Celestine Johnson

Celestine leads the team dedicated to helping portfolio founders and entrepreneurs support each other and remain engaged with the larger community. Through creative programming, Innovation Endeavors connects entrepreneurs to mentors and advisors in the tech community, and provides opportunities for them to tackle challenges that impact the world. Celestine has created initiatives like Super Happy Block Party and National Day of Civic Hacking for magic to happen and companies to grow. She is an Innovation Advisor to British Airways.

Before Innovation Endeavors, Celestine worked at Apple. She helped develop and scale the environmental, human rights and education program in the supply chain. Celestine has walked from France across Spain and lived in a monastery. She is involved in helping people with special needs start their own businesses. The palates and convening potential of piñatas are an inspiration for Celestine.

Doron Alter

Doron joined Innovation Endeavors in 2011 to focus on discovering and supporting brilliant entrepreneurs in Israel.

Doron is an entrepreneur with a corporate background. He founded and managed various software ventures in the fields of Mobile Payments and Mobile Games. Earlier in his career, in the corporate realm, Doron worked with Microsoft Technology Center and Palm Inc., in roles ranging from software engineering to product management. He served in the elite technology unit of the Israel National Security Agency.

Doron holds an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business and a BA in economics and management from Tel-Aviv University.

Dror Berman

As the founding Managing Partner of Innovation Endeavors, Dror invests in the raw talent behind a dream. He loves working with entrepreneurs who explore uncharted territory on their path to creating game-changing ventures.

Throughout his career, Dror has been passionate about using technology to personalize people’s experiences in the world. Prior to joining Innovation Endeavors, Dror worked on global search strategy with Yahoo, spearheaded an R&D team at NICE Systems, and led business development for an Israeli CE retailer. He also spent three years in an elite unit at the Israeli Defense Forces.

Dror has an MBA from the Stanford GSB, and graduated cum laude in Computer Science and Bioinformatics from Ben Gurion University in Israel. Dror lives with his wife Diti in Palo Alto and travels frequently to Israel.

Eric Schmidt

Since joining Google in 2001, Eric Schmidt has helped grow the company from a Silicon Valley startup to a global leader in technology. As executive chairman, he is responsible for the external matters of Google: building partnerships and broader business relationships, government outreach and technology thought leadership, as well as advising the CEO and senior leadership on business and policy issues.

From 2001-2011, Eric served as Google’s chief executive officer, overseeing the company’s technical and business strategy alongside founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page. Under his leadership, Google dramatically scaled its infrastructure and diversified its product offerings while maintaining a strong culture of innovation.

Prior to joining Google, Eric was the chairman and CEO of Novell and chief technology officer at Sun Microsystems, Inc. Previously, he served on the research staff at Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), Bell Laboratories and Zilog. He holds a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from Princeton University as well as a master’s degree and Ph.D. in computer science from the University of California, Berkeley.

Eric is a member of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology and the Prime Minister’s Advisory Council in the U.K. He was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2006 and inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences as a fellow in 2007. He also chairs the board of the New America Foundation, and since 2008 has been a trustee of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey.

Vanessa Schneider

Vanessa is part of the team that works with the Innovation Endeavors community to create opportunities for entrepreneurs to connect with one another to share ideas, problem-solve, and inspire one another. She leads a working group that helps entrepreneurs develop their brand, position their company, and connect with journalists. In addition, she devotes her time to creating events and campaigns that illustrate the unique way that Innovation Endeavors supports its portfolio companies and larger, creative community-building.

Yuval Shahar

Yuval is an entrepreneur and investor, currently involved as a co-founder, Chairman or Board member in a variety of companies (including Qwilt, Taykey, Compass-EOS, Panoramic Power, Tufin etc.). Until 2009 Yuval served as a GM at Cisco running one of the BU’s in Cisco’s Service Provider group. Prior to Cisco Yuval co-founded P-Cube and served as its President and CEO, providing both leadership and vision up to its acquisition by Cisco in 2004. Prior to P-Cube, Yuval co-founded Pentacom, a pioneer in Dynamic Packet Transport (DPT) products, as well as previously leading the creation of Infogear, which developed some of the industry’s first web appliances (both companies were acquired by Cisco). Previously, Yuval served as Vice President of Research and Development at VocalTec, overseeing the and creation and development of the first set of VoIP architectures and products (VocalTec went public on NASDAQ 1996). Yuval started his career at Motorola and National Semiconductors in a variety of technology and software development and management roles.

