ACTION

Chris is currently serving on the boards and advising the CEO's of private companies, usually with a near-term liquidity event being planned.

In both an operating and M&A role, Chris was recently President of Zivelo, Inc., a fast-growing technology company based in Scottsdale, AZ. He served as President of the company through several defining years and in 2019 helped drive the successful acquisition by Verifone, a Francisco Partners company. Advising on the transaction were Pagemill, AQ Technology Partners, and Morrison Foester.

SELL-SIDE M&A ADVISORY EXPERIENCE

Previously Chris was co-founder and a Managing Director of Intelligent Capital, Inc., a San Francisco-based firm focused on sell-side advisory in the field of venture-backed technology mergers and acquisitions. He has led M&A transactions with industry-leading acquirers including:

• • ARM Holdings (semiconductor graphics IP cores)

  • Google (communications software)

  • Intel (cloud identity security software)

  • Oracle (enterprise software)

  • Logitech (NAT traversal software)

  • Verifone, A Francisco Partners company (self-service technology)

  • Seiko Epson (sensing technology)

  • Symantec (security software)

  • ViaSat (GaAs transceiver devices)

  • Gemplus (encryption software)

  • ...and others.

PRIOR SENIOR MANAGEMENT ROLES

Chris has also served as President of Isola Corporation where he dramatically improved financial performance and then drove the divestiture of the company to TPG. Isola, with its four U.S. manufacturing plants, is the nation's largest supplier of PCB materials to leading OEM's such as Cisco, HP, IBM, EMC, and their EMS suppliers such as Sanmina, Solectron, etc. During his work there, he implemented a successful restructuring and turnaround in financial performance and played a key leadership role in the divestiture process successfully selling the company to the private equity firm TPG of San Francisco, CA. GE Capital and other investors also participated in the acquisition.

Earlier Chris spent 15 years with SpeedFam Corporation, a process equipment and consumable materials supplier for the semiconductor, disk drive, and general industrial markets. He was named President of the company in 1993 and led the company into new markets and through a period of rapid growth in sales, profits, and employment. Chris was President and the principal representative during the company's NASDAQ IPO and two subsequent public offerings eventually growing valuation from $30 million to a publicly traded market capitalization exceeding $800 million. SpeedFam was later acquired by Novellus Systems.

Chris began his career as an engineer at Motorola in the Semiconductor Products Division.

BOARDS AND PUBLICATIONS

He serves or has served on the Board of Directors of Isola Corporation, SpeedFam Corporation, Fujimi Corporation, a number of early-stage private companies, and has been a Special Limited Partner in Osprey Ventures of Menlo Park, CA. He was a co-founder, investor, and the initial Executive Director of the Arizona Angels, a group of over 100 investors supporting early stage companies in the community. He has served on the Executive Committee of the Dean's Advisory Council at the Ira A. Fulton School of Engineering at Arizona State University. Chris has been quoted or covered in various publications including CIO Review, Semiconductor International, Forbes ASAP, PC Fab and Design, The Business Journal, and has spoken at Stanford University, Arizona State University, Thunderbird Graduate School of Management, and various software, industry, civic, and community events.

EDUCATION

Chris completed a BS in Computer Systems Engineering from Arizona State University and the Executive Management Program at Stanford University's Graduate School of Business.