Alex Smith
Former Treasurer of Dell Technologies
Alex is a partner and senior advisor at Brown Advisory. Prior to the May 2018 combination of Meritage Capital with Brown Advisory, he was the founder and chief executive officer of Meritage Capital.
Prior to establishing Meritage Capital, Alex founded and was a managing director of Dell Ventures, the private equity arm of Dell Inc. He also served as vice president and treasurer for Dell prior to starting Dell Ventures.
Before his time at Dell, Alex held finance and treasury positions at Commodore International, Ltd. and EDS. Alex’s career spans more than 30 years in the global financial markets and the high-tech industry sectors.
Alex is president of St. James’s Park Holding, LLC, an Austin, Texas-based family office. Alex currently serves as a member of the finance committee and as a member of the board of trustees of Children’s Medical Center Foundation of Central Texas, he previously served as chairman.
His deep respect for the importance of the University of Florida is evidenced by his roles as a member of the Dean’s Business Advisory Council for University of Florida’s Warrington College of Business Administration and as a member of the board of the University of Florida Investment Company. He is also a member of the MBA Investment Fund Advisory Committee at the University of Texas at Austin.
Susan Sheskey
Former CIO of Dell
Susan Sheskey retired from Dell in 2007 after serving 14 years at the company, most recently as Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer. Susan joined Dell in 1993 and is a noted authority on eCommerce and supply chain technologies, as well as in the use of standards and innovative solutions to transform businesses while driving down costs. During her tenure, Dell’s Information Technology Organization was recognized by CIO Magazine as a CIO 100 Innovation Award winner nine of the last thirteen years.
Susan serves as a Member of the Board of Directors of StoredIQ, delivering enterprise solutions enabling management of compliance information. And, she is a Member of the Board of Directors of Digby, delivering mobile eCommerce capabilities. She also serves (or has served) on business or technology advisory boards at University of Texas; Texas A&M University; Miami University; Northwestern University; St. Edwards University; and, on the Strategic Technology Advisory Board to the Malaysian Government.
Susan was recognized by eWeek in 2007 as among the Top 10 Most Powerful Women in Technology, and by Diversity Journal as among the Women Worth Watching-2006. She was also a spokesperson at the 2006 World Congress on Information Technology.
Before joining Dell, Susan held key executive roles at Ameritech Corporate, Ameritech Service as well as at Ohio Bell. She is a graduate of Miami University in Oxford, Ohio.
Patrick McGee
Managing Partner at MPK Private Equity
Patrick co-founded MPK and serves as Managing Partner and member of the investment committee. Prior to MPK, Mr. McGee was a co-founder, Partner, and member of the investment committee at Brazos Private Equity Partners, a $1.4 billion private equity firm.
His board and investment experience includes Cheddar's Restaurants, Comark Building Systems, EnergyNet, Ennis-Flint, Healthcare Solutions, Impact Confections, ORS Nasco, Rennhack Marketing Services, Republic Insurance Company, Sola Salon Studios, Strategic Equipment & Supply Corporation, Walls Industries, and Winebow.
Prior to co-founding Brazos, Mr. McGee was a senior investment professional at Hicks, Muse, Tate & Furst, a private equity firm. He began his career as an investment banker with Merrill Lynch & Co.
He serves on the boards of the Dallas Museum of Art and the St. Mark's School of Texas, where he is also a member of the Investment Committee.
Mr. McGee received a Bachelor of Science degree from Vanderbilt University, with a double major in Engineering Science and Economics and a minor in Business Administration.
Ro Parra
Former General Manager of Dell Americas
Ro Parra founded Daylight Partners after he retired from a 14 year career at Dell, Inc. For the majority of his last 7 years at Dell, he was SVP and General Manager of Dell Americas. As the GM of Dell Americas, Ro was responsible for all of Dell’s operations in The Americas region including Marketing, Sales, Manufacturing, and Services. Prior to his promotion to Dell’s Executive Committee in the year 2000, Ro had several General management roles including Dell Home and Small Business, Dell Public Sector and Dell Corporate Sales.