Scott Brady

Scott has been a founder of three publicly traded companies in the software and telecommunications industries. Scott was most recently the Chairman and CEO of FiberTower Corporation (FTWR). He co-founded the company in 2000 and led the company through its successful merger with First Avenue Networks in 2006, which valued the company at over $750mm. FiberTower is the leading independent provider of cell tower backhaul to major wireless carriers and holds the most comprehensive collection of fixed-wireless spectrum assets in the US. Prior to FiberTower, Scott was cofounder and CTO of Clarus Corporation (CLRS), a provider of business to business procurement and settlement software solutions. Before that, Scott was cofounder and CTO of SQL Financials (SQLF), a provider of enterprise financial and human resource software applications. Scott started his career at Andersen Consulting (Accenture). Scott received a MS in Management as a Sloan Fellow from the Stanford Business School and a BS in Business Administration from the University of Florida. He currently serves as Chairman of the Sloan Advisory Board for the Stanford Business School and is a frequent guest lecturer on Entrepreneurship and High Performance Leadership.

Harpi Madan

Harpi has been an entrepreneur in the internet and wireless space. He is currently the co-founder and VP of Product & Marketing for Project Slice. Previously he was the co-founder and Sr. VP Marketing at FiberTower, a leading independent provider of backhaul to wireless carriers. He also held software development roles building internet infrastructure and transaction processing software at Oracle and Bull-Honeywell.

He holds an MBA from Stanford University, an MS in Computer Science from Indiana University and a BS in Computer Science from Institute of Technology, BHU, India.

Raymond Nasr

Raymond Nasr is the former Director of Executive Communications at Google Inc. He held this role from 2001 to early 2005 and was responsible for several aspects of the public communications for the senior management of the company, including Google’s CEO, Eric Schmidt as well as Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin. Prior to Google, Nasr was Director of Corporate Relations at Novell Inc, where he led the company’s corporate and government relations efforts. Before Novell, Nasr held various positions in the areas of public relations and corporate speech-writing at Apple Computer Inc, and at Sun Microsystems Inc.

Since 2004, he has served as a Special Faculty Advisor at the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University helping to improve MBA’s communications skills and is a Visiting Fellow at the Said School of Business at Oxford University. Currently, Nasr maintains a communications consultancy where he advises a number of start-up companies and venture capital firms, including Twitter, Inc., Pandora Media, and Sierra Ventures. He is also a past President of the Churchill Club, a Silicon Valley-based business and technology forum. Nasr received his BA in Communication Studies from UCLA (1984), and his Law Degree with Honors from Pembroke College, Cambridge (1986).

In June of 2007, Nasr became a Certified Sommelier through the London-based Court of Master Sommeliers. And in January 2009 he was appointed Director of Wine Programs in the Wine Division of Silicon Valley Bank. He is an advisor of Quixey, Identified, Video Genie and The Obvious Corporation.

Ron Hose

Ron was a Founding Partner at Innovation Endeavors, an early stage venture capital fund. Prior to IE, Ron was the Co-Founder and CTO of TokBox, a consumer video conferencing company serving millions of video minutes daily to customers connecting from around the globe. TokBox is backed by Sequoia Capital, Bain Capital, Stanford University and some of Silicon Valleys best known angel investors. Ron Holds a Bachelors and Masters degree from Cornell University, where he graduated at the top of his class. While at Cornell, Ron was one of the founding members of the autonomous flight team, which received funding from Microsoft and Cornell. Ron is an active investor and adviser to several Silicon Valley start-ups.

Jim Ellis

Mr. Ellis is a Lecturer in Management at the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University. Prior to coming to Stanford, Mr. Ellis held a number of positions with both large and small companies. In 1995, Mr. Ellis cofounded Asurion with Kevin Taweel to provide value-added solutions for the wireless communications industry. Previously responsible for Asurion’s sales and marketing efforts, Mr. Ellis is an active member of the company’s board of directors. Mr. Ellis has also held positions as a research associate at the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University and as a consultant with IMG and Cresap, McCormick, and Paget. He is a member of a number of Boards of Directors including BUILD, Asurion, Service Source Inc., Memento Press, Half Moon Bay Brewing Company, and Southern California Risk Management Associates. Mr. Ellis holds an MBA from Stanford University and a bachelor’s degree with high honors in economics from Dartmouth College. He is also a recipient of Ernst and Young’s prestigious Entrepreneur of the Year award.

Maurice Werdegar

Maurice is President and CEO of Western Technology Investment (WTI), a leading venture debt firm and an early investor in Facebook.  His background includes positions as a Venture Partner at Outlook Ventures, and Chief Investment Officer at MetaMarkets, an online mutual fund company.  Previously he founded and served as CEO of Left at Albuquerque, a venture-backed chain of restaurants. Prior to business school, he worked in corporate finance at Robertson Stephens and was a research analyst at the Brookings Institution in Washington DC.  He is also an active angel investor in companies including EventBrite, Flixster, GroupMe, Minted, RootMusic, Path, HeyZap, Edmodo, Supyo, RethinkDB, Catch and StarMaker, as well as an LP of several early stage venture funds.  Maurice holds both a BA and MBA from Stanford University.