Investable Management Teams Get Funded:

What do investors look for? And how to get there.

Elizabeth Cobb, ( www.makanasolutions.com )
Ms. Cobb is the President and CEO of Makana Solutions. Makana helps companies create and manage better incentive compensation programs that maximize the company�s incentive investment while improving employee alignment around strategy. It is Ms. Cobb�s third entrepreneurial venture having successfully founded two other companies: Incentive Systems (now Centive) in 1997 and ViComp Management, Inc in 1991. At Incentive Systems, Ms. Cobb coined the phrase EIM and pioneered the market category and helped lead the company to over $22 Million in revenues by 2002. The company specialized in providing sophisticated enterprise incentive management software designed to address incentive compensation needs of large corporations. Ms. Cobb was an Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year finalist in 2002. In addition to her leadership capabilities, Ms. Cobb has 13 years experience automating payment of incentive compensation and brings tremendous depth and breadth of knowledge of incentive compensation. A Magna Cum Laude graduate of Vanderbilt University, she earned her B.E. in Math and Computer Science in 1975. She received her M.A. in Mathematics and Computer Science from Arizona State University in 1977.

Richard A. Langevin, ( [email protected] )
Mr. Langevin is a successful CEO, angel investor, and business advisor. For twenty-five years, he has assisted established and emerging, private and public companies to build strong management teams and to develop effective go-to-market business strategies and execution plans that deliver significant business results. He has invested in or secured funding for four companies; led a successful $30M IPO for a software startup; led a 5-year old company to grow its sales from $0.5M to $14M in one year; led a $6M company�s business transformation such that today that company�s annual revenues now exceed $750M; and he purchased an unprofitable company that managed to achieve profitability within a year and double its annual revenues. Mr. Langevin has been an advisor to technology, pharmaceutical, industrial manufacturing, alternative energy transportation, and emergency notification companies. He resides in South Natick, MA with his wife Lauren and their daughter.

Josh Tolkoff, ( [email protected] )
Mr. Tolkoff is a managing director of Ironwood Equity Fund, a later stage investor in healthcare specialty manufacturing companies. Prior to Ironwood, he founded and managed Seedling Enterprises, considered one of the most successful medical device incubator funds in the country. Mr. Tolkoff was also the founder of ACT Medical, which became a premier medical device developer and contract manufacturer. He helped grow ACT to over $20 million before it was sold to MedSource. He also started Harbor Medical Devices, a venture backed medical device company. Prior to founding Harbor, Mr. Tolkoff was head of research and development for nine years for Medi-Tech, the founding division of Boston Scientific. Currently, he is a corporate Director of Atlantis Components and LumeRx. He is a board member and past chair of MassMedic, and chairs the advisory board of the Harvard-MIT program in Health Sciences and Technology. He received a Bachelor degree with concentration in Engineering and Applied Physics from Harvard College in 1970, and a Masters degree in Mechanical Engineering with a major in BioMechanics from MIT in 1971. Mr. Tolkoff lives in Brookline, MA with his wife, Ann Connolly Tolkoff. They have 3 children and 2 grandchildren.
.

Robert A. Adelson, ( [email protected] )
Mr. Adelson has been a corporate and tax attorney since 1977, and is a partner in a 7-attorney Boston firm. Mr. Adelson�s clients are early stage technology-based companies, consultants, senior executives and key employees, and family businesses. His main practice areas are: Business formation, finance and capitalization; Commercial contracts, licensing and strategic alliance agreements; Executive employment, stock and options and severance; Trademarks and intellectual property protection; Joint ventures, mergers and acquisitions. Mr. Adelson is a graduate of Boston University with a B.A. degree, summa cum laude, and a member of Phi Beta Kappa and Phi Alpha Theta. He received his J.D. degree from Northwestern University in Chicago, where he was a member of the Law Review and his LL.M. degree in taxation from New York University. Mr. Adelson is a frequent lecturer for entrepreneur and professional groups, and has written numerous published articles, including articles in the Boston Business Journal, Mass High Tech, Family Business Magazine, Darwin Magazine, Genetic Engineering News and The Culpepper Letter (using the software industry). Mr. Adelson is a member of the Massachusetts and New York Bars, and a member of the E-Net Executive Board and the Advisory Board of the 128 Innovation Capital Group. Mr, Adelson�s work as an attorney has been recognized in articles in the Boston Globe and Boston Herald and in a chapter of the book End of Shareholder Value, published in 2000.