Our Board

	David Cowan David Cowan, a partner in Bessemer's Menlo Park, Calif. office, joined the firm in 1992. He has invested mostly in network technology, infrastructure SaaS, consumer Internet and cyber-security. His current portfolio includes CrowdFlower, LifeLock, LinkedIn, Nominum, Reputation.com, Skybox Imaging, Smule and Zoosk. More than 20 of David's startup investments have gone on to IPO. His historical portfolio includes: network- technology companies Ciena (IPO) and P-Com (IPO); Internet-infrastructure services such as PSI-Net (IPO), Keynote (IPO), Flycast (IPO) and Netli (acquired by Akamai); and consumer Web sites Hotjobs (IPO), Blue Nile (IPO) and Playdom (acquired by Disney). In 1995 David co-founded VeriSign as a Bessemer-funded spinout of RSA and served as VeriSign's initial chairman; his other cyber-security exits have included Counterpane (acquired by BT), Cyota (acquired by RSA), ON (IPO), Postini (acquired by Google), Tripwire (acquired by Thoma Bravo), Tumbleweed (IPO), Valicert (IPO) and Worldtalk (IPO). David received both his A.B. in math and computer science and his MBA degrees from Harvard University. The first Forbes Midas List ranked David among the world's top 10 venture investors and he has been featured on every Midas List since then. You can follow @davidcowan on Twitter, read his blog at WhoHasTimeForThis?, or see him perform with his men's a capella singing group Voices in Harmony.
	Chris Hollenbeck Chris Hollenbeck is a founding member of the Granite Ventures team. He joined Granite after serving as Vice President of Hambrecht & Quist's Venture Capital department, and focuses his investments in software. In addition to software applications, Chris is also interested in companies that capitalize on the current digital content explosion - from voice and video to consumer entertainment - and next-generation software infrastructure technologies. Chris currently sits on the Boards of Bunchball, Convio, DecisionView, HireVue, Oversight Systems, Smule, Telltale and YottaMark. He sponsored Granite's investments in Digimarc (NASDAQ: DMRC) and Vignette (NASDAQ: VIGN), and was a member of the Boards of Auditude prior to its acquisition by Adobe Systems (NASDAQ: ADBE), AvantGo prior to its acquisition by Sybase (NYSE: SY), Episodic prior to its acquisition by Google (NASDAQ:GOOG), and of Liquent prior to its acquisition by Information Holdings (NYSE: IHI). Earlier in his career, Chris held several positions within Hambrecht & Quist's Mergers and Acquisitions and Corporate Finance departments. Chris holds a B.A. in American Studies from Stanford University.
	Mike Maples, Jr. Mike Maples, Jr. is the managing partner of FLOODGATE, and was recently named as one of "8 Rising VC Stars" by Fortune Magazine for his investments in business and consumer technology companies. Before becoming a full-time investor, Mike was an entrepreneur and operating executive who worked in a variety of senior management roles in high-growth companies. His background spans a variety of markets including consumer technology, small business, and the enterprise, and he has led various functions in product development, marketing, business development, and corporate strategy. In his spare time Mike is an amateur artist, movie-maker, and calligrapher. He holds an Engineering degree from Stanford University, an MBA from Harvard Business School, and is a frequent speaker at industry conferences and a guest-lecturer on entrepreneurship at Harvard Business School, Stanford University, Princeton University, and the University of Texas.
	Jason Pressman Jason Pressman has extensive experience with venture-backed startups—as an executive, advisor and investor. Prior to joining Shasta Ventures in 2005 Jason was an early employee at Walmart.com, a venture-backed company where he served as vice president of strategy, business development and operations. In that role, Jason helped build the business into one of the leading commerce sites on the Web. Before Walmart.com, Jason worked as an investment banker at Alex. Brown, advising start-ups on financings and mergers and acquisitions. Jason earned his MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business. He also holds a BS in finance from the University of Maryland. His current areas of interest include cloud computing, SaaS, online and mobile consumer services, and advertising technology.
	Tom Ryan Tom Ryan is the CEO of Threadless, a community-based design company that is a pioneer of crowdsourcing. Threadless hosts an ongoing open call for design submissions from visual artists worldwide and relies on its community to determine which designs become t-shirts and other products. Before Threadless, Tom ran global digital strategy at EMI Music and helped build Virgin Mobile USA, eMusic and Cductive, an early digital music retailer that he founded and sold to eMusic. He holds an AB from Dartmouth College and an MBA from INSEAD in France. Occasionally, Tom dusts off his records and performs as DJ White Chocolate.
	Mark Thompson Mark Thompson is an executive coach and bestselling author of Now Build a Great Business and Success Built to Last, the sequel to Built to Last. He is former executive producer of Schwab.com and Chief Communications Officer at Charles Schwab and a former member of the board and venture investor in Korn Ferry, Interwoven (acquired by HP), Integration (acquired by SiLabs), and Best Buy, where he advocated investments in the Geek Squad, Magnolia and Netflix. Mark was on Forbes Magazine's list of America's top venture investors with the Midas touch. He's a founding board member of the Institute for Entrepreneurial Leadership at John F. Kennedy University, an advisor to the Stanford Venture Design Lab and a founding partner of the Richard Branson Entrepreneurship Centre. He is Program Chairman for Drucker's Leader to Leader Institute in New York. He was a Securities Finance Governor at the World Economic Forum in Davos. He lives with his family in the Bay Area and Manhattan, where he produces award-winning Broadway plays and NPR audiobooks.