Alexandra Johnson

Alexandra Johnson is Managing Director of DFJ-VTB Aurora. She is based in Silicon Valley and focuses on early-stage communications, media, and technology companies headquartered in Russia and the CIS. Prior to joining DFJ-VTB Aurora, Alexandra was Founder and Managing Director of Landbridge Capital, an investment firm targeting US-based companies commercializing Russian technology. 

Prior to forming Landbridge Capital, Alexandra was CEO of Libritas, a venture-backed provider of IT products and managed telecom services for small, medium, and Fortune 500 companies. Libritas was acquired by Next Web, a California-based ISP. Previously, Alexandra spent two years as Vice President of Eastern Europe Operations for a Washington, DC-based private placement firm. She has also led teams at several privately held companies focusing on strategic investments in the oil and cargo transportation industries.  

Alexandra, who was born in Vladivostok, Russia, holds an MBA from the University of California at Berkeley and a doctorate in philology from St. Petersburg State University in Russia.

Oleg Kaganovich

Oleg Kaganovich is a Venture Partner with DFJ Frontier. Most recently, he was CEO of the Sacramento Regional Technology Alliance (SARTA), where he helped startup entrepreneurs advance their businesses. Previously, Oleg was Senior Associate at Sun Microsystems’ venture group, where he had responsibilities for deal sourcing, due diligence and deal negotiation. His investments included Entercept Security Technologies (sold to Network Associates), ProactiveNet (sold to BMC Software), and Agea (sold to Avalon Digital Marketing Systems). Before Sun, Oleg was an associate at Black Emerald Capital, a Wall Street merchant bank and M&A boutique.

Oleg is a professional jazz saxophonist. He serves on the boards of SARTA, the Sacramento Metro Chamber, and the Sacramento Ballet.

Oleg holds an MBA from Columbia Business School and a BS in International Business from Aquinas College.

Basang Malunov

Basang Malunov is a founder of LTEportal Broadband Solutions, Inc., a web universe that brings together telecommunication industry professionals who work on advancing next generation mobile broadband. Previously, Basang worked at Ernst & Young Advisory Services in New York City and San Francisco, where he consulted to top software and technology companies, including Microsoft, PeopleSoft, and Yahoo!. In 2009, he participated in Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year program. Before Ernst & Young, Basang was an Assistant Controller at Egar Technology in New York City.

Basang holds an MBA from the Lumpkin School of Business at Eastern Illinois University and holds a Certified Fraud Examiner designation.

Piotr Moncarz

Piotr Moncarz is Corporate Vice President and Principal Engineer at Exponent, a Silicon Valley science and technology public corporation. Piotr’s work focuses on the energy sector, including power plant development projects and operational risk management in the oil and gas industry. He leads Exponent’s Energy Initiative Program with an emphasis on oil, natural gas, liquefied natural gas, and renewable resources. Piotr has conducted energy policy studies relating to natural gas in several Central Asian countries and Bangladesh.

Piotr serves as a consulting professor in the Civil Engineering Department of Stanford University. He is also Chairman of the US-Polish Trade Council of Silicon Valley and serves on the Board of Directors of the San Francisco Global Trade Council. Piotr serves on the National Center for Research and Development of Poland by appointment of the Polish Government. He is a foreign member of the Polish Academy of Science and of the Russian Academy of Technological Science.

Piotr holds a PhD in structural engineering from Stanford University, an MS in civil engineering from the University of Colorado, and a degree from the Bridge and Road Construction Vocational School in Poland.

Michael Nicklas

Michael Nicklas is Founder and Managing Director of SocialSmart Ventures, a fund with offices in New York City and São Paulo that invests in early-stage Brazilian and other Latin American startups in the areas of open source software, e?commerce, mobile, and social networking technologies. The fund seeks opportunities that can succeed in the Brazilian marketplace as a step towards global adoption. SocialSmart also maintains www.startupi.com.br, the premier source for Brazilian internet startup intelligence.

Michael has worked for over fifteen years in New York’s Silicon Alley as a technologist, entrepreneur, and angel investor. He has helped companies such as Disney, IBM, Nielsen, and Viacom develop and deploy strategic technology initiatives and was previously Chief Technology Officer of Univision’s online division.

