Sam Kingsland
Chairman of the Board
Managing Director, Granite Ventures, LLC
Sam Kingsland has worked in early-stage venture capital for the past 25 years. He began his career at Hambrecht & Quist Venture Capital, where he was part of a team that pioneered new models for individual and corporate venture investing. Mr. Kingsland was a founding Managing Director at Granite Ventures, LLC, an early-stage focused venture firm.
He has worked closely with companies in a diverse set of industries, such as SaaS applications, IoT, wireless communications, datacenter infrastructure and consumer applications and products.
Some of Mr. Kingsland’s past investments include DigitalThink (DTHK, Convergys), SnapTrack (QCOM), Fulcrum Microsystems (INTC), and Sierra Wireless (SWIR). He currently serves in a variety of board and advisory roles with companies such as Agilence, Kitu Systems, Table8, Simility, Kngine, and FounderSuite.
Sam holds a B.A. from Dartmouth College.
Rick Kornfeld
President and Chief Executive Officer
Rick has worked for some of the region’s most notable tech companies, including Linkabit, Qualcomm and Texas Instruments. Currently the President and CEO of Kitu Systems, Rick was most recently EVP & Chief Strategy Officer, NextWave Wireless and NextWave Broadband and previous to that served as President & CEO, Staccato Communications from 2004 to 2006.
Prior to taking the helm of Staccato, Rick was vice president and general manager of Texas Instruments’ Wireless Chipset Business Unit. He joined TI as part of the acquisition of Dot Wireless, where he was co-founder, chairman, and CEO. Prior to founding Dot Wireless, Rick was a founding member of NextWave Telecom, Inc., where he was the senior vice president and general manager of the Consumer Products division. Previously, Rick was vice president of engineering at Qualcomm, leading the development of the first commercial CDMA subscriber equipment. Prior to joining Qualcomm, Rick held technical positions at M/A-Com Linkabit.
Rick holds a B.S. from the University of California, San Diego where he was named the Alumni of the Year in 2001 and currently serves on the Council of Advisors of UCSD’s Jacobs School of Engineering.
Doug Rasor
Director
Doug Rasor has over 30 years experience in Technology startup and Semiconductor businesses. His current company, Rasor Advisors, works with startup companies and Venture Capital firms to develop marketing and funding strategies. Besides Kitu Systems, he holds board positions at Avuli Networks and is an Advisor to Ostendo Technologies, Ingenu, LineStream and EnTouch Controls.
He retired from TI in early 2010 as VP, Emerging Medical Technologies. In this role, Doug was responsible for establishing relationships with Universities, Venture Capital investors and Innovative Start-up companies in the Medical Device Sector.
From 1995-2008, Doug was VP, Strategic Marketing at TI. In this role, he ran an organization responsible for scouting and developing business cases for new TI products. Twelve new TI businesses were identified and incubated via the Strategic Marketing organization. He was also responsible for spearheading TI’s external venture fund activities (partnerships with Granite Ventures, Seven Rosen, Austin Ventures, STARTech).
Anton (Ton) Steenman
Director
Managing Director, J Moore Partners
Anton Steenman is an international leader with over 25 years of experience in technology management, business development, independent board director positions, and strategic planning. As a Vice President and General Manager at Intel Corporation, Anton managed multibillion dollar business units in a variety of market segments including Internet of Things (IOT), communications, industrial control, retail, and automotive. He has an extensive background in strategy, P&L management, product development, and M&A. Furthermore, Anton was responsible for leading the IOT vision, strategy, and cross company implementation at Intel. Anton has served on several industry boards including the Industrial Internet Consortium, the Telecommunications Industry Association, the ITS America leadership council, and the USDOT ITS advisory council. Anton has lived and worked in the Netherlands, Germany, Malaysia, Hong Kong, and the United States. Currently Anton is a managing director at J Moore Partners, a boutique advisory and M&A firm focused on the mid-market technology companies, and holds his Series 79 securities registrations as a registered representative of StillPoint Capital, LLC.
Bill Kingsley
Director
Bill Kingsley has 25+ years of experience across many technologies and industries, spanning diverse business models, stages of investment, geographies and customer focus.
After 18 years as Managing Director of EnerTech Capital, a specialized venture capital fund investing in energy technology related companies, Bill formed WGK Ventures, helping startup companies and corporate venture/venture firms navigate funding, execution and exit opportunities.
Prior to joining Kitu Systems board, Bill developed deep knowledge and experience as a board director, becoming trusted advisor to many leadership teams, serving on 20 boards. Investment areas have included energy technologies to improve the operations of renewables, autonomous driving development, impact investments, sensor and distributed software platforms, machine learning and artificial intelligence applications directed at industrial applications, building automation and intelligence, wireless and mobile industry development, advanced advertising and telecommunications businesses.
Several of Bill’s prior investments include Blue Pillar, Invidi Technologies (AT&T), Teleport (Nasdaq: TCGI, acquired by AT&T), CablePCS (became NYSE:S). Prior to his investing experience, Bill was an executive in several high growth telecommunication services businesses. Bill has an M.A. from George Washington University and a B.S. from Lynchburg College.