Ro came to Dell after after spending four years with GRiD Systems Corporation, a producer of ruggedized and pen-based computers. At GRiD, Ro was the Vice president and General Manager of the Federal Division based in Washington DC and later of the PC Strategic Business unit based in Fort Worth, Texas. Prior to GRiD, Ro spent 12 years with Radio Shack where he served in a number of retail operating roles including store manager, district manager and regional Director. In his last role at Radio Shack, he oversaw all retail operations for Radio Shack Computer Centers in the North Central Region.
Rocky Mountain
Former VP of Dell Technologies US Consumer Business
Rocky Mountain worked at Dell for 14 years in a variety of executive roles, focused on sales, marketing and general management. His last role at the company was Vice President and General Manager of Dell’s US Consumer Business, where he had P&L responsibility for the $10 billion business unit. Prior to that, Rocky was Vice President and General Manager of Dell’s Americas Transactional Group, a combination of diverse businesses which included the Ink and Toner Division, Extended Warranty Group, the Spare Parts Business and Dell’s Employee Purchase Program. Rocky also held executive positions with Dell’s Online group and Federal Business Unit.
Prior to coming to Dell, Rocky worked in several start ups and was a Principle in The Galt Group, a marketing and advertising firm specializing in work with medium size entities and small homebuilders. Rocky also had a prior career in the political arena working in both the State Legislature as well as the U.S. House of Representatives.
Rocky attended the University of Texas at Austin and graduated with a degree in Business Administration from the State University of New York, Albany. He serves on the Board of Directors for FGA Media, Inc., one of Daylight’s portfolio companies and also sits on the Board of Frontier Renewal, LLC.
Scott Helbing
Former Chief Marketing Officer at AT&T
Scott is President of Scott Helbing, Inc., an Entertainment and Marketing Consulting firm in Dallas, TX that he started in 2008. Prior to his current business, Helbing spent 5 years at AT&T where he was a Senior Officer and Executive Vice President of the company. From 2006 until 2008 he launched the Entertainment division at AT&T and was responsible for acquiring and monetizing all content across the television, Internet and wireless devices. From 2003-2006 he served as Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer of the AT&T Consumer Business, a $40 Billion business. He was responsible for all strategies, products, product pricing, marketing, all sales channels, including the Internet, which generated over $6 Billion in annual revenue.
Prior to joining AT&T, Helbing worked at Dell for over 5 years where he was the officer responsible for the Dell brand. In that role, he had strategic oversight for the brand as well as brand oversight for all media channels, including the web, where Dell generated significant consumer and business division sales. A major accomplishment under his watch was a complete re-design of the Dell website.
Helbing has held officer level positions for other global businesses; 3 years at YUM restaurants, 2.5 years at Reebok, 9 years in publishing at Whittle Communications and 9 years with national advertising agencies in Chicago and Dallas.
Helbing has served on numerous boards during his professional career. Those include; Media Rights Capital, a leading media/ entertainment company headquartered in Los Angeles; Radar, a magazine/internet media company in Chicago; The Alamo Bowl, IOCOM, a software development company in Chicago, The Dallas International Film Festival, the Touch Research Institute at the University of Miami and the Marketing Board of the McCombs Business School at the University of Texas.
Jim Armstrong
Co-Founder of March Capital
A successful and experienced early stage venture investor across a variety of enterprise and consumer facing technology companies, Jim has established himself as a leading investor based in Southern California.
Jim has applied his experience and industry contacts to help companies deliver a strong record of venture performance. Jim invests nationwide and focuses on information technology investments, with particular interest in consumer Internet, application software, and Internet-enabled market places. On several occasions, Forbes Magazine has recognized Jim on its “Midas List” as one of the top Venture Capitalists in the United States.
Jim co-founded March Capital in 2014 and has been at Clearstone Venture Partners since 1998. Jim worked with Idealab, the incubator, in the late 90’s and started his career at Austin Ventures in 1995.
Jim led Clearstone’s active investments in SupplyFrame, Vast, and UserTesting, and he is on the board of two incubators – The Hive (big data) and The Fabric (cloud networking). Jim actively represented Clearstone’s early stage, “pre-revenue,” investments in former portfolio companies PayPal (acquired by eBay as a public company), United Online (NASDAQ: UNTD), Internet Brands (NASDAQ: INET before being taken private), Integrien (acquired by VMWare), Jump Networks (acquired by Microsoft), Comet Systems (acquired by Miva), TriVida (acquired by BeFree) and Composite Software (acquired by Cisco).