Michael holds a BA in international relations from American University’s School of International Service and was a Fulbright Fellow at the University of Coimbra in Portugal.

Elizabeth Quade

Elizabeth was most recently an associate at Tano Capital, LLC, a firm specializing in investments in companies based in India and China. The firm also invests in global hard assets.

Fluent in Mandarin Chinese, Elizabeth is an alumna of the Beijing based Inter-University Program (formerly the Stanford Center), an advanced Chinese language program run by a consortium of American universities and Tsinghua University for academics and professionals working in China. She has published on Chinese macroeconomic policy in the Journal of Contemporary China.

Elizabeth holds an MSc from the School of Oriental & African Studies, University of London, and a BS from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Alexei Sitnikov

Alexei Sitnikov is Deputy Rector of the New Economic School (NES) in Moscow. Before joining NES in 2005, Alexei was as Program Coordinator for the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University, where he ran the Initiative on Distance Learning in Russia.

Alexei received a diploma in history from Yaroslavl Demidov State University (Russia) in 1995, an MA in political science and transition economics from Central European University in 1996, and an MA in political science from Stanford University in 1997, where he studied on a New Democracy Fellowship.

Christopher B. Stone

Christopher Stone is Executive Director of the Global Technology Symposium and is general counsel to Generation Group, a family office with a significant venture investing business in the former Soviet Union and Western Europe. Previously, Chris served as policy advisor to US Senator Jeff Bingaman (D NM) in the areas of international trade, foreign affairs, and intellectual property. Before that, Chris practiced securities law at Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton in London, where he advised on international debt and equity offerings by Russian companies such as Rosneft, Amtel Vredestein, and MegaFon, and at Sullivan & Cromwell in Silicon Valley, where he advised on venture financings, M&A transactions, and SEC-registered offerings in the ICT and biotechnology sectors. Before law school, Chris was an analyst at Ironwood Holdings, a Western-run boutique investment advisory firm in Moscow, where he specialized in the oil and gas and pulp and paper sectors.

Chris is a member of the California and District of Columbia bars (the latter inactive) and has passed Level I of the Chartered Financial Analyst examination. He is also a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a member of the Pacific Council on International Policy. He has published in the Columbia Journal of East European Law, the George Washington International Law Review, and the Moscow Times. He speaks Russian, Spanish, and Arabic.

Ilya Vinogradsky

Ilya Vinogradsky is Founder and CTO of SysIQ, a San Francisco-based provider of e-commerce services for the retail and mail order industries, where he manages the company’s infrastructure and client implementation processes. Before co-founding SysIQ, Ilya served as Senior Software Engineer at Kana Communications and held senior positions at Net Dialog and Intuit Corporation. He speaks Russian.

Ilya holds a BS in computer science and engineering from the University of California at Davis and an MS in computer science from Stanford University.

Don Williams

Don Williams is a Shanghai-based partner at Sheppard Mullin, where he practices corporate and securities law. Previously, he was a partner at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati.

Don has represented private and public companies including Alchip, Autodesk, BCD, Bridge Pharmaceuticals, EPIN, Google, Polycom, and Sigma Designs. He also represents investment banks, including Credit Suisse First Boston, JMP Securities, Morgan Stanley, and UBS, in connection with public offerings, and as venture funds including KPCB China, Sequoia, Granite Global, SBCVC, IDG, IFC, CID, JAFCO, and Advanced Technology Ventures, in connection with portfolio investments.

Don also has represented both buyers and sellers in many of M&A transactions, including Autodesk in its acquisition of Discreet Logic, Buzzsaw, and other companies; Caretta Integrated Circuits in its acquisition by Cirrus Logic; Equator in its acquisition by Pixelworks; Focus Media in its acquisition of CGEN; Google in various transactions in China; PeoplePC in its acquisition by Earthlink; Polycom in its acquisition of PictureTel and other companies; Xicor in its acquisition by Intersil; and Zeevo in its acquisition by Broadcom. He is a member of the California bar.

Don holds a BA from Stanford University and a J.D. cum laude from Harvard Law School.

