Coco Brown
Founder and CEO, The Athena Alliance
With broad experience across F1000 companies, start-ups, and nonprofits in the roles of CEO/President, COO, advisor, and Board member, Coco possesses a unique understanding of the breadth of challenges and opportunities of leadership. Coco’s career has centered on building businesses where the core product and most valued asset are people. Leveraging a degree in psychology from the University of Pennsylvania, the first ten years of Coco’s career were dedicated to the HR disciplines of organizational design, employee performance, compensation, and culture. In the fifteen years following she built on this people-centered focus to become an entrepreneur and technology leader and to build name brand businesses delivering managed services, professional services, and deliverables-based consulting.
In the spring of 2016, Coco founded and became CEO of The Athena Alliance, an organization dedicated to advancing diversity in the boardroom with a robust membership and match delivery model anchored in her deep connection to community building, executive consulting, and professional services. Coco’s genuine and strong industry relationships and ability to articulate and drive value have resulted in over $1,000,000 in contributions in just over one year and a network of over 800 C-Level women, VCs, and CEOs from over 100 companies including Microsoft, Autodesk, Intuit, OpenView Venture Partners, Accenture, Deloitte, and PwC. Athena’s model integrates into and guides the intimate networks through which boards seek directors. It also offers high-touch, white glove executive coaching to the top 10% of female leaders nation-wide.
In addition to leading Athena, Coco is an Executive Advisor to c-suite executives and their teams guiding strategy and execution. She designs and runs the visioning, organizational design, and strategic planning process, with notable clients including FireEye, Honeybook, Jitterbit, GlobeTouch, Riverbed, and SGI.
Prior, Coco served as President, COO and Board Director of Taos, a prominent in IT Services business serving hundreds of F1000 companies such as Apple, Cisco, ebay, Facebook, and Silicon Valley Bank. During her 17 years at Taos, Coco led the company through periods of significant accelerated expansion including across five key national markets (Silicon Valley/San Francisco, New York, New England, D.C., Southern California). Her increasing focus on people-centered leadership went on to ensure Taos’ great success in the period of economic growth post the dotcom bust and minimal challenge during the “great recession” following the housing and financial market crisis of 2008.
Beginning in 2003, Coco also led Taos in diversifying the business to increase its fundamental value and market position through the addition of Managed Services and Project Services. The methodology-based Project Services practice, comprised of former C-Level IT executives, enabled Taos to elevate its strategic impact and value to the CIO. This division also extended Taos’ offerings into a global market with projects in Europe, Asia and South America.
She currently sits on the board of The Athena Alliance and was on the boards for Taos Mountain Software, Inc., and MentorNet. She received numerous awards including Women Supporting Women awards (2014), Business Woman of the Year (2014), and Silicon Valley’s top 100 Women of Influence (2010).
Wendy Paskin-Jordan
CEO/Owner, Paskin Capital Advisors, LLC
Ms. Paskin-Jordan is a graduate of Stanford University, University of California Hastings School of Law, and the University of Pennsylvania Wharton School of Business. In 1986, she was hired by the Vice Chairman of Wells Fargo to launch the mutual fund area, managing the national sales and marketing effort for those funds. In 1994, Ms. Paskin-Jordan served as Managing Director & Partner of Montgomery Asset Management, managing the institutional wealth management division. After Montgomery was sold in 1998, she launched her own asset management firm, Paskin Capital Advisors (PCA). Ms. Paskin-Jordan also serves as a strategic partner to San Francisco Sentry, a private multifamily office that offers select and tailored financial products.
Currently, Ms. Paskin-Jordan serves as a Board Member of the AAA Northern California, Nevada, and Utah (NCNU), and AAA Club Partners (ACP). She serves on the Corporate Board of Real Property Funds II, IV, and V, sub-advised by Buchanan Street Partners. Ms. Paskin-Jordan is also an Advisory Board Member for Harvest Funds Management, and PIMCO RIA Advisory Board. She served on the Board of Barclays Global Investors until it was acquired by Blackrock late 2009. In 2010, Ms. Paskin-Jordan was appointed by then San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom as Commissioner of the San Francisco Employees’ Retirement System. In 2014, she was reappointed to the Retirement Board to serve another 5-year term. She was also recognized as one of the top 100 businesswomen in Northern California by San Francisco Business Times in 2005.
Ms. Paskin-Jordan was the first woman beach lifeguard in Los Angeles County in 1974, and was the first woman to work the "Baywatch" rescue boats for LA County. She received a Los Angeles Supervisors Commendation for saving thirty lives in one summer. Ms. Paskin-Jordan was the most decorated U.S. athlete in the Maccabiah World Games 1973, and also received the "Quaker Oats Co-Olympian of the Future Award" with Mark Spitz.