Jim holds an M.B.A. from the McCombs School from the University of Texas at Austin and a B.A. in Economics from the University of California, Los Angeles.
Mike Clifford
Former CIO of Whole Foods
Mike is an experienced senior-level Executive at several high-growth companies. In August, 2018 Mike joined University Federal Credit Union (UFCU) as their VP - Information Technology/Chief Information Officer. This marks a return to an Executive Leadership role after several years as a private Investor, Advisor and Consultant.
Mike spent 12 great years as the CIO at Whole Foods Market, starting there in September of 2000. I stepped out of that role in September of 2012.
Mike is an active participant with the Social Venture Partner group in Austin where he advises non-profits in their pursuit of income-generating products and activities.
Mike is a large and small company growth expert, and am called to advise investors and CEO's on how to better market their products, and organize for expansion.
Mike wants to contribute to the development of teams and individuals in meaningful endeavors. I'm in Pay-It-Forward mode and feels rewarded through the success of others.
David Osborn
Managing Partner of Align Capital
David is the principal owner in the 6th largest real estate company in the US with 4,500+ agents responsible for over 19,000 transaction sides and $10 billion in sales in 2017.
He is an operating principal and/or investor in five Keller Williams Regions and nine Market Centers, owns 20+ real estate related ventures, principle of a REI private equity group, and the operator of over 35 profitable real estate related businesses in the US and Canada.
Firmly rooted to the principal of knowledge sharing and giving back, David is a member of the Keller Williams Master Faculty and regularly teaches as a keynote speaker. He is a co-founder of GoBundance, an accountability-based group of entrepreneurs, and sits on the board of the 1Life Fully Lived non-profit, a member of YPO/WPO Austin and TIGER 21, and contributes to various causes from fighting cancer to building clean water wells through Charity Water.
David is the proud father of two beloved daughters, a son and is married to the wonderful and talented Traci Osborn.
Terry Klein
Former VP of the Advanced Systems Group at Dell
Terry Klein spent 13 years at Dell as the Vice President of the Advanced Systems Group, the technical sales organization responsible for the company’s server and storage product lines.
The Advanced Systems Group launched the PowerEdge Server products in August 1996, and by 2002 Dell became the marketshare leader for x86 Servers in the Americas, a position that it continues to hold.
The ASG team was responsible for the midrange storage partnership with EMC formed in 2001, and two companies became the largest provider of midrange storage in the industry. The ASG team was also responsible for the integration of the technical sales resources of EqualLogic, the leading iSCSI storage provider, which Dell acquired in 2008.
Praveen Mandal
Founder of Chargepoint, MIT Fellow
Praveen Mandal is a veteran of 6 successful formative stage start-ups and a seasoned technology executive whose teams have developed industry recognized, market leading technologies and solutions in telecom, clean-tech and high performance compute industries. Companies and organizations founded are Pipal Systems (served as CEO, acquired by Riverstone Networks), ChargePoint (served as President), the Emerging Technologies Group at SGI (served as SVP & GM) and 2Know Services (serving as Chairman). Furthermore, has held senior executive positions at Riverstone Networks (VP of R&D), Lucent Technologies (VP of R&D for Carrier Ethernet Solutions) and aforementioned SGI (SVP of R&D and GM of Emerging Technologies Group).
Praveen’s go-forward focus is on applying AI technologies to transform industries while fueling passionate and inspirational entrepreneurs with highly impactful ideas.
In addition to his role as a MIT Connection Science Fellow, Mr. Mandal currently serves on the Advisory Board of Illinois Institute of Technology’s Electrical and Computer Engineering Department and also serves on the Board of Directors at various hard technology startups in Boston and Silicon Valley. He is co-inventor on 10 awarded patents and holds a BSCE from Santa Clara University.
Peter Wooster
Former Head of Sales at Salesforce
Peter Wooster has over 25 years of experience in technology sales and sales leadership. Peter built the first SaaS sales team during his time at Salesforce as the founding member and leader of the sales organization and the 15th employee overall. Peter went on to manage sales at Angel Points and more recently served as Chief Revenue Officer and Executive Vice President of Sales for Marin Software, part of the team that took the company public.