2010 Global Technology Symposium Consultants:

Brian Danella

Brian is a co-founder of Prequent, a strategic communications company. Prior to co-founding Prequent, Brian was vice president and general counsel of Nuance Communications, a publicly-traded software company, before which he was an intellectual property and technology licensing lawyer at Wilson Sonsini in Palo Alto and at Weil Gotshal in New York.

Brian is also a Venture Partner at DFJ Frontier, an early-stage venture capital firm, and a guest lecturer on public relations at the University of California, Davis, Graduate School of Management. He is a board observer at Dragnet Solutions, Inc., a provider of fraud prevention and identity management solutions for banking and retail.

Brian holds an AB in computer science from Princeton University and a JD magna cum laude, with a concentration in Law, Technology, and Management, from Syracuse University.

Jeni Franco

Jeni is a partner of, and Event Director at, ROAR Design and Events. She is a Certified Meeting Professional (CMP) who leads major conferences, meetings, and events from their initial planning phase through to a successful conclusion. She has produced domestic and international events, including executive-level corporate conferences, annual meetings, investment conferences, tradeshows, sales meetings, and special events. In addition to working on the Global Technology Symposium since 2006, her clients include Dow Jones/the Wall Street Journal, Security Innovations Network, August Capital, DeCarta, and Friends of the Napa River. Jeni is a director of Solano Napa Habitat for Humanity and is Executive Producer of the Think Green Music Festival, an event that focuses on environmental awareness and sustainability. 

Jeni holds a BA from the California State University, Chico.

Van McCormick

Van McCormick is Master of Ceremonies at the Global Technology Symposium.

Van is Director of the International Economic Alliance (IEA).  Before joining IEA, he was Director of Investment Symposia and Harvard-Kommersant Program Lecturer, both at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. Prior to his work at the Belfer center, Van was Principal Lecturer at the Technology and Entrepreneurship Center at Harvard (TECH).

Before Harvard, Mr. McCormick was involved in various start-up, turnaround, and private equity ventures, including Qeyton Systems, which was acquired by Cisco, First Data, and US Digital. He started his career at Hubbard Broadcasting and led new media development for KOB-TV, an NBC affiliate. He also ran Cityline and assisted with the launch of, and programming for, USSB, which subsequently merged into DirecTV. Van also served on the Bush-Quayle Presidential Council and the US Department of Commerce committee on high technology. 

Van holds an AMP from Harvard Business School and a BA from the University of New Mexico.

2010 Global Technology Symposium Interns:

Ravshan Abzalov

Ravshan is a third-year undergraduate student at Stanford University majoring in economics and minoring in mathematics. He recently completed a six-month internship in the Private Wealth Management Division of Goldman Sachs & Co. Before transferring to Stanford, Ravshan studied at Drexel University and at Westminster International University in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. At Drexel, he received the John McKenna Memorial Award from the LeBow College of Business and an award for having the highest cumulative average in business administration. At Westminster International University, he received a Top Student Award. Ravshan is a member of Alpha Kappa Psi professional business fraternity the National Society of Collegiate Scholars. He also serves as a director of the Uzbek Initiative Group.

Samir Nabiev

Samir Nabiev is a third-year undergraduate at the University of San Francisco majoring in international business. Before coming to the University of San Francisco, Samir studied at the State University of New York and at Westminster International University in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, where he earned his A-level and was ranked among the top five students. He has also engaged in significant charitable work for orphanages in Uzbekistan.

Ernar Sagatov

Ernar Sagatov is a fourth-year undergraduate at Stanford University majoring in energy resources engineering. Before coming to Stanford, Ernar graduated with honors from the Kazakh-Turkish High School in Oskemen, Kazakhstan. Ernar was born in Almaty, the largest city in Kazakhstan, but was brought up in a village. Because of the gap in wealth between rural and urban areas that he witnessed as a child, Ernar is now interested in developing an economic model whereby Kazakhstan and other post-Soviet republics can distribute energy sector revenues to reduce the gap in wealth between rural and urban areas.

Phil Semenov

Phil has been volunteering at the Global Technology Symposium since 2009.  He brings years of experience in communications, marketing, and international development and has worked on programs of USAID and European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. Fluent in Russian and Mandarin, Phil holds an MA in communications from Eastern Illinois University.