 |
| LEVERAGING SUCCESS with PARTNERSHIPS
& ALLIANCES |
|
| Meeting
Sponsors |
Back to
Calendar |
Directions to
the meeting |
|
 |
Building successful partnerships and alliances has always been
an important element in building a successful business. Properly done, they can
shorten the time to profitability, enhance credibility and enable significantly
faster growth. Both investors and potential clients demand that a new venture
can demonstrate the ability to meet their needs.
On Tuesday, April 2,
we will present a panel with significant experience in building such
relationships. They will:
| 1) |
address the process of identifying possible partners, drilling down to the
best one and securing the relationship; |
| 2) |
share experiences regarding what has made their partnerships successful,
what contributed to the downfall of certain relationships and why; and |
| 3) |
discuss how these relationships increase shareholder value. |
|
|
|
|
|
| Panel: |
Ed DeJesus,
Vice President of MSL's Design and NPI Services unit, is a veteran of New
England's technology businesses and high tech wars. As an entrepreneur in the
1970's, Ed owned and operated several of his own retail stores. In the 1980's
Ed managed his extensive real-estate holdings, while studying computer science
at Boston University and U Mass - Lowell. He paralleled all of that while
toiling in the tech industry for 32 years, designing circuit boards, developing
software tools and managing engineering service business units. He began as a
Computer Aided circuit Designer at Raytheon in 1969, which lead to an
illustrious 28-year career with Digital Equipment Corporation. Ed pioneered all
of DEC's CAD tools and as a Principal software engineer, he architected
Digital's first Artificial Intelligence-based design tools. His work is widely
published and presented at MIT, the Artificial Intelligence, and Design
Automation Conferences. He later held senior management positions at DEC and
was Director of EDA at Digital's Network division, until it was acquired by
Cabletron.
In 1998 Ed joined MSL as Vice President to head up their
worldwide engineering services and establish a Design Services business unit.
MSL, with revenues of $1.5 billion, 15 manufacturing sites and 2 design
centers, is the leader in the mid-tier of electronic manufacturing service
providers. Through alliances and acquisitions he has built a major business
unit for MSL, which includes a full-service European design center in Spain,
New England's largest PCB design center in Westford, MA, with a prototype and
low-volume manufacturing site in nearby Lowell, MA. He is presently working on
several acquisitions to expand this model on the west coast. Ed has developed
an extensive network of alliances to help support MSL and co-market the
services of their partners. |
| Top of page |
Tom
Dusenberry, Founder and CEO of Call-It Entertainment, a wireless
entertainment publisher. Call-It Entertainment is the first publisher to focus
on branded content for the wireless market. The company is developing text- and
voice-based games and other entertainment content for the connected mobile
consumer in the U.S., Europe and Japan.
Mr. Dusenberry has overseen
the successful development of games for virtually every platform in his 25+
years in the games industry. Prior to founding Call-It, he was president of
Hasbro Interactive, a subsidiary of Hasbro, Inc. Under Tom's leadership, Hasbro
Interactive quickly emerged as a top-5 PC and video games publisher and helped
cultivate a mass-market for entertainment software with hit titles such as
Monopoly, Frogger and RollerCoaster Tycoon, across a full range of gaming
platforms. Mr. Dusenberry led Hasbro Interactive's acquisition of major game
brands, including Atari, MicroProse and others, and secured the rights to such
licensed properties such as NASCAR, Formula 1, Pac-Man, Wheel of Fortune and
Jeopardy. Turning his attention to online games, Mr. Dusenberry helped develop
the portal Games.com.
As an executive with Milton Bradley and Parker
Brothers, Mr. Dusenberry served in a variety of positions in R&D, content
acquisition, inventor relations and sales and marketing. Mr. Dusenberry is a
former board member of the Interactive Digital Software Association (IDSA) and
Entertainment Software Ratings Board (ESRB). He has been a frequent guest
speaker at industry forums, including the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3),
COMDEX, Jupiter Communications' Digital Kids, Game Developers Conference,
American International Toy Fair, and, in Europe, the Mobile Games Conference.
|
| |
Robert
Reilly, Managing Director, Downer & Company joined Downer in 1970.
Downer & Company is an international investment banking firm specializing
in middle-market cross-border corporate acquisitions, divestitures and
strategic alliances. Prior to Downer & Company, Mr. Reilly spent three
years as a specialist in international economics on the faculty of the
University of Connecticut. During the 70's Bob became one of the leading
advisors to European companies using acquisitions as a means of becoming
established in the U.S. Since that time he has continued to work with European
companies while also managing a substantial venture capital portfolio on behalf
of a Swiss financial group. Mr. Reilly's corporate planning experience, which
has centered on the needs of small companies, equip him with detailed and
extensive first-hand knowledge of the problems and requirements they face.
Mr. Reilly holds a bachelor's degree in Economics from Boston College
and a Masters in Economics from Michigan State University. He is also a
director of numerous corporations. |
|
| Top of page |
| Moderator: |
Peter
Thier, Director of Business Development,
Venture
Technologies |
|
