Executive Advisors
Mark A. Floyd served as President and Chief Executive Officer of Entrisphere, Inc., a telecom equipment company, until February of 2007 when Entrisphere was acquired by Ericsson. Prior to that, Mr. Floyd served as President and CEO of Siemens ICN US, Inc. and President and CEO of Efficient Networks, Inc., telecommunication equipment companies. He is also a director of publicly held companies Tekelec, Inc., Riverbed Technologies, Inc., and Carrier Access Corporation, and a director of Ripcode, a privately held company in Dallas, Texas.
Mr. Floyd was the recipient of the 2001 Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year award, El Dorado Ventures Entrepreneur of the Year award for 1999, and one of Network World’s Top 50 Most Powerful Executives in 2001. He has also served as an advisor to Azure Capital and Crosspoint Venture Partners, and is currently a venture partner at el Dorado Ventures. Mr. Floyd has been featured in Forbes Magazine and has been a speaker at many industry and financial conferences. Mr. Floyd holds a B.B.A. degree in Finance from the University of Texas.
Dennis Harris completed his 37½ year telecommunications career as President – Network Services, SBC/AT&T Midwest - a company that provides voice, data, custom calling functionality, and long distance services to over 10 million customers. He managed a network operations workforce of over 30,000.Mr. Harris and his organization executed some of the most ambitious multivariable testing (MVT) efforts in history. He is featured in a recently released book, “Breakthrough Business Results with MVT” by Charles Holland, for the success in just four months of cutting installation and repair backlog in half and dramatically improving custom response time.
Prior to his SBC/AT&T Midwest assignment, Mr. Harris was Senior Vice President – Human Resources responsible for employee benefits for all of SBC/AT&T. He also has extensive experience in labor relations and chaired the 1986 bargaining team for AT&T. He currently is on the Board of London Medical Management, and The R.J. Carroll Company. He is on the Advisory Board of TelaDoc Medical Services, The Westell Company, Echo 911, Treatment On Line, and The Northridge Group.
Mr. Harris received his BA in Liberal Arts from Texas A&M University – Commerce, Texas. He also completed executive programs at Babson College and Fuqua School of Business at Duke University. He served eight years in the Texas National Guard and was honorably discharged as a Captain.
George Kelly recently retired from Morgan Stanley where he was Managing Director and Senior Securities Analyst in Equity Research. After graduating from Newark College of Engineering, he began his career at IBM as a Systems Engineer. After 14 years at IBM he joined AT&T where he was a Division Manager in that company's Product Marketing group. From there he became a Senior Securities Analyst at A. G. Becker Paribas for two years before joining Morgan Stanley 18 years ago. While at the firm he was actively involved in bringing most of the networking equipment industry's most influential companies public. The list of over thirty IPOs includes Cisco, Lucent, Avaya, Broadcom, Brocade, Ascend, Cascade, Sycamore, SynOptics, Xylan, Extreme, Redback, Akamai, CacheFlow, and AsiaInfo.
George has been highly regarded by the technology investment community and has been rated in the top ranks of the Institutional Investor and Greenwich Research Associates polls.
Fred Nazem, Founder and Managing Partner of Nazem and Company, has been an entrepreneur, venture capitalist and corporate turnaround specialist for more than 30 years. He has started, financed and guided several dozen companies, including six that have become multibillion-dollar enterprises. As an entrepreneur, he created enterprises such as Cirrus Logic, Inc. (CRUS), Genetix Corporation, iQ NetSolutions, Inc., and Aliaswire, Inc. As a venture capitalist he helped to establish companies such as Universal Health Services, Inc. (UHS), Republic Health, Inc. (now Tenet Healthcare Corporation; (THC)) and Apollo Computers (now Hewlett-Packard Company's computer division).
As a corporate architect and turnaround specialist, Mr. Nazem has restructured a number of enterprises over the years. As Chairman of Oxford Health Plans, Inc. (OHP), a $5 billion company he originally financed as the lead venture capitalist, he led a highly successful turnaround in 1997. Prior to founding Nazem and Company, he was the Vice President in Charge of Venture Capital for Irving Trust Company. He also turned around the fortunes of one of America's leading families. Mr. Nazem has a BS in Biochemistry, an MS in Physical Chemistry, an MBA in Finance and has done doctoral work in Nuclear Physics. Mr. Nazem serves on the Boards of Directors of several public and private companies.
H.E. Ghassan I. Shaker is a businessman, banker, industrialist and diplomat. His Excellency Ghassan Ibrahim Shaker figures among the most highly decorated personalities from the Arab world. His professional experience includes personal advisor to His Majesty The Sultan of Oman, Ambassador of Omani Mission at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, Minister of Plenipotentiary – Embassy of the Sultanate of Oman – Court of St. James in the United Kingdom, Goodwill Ambassador at UNESCO in Paris France, and Founder Chairman and Member of the Board of Directors for various companies in Asia and Europe. Holder of the most prestigious national distinctions and orders, educated at Victoria College and at Cambridge Universtiy, His Excellency Ghassan I. Shaker enjoys the respect of political and business leaders the world over. For additional details visit http://www.ghassanshaker.com.
Dr. Massih Tayebi is the Chairman and CEO of BridgeWest LLC, a private equity investment company focused on emerging wireless technologies. Massih is also the Chairman of the Board of Directors for Skyriver Communications. Prior to BridgeWest, Massih was co-founder and Chairman of Wireless Facilities, Inc. (NASDAQ: WFII), a global leader in telecommunications outsourcing. In 2000, Massih, along with his brother Masood, was awarded the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year in San Diego.
Prior to joining WFI, Massih served as Technical Manager for Computer Integrated Management Systems with responsibility for product lifecycle management. Previously, he held a senior faculty position at the University of Paisley in Great Britain. Massih holds an M.S. degree and a Ph.D. from the University of Strathclyde in Great Britain.