership experience at Corning includes expansion of central laboratory services into the European market and developing a marketing strategy to increase profitability within a growing base of repeat customers. The past 20 years have been spent in entrepreneurial startups where he built an innovative technology based company, AVANTEC, to accelerate the receipt of clinical trial data from investigator sites, securing over $10M from multiple rounds of financing; boot strapped, tripled revenue, and sold a reimbursement services company, HealthBridge; and secured seed funding from angel investors for a preclinical research company, PhysioGenix, transforming a SBIR funded company into a revenue generating company.

Stephen Socolof is a Managing Partner of New Venture Partners LLC (“NVP”). With over $700 million under management and offices in the US and Europe, NVP is the leading global venture capital firm specializing in corporate spinout venturing. NVP works closely with corporations to commercialize and scale up new innovations as standalone ventures. NVP itself was spun out of Lucent Technologies, where it had been an incubator for spinout opportunities from Bell Labs. NVP focuses on communications and information technologies as well as energy and materials. In addition to Steve’s firm management responsibilities, he leads deals in semiconductors, software, storage, and wireless technologies. He is currently a director of Alverix, CrossFiber, EverSpin Technologies, GainSpan Corporation, Own Products, and a board observer of Intelleflex. He was recently a director of Sychip, Inc. (sold to Murata) and an observer of Flarion Technologies, Inc. (sold to Qualcomm), and Silicon Hive (sold to Intel). Steve holds a BA in Economics and a BS in Mathematical Sciences from Stanford University and received his MBA from the Amos Tuck School at Dartmouth College, where he was a Tuck Scholar. He currently serves on the board of the Center for the Study of Private Equity at the Tuck School.

Entrepreneur with proven success in business start ups, business expansion, and turn arounds. Core strengths include designing and executing customer discovery plans, recognizing and exploiting hidden opportunities and obstacles, engineering, negotiating and closing complex investor and partnership transactions and finding creative solutions to enhance any company’s top and bottom lines.

She holds a PhD from SUNY at Stony Brook and during her thesis research she was a selected attendee of the highly competitive Physiology Course at Woods Hole, MA. She was also selected as a post doctoral attendee of the NSF funded international scientist training program titled 'Biology of Antarctic Organisms' which was held at McMurdo Base, Antarctica. She started a post-doctoral fellowship looking at population genetics of coral reef sea urchins in Hawaii, which was completed at Harvard University. Following this, she completed a fellowship at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women's Hospital looking at adaptations to osmotic stress in renal cells. During this time, her lab was a first adopter of nascent technology for cDNA gene chips and she invented a signal detection system for cDNA arrays (Gensophere cDNA detection system). Following this fellowship, she ran the transcriptional profiling facility at the Cambridge Genomics Center for Aventis Pharmaceuticals (now Sanofi Pharma). From there she was recruited to a start-up company in Sunnyvale, CA where she developed new products and built a Custom Services Division for the company (and increased company gross profits over 15% in the first 18 months). This included hiring staff, creating protocols and SOPs, as well as performing marketing and sales. Once the new division was up and running, she accepted a position at Bio-Rad Labs as a Global Marketing Manager for their new gene arrays product line, and was soon promoted to Business Development Manager for the Gene Expression Division. From there she was recruited to Intel as a Senior Business Development Manager for their Digital Health Group as well as their Life Sciences research group. The Digital Health Group was successfully spun out as a joint venture with GE Healthcare after which she did consulting for early biotech stage start-up companies in the New York area. From there she accepted a position as in Intellectual Property Officer for UC Davis in 2012 where she works to evaluate new technologies, manage patenting, marketing and licensing as well as support start-up companies. She's been an invited judge for UCD's Big Bang competition as well as a mentor for the Biomedical + Engineering Entrepreneurship Academy.

Cheryl Vickroy, MBA, is a seasoned entrepreneur with broad functional expertise in business (from finance to marketing to HR). She worked 15 years in industry and has since led/managed multiple successful high-growth, early stage, technology-based firms. She brings differing perspectives on commercialization of innovation – from having been a successful entrepreneur to having invested in select tech-based firms to mentoring other entrepreneurs. Cheryl is an exceptional strategist and has built management teams, developed milestones and projections and dsicovered new markets. She currently consults in acquisition of SBIR/STTR funding, using Lean Startup techniques and time-tested commercialization strategies. She has helped her own and other firms acquire over $50M, twice served as an NSF iCorps mentor and has a nationwide network of contacts across industry domains.