Advisory Board

Mark Veverka is West Coast Editor and a columnist at Barron's, where he writes the weekly "Plugged In" column on technology. He joined the Dow Jones financial magazine in June 1999. He occasionally appears on CNBC and is based in San Francisco.

Before joining Barron's, Mark was a financial markets columnist for The San Francisco Chronicle. Prior to joining the Chronicle, he was a staff writer for The Wall Street Journal.

Earlier in his career, Veverka served as an associate editor at Crain's Chicago Business and was a business reporter for the Orange Country Register in Southern California. He also was a regular contributor to WBEZ-FM and WMAQ-TV while in Chicago.

Mark holds a bachelors degree in journalism from the University of Oklahoma and a masters degree from Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism. In 1992, he was an Arthur F. Burns Fellow, reporting from Europe on German unification and international economics. He just completed the Fulbright Commission alumni program on Turkey's bid to join the European Union.

Yann is currently responsible for Cisco’s corporate business development activities in Europe, Middle East, Africa and Latin America. The role of his team is to drive revenue growth and strategic value for Cisco in the region through venture capital investments, M&A, partnerships and corporate strategy.

He has 15 years of experience in the high tech industry across a variety of positions. Prior to Cisco, Yann was a Principal at BV Capital, an early stage venture fund in San Francisco focused on digital media and wireless communications.  At Sonim, a wireless VOIP start-up in the Silicon Valley, he was head of European sales and marketing.  Prior to Sonim, Yann spent 2.5 years as a consultant with Bain & Company in San Francisco on various high-tech and private equity projects. He also worked with Agilent Technologies in Hong Kong, managing a wireless product line across Asia Pacific and with Alcatel in Cairo, managing wireline Telecom infrastructure deployments around Egypt. 

Yann holds a MSEE from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich and an MBA from Harvard Business School. 

Manish Madhvani co-founded GP Bullhound after a career with Barclays Capital’s Technology & Media Private Equity Team, where he was based both in Asia and Europe. At the age of 28 Mr. Madhvani was elected “Young Business Person of the Year 2003” at the KPMG/The Evening Standard Awards.

GP Bullhound has quickly become Europe’s leading Investment Bank in Technology and Digital Media. Mr. Madhvani has an outstanding track record in successfully completing M&A and capital raising transactions involving high profile technology and digital media companies: BSkyB, Sony, The Telegraph, Hearst Corporation, Handbag, Concentrix, Flirtomatic, Greetz, eCommera, Aura Sports, Fjord and many others. His firm has successfully completed over 90 transactions in recent years.

Manish is specialized in Digital Media and E-commerce and also possesses extensive knowledge of all the various business models for online advertising. He is a frequently requested commentator at the BBC, CNN and Digital Hollywood as well as a solicited speaker at industry events. Furthermore Mr. Madhvani is the Chairman of Investor Allstars (www.investorallstars.co.uk), the “Oscars” for Europe’s venture capital community, and Media Momentum (www.mediamomentum.co.uk), Europe’s leading community for its fastest growing digital media companies. He is a Board Member of GP Bullhound and Paris based Private Outlet, a private members club, selling luxury fashion brands online in 5 countries.

Manish holds a LLB in Law and MA in Marketing from Southampton University.

Francois Mazoudier is the UK Partner for LD&A (http://www.ldaglobal.com), a pan-European investment bank focused on high growth TMT, CleanTech and Renewable Energy.

LD&A was ranked the No1 M&A firm for small cap (under €100m transactions) in France in 2009 by Capital Finance magazine. The firm was established in 2004, employs 16 staff members and a network of venture partners. It has offices in Paris, London and Brussels, and is operational across Europe, Scandinavia and the West Coast of the US via a partner.

In 2009 LD&A successfully closed 12 transactions (3 acquisitions, 5 divestitures including 2 leverage buy-outs and 4 private equity placements), serving clients from France, the UK, the Nordics, Benelux and Germany and sold companies to Swiss, Scandinavian, French, American and one Japanese firm.  Its sector expertise spans the Mobility, Software, Internet (ecommerce) and Internet Media sectors.

Prior to joining LD&A, Francois spent 20 years in Executive management roles, building several high growth TMT companies to several successful exits. Companies include Central Point Software (sold to Symantec NASDAQ: SYMC), PictureTel, Inc (acquired by Polycom, NASDAQ: PLCM), Firefox, The Cloud Networks (WiFi) and RealNetworks (from startup to IPO, NASDAQ: RNWK).

Francois was also the co-founder of Speed Ventures AB, the early stage VC firm backed by Soros Partners and Permira.

Francois graduated in Marketing from the University of Paris, France. He lives in London with his wife and child.