Ori Sasson
Founding Partner, Primera Capital
Ori Sasson is the founding Partner of Primera Capital. He has invested widely in many segments of the high tech sector, and has chaired and founded pioneering companies in customer relationship management, wireless carrier services, global transportation logistics and managed services. His investments include Roamware (now Mobileum), GTNexus, Houzz, C3, Vmware (Nasdaq: VMW), VXtreme (Acquired by Microsoft), Emotive, Cramster (acquired by Chegg), Fandango (acquired by Comcast), Chegg, Mobile Access Network (Acquired by Corning), NetDynamics (acquired by Sun Microsystems), Octane (Acquired by Epiphany), NewRoads (acquired by GSI Commerce) and Genesys (Nasdaq: GCTI) among others.
Ori possesses extensive venture and hands-on business experience. Before founding Primera, Ori was a partner at Apax Partners. Prior to that, he served as President and CEO of Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories, where he expanded the company's global market reach, recruited a top-notch international management team, and managed the company's acquisition by Paris-based Alcatel in the year 2000.
Ori also served as Chairman and CEO of Scopus Technology - a company he co-founded in 1991 - and directed, from its inception to a highly successful IPO and merger with Siebel Systems in April 1998, creating the second largest applications company in the world. Ori has used his business acumen to advise many young companies and has received numerous accolades, including the Bay Area Entrepreneur of the Year, 1997.
Ori holds a Master's Degree in Operations Research and a BA in Computer Science from the University of California at Berkeley. He currently serves on the boards of Mobileum, LifeLink, Globetouch, Jitterbit, Kiverdi, Mimik and on the advisory board of OurCrowd and ZZVentures.
Jorge L. Titinger
Founder and CEO, Titinger Consulting
Jorge L. Titinger has 30+ years of progressive leadership experience directing substantial growth and leading the turnaround of underperforming organizations. He is an accomplished Board Member and C-level executive with expertise in large multi-billion dollar organizations as well as startups focusing on technology industries. He founded and leads Titinger Consulting, a company that specializes on aligning strategy and culture to significantly increase the likelihood of success.
During Mr. Titinger’s career, he has executed 2 successful turnarounds that resulted in high premium acquisitions. He built effective executive teams and led companies operating in major markets in the Americas, Europe, and Asia. Mr. Titinger also led M&A transactions in multiple companies and developed the leadership teams attracting an exceptional staff that consistently delivered results. He is a recognized leader in the Technology Community in the U.S.A. and the Hispanic community in Silicon Valley. As a highly sought-after Board Member, he is an active participant in philanthropic pursuits in the community with focus on Diversity, Education and Healthcare sectors.
Most recently, Mr. Titinger was the President, CEO and Board member of Silicon Graphics, one of the leading global companies in high performance computing. Following the sale of Silicon Graphics, Mr. Titinger started Titinger Consulting and has served as Strategic Advisor to HPE and to KLA-Tencor. Currently, he is a Strategic Advisor to Transparent Business, SheWorks, and Open Trends. Mr. Titinger also serves on several public, private and non-profit Boards.
Prior to SGI, Mr. Titinger served as President, Chief Executive Officer and Board Member of Verigy, Inc. Previously, Mr. Titinger held senior executive positions at FormFactor, Inc., KLA-Tencor Corporation, Applied Materials, Inc., and Insync Systems, Inc., and NeTpower. While launching his career, Mr. Titinger held positions at Hewlett-Packard, MIPS Computer Systems Inc./Silicon Graphics, Inc.
Mr. Titinger was educated at Stanford University and holds a Master of Science in Engineering Management in addition to a Master of Science in Electrical Engineering. He also obtained his Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from Stanford. He has served and continues to serve in Board positions within public, private and non-profit organizations including XCERRA, CalAmp, AGP, Hispanic Foundation of Silicon Valley, Stanford Children’s Hospital, Verigy, Inc., Electroglas, Inc., and Thermawave. Mr. Titinger is also a member of the Alliance of CEOs. He was recognized as CEO of the Year for Operational Excellence by CEO World Awards and one of the Top 100 Latinos in Technology by HITEC for 5 consecutive years. Earlier this year he was recognized as an Honorable Guy by the Women’s Leadership organization for his work on diversity and inclusion. Last week he received the Estrella Award by HITEC for his leadership in technology fields and his contribution to the community.
Kathryn Ullrich
Partner, Odgers Berndtson
Kathryn Ullrich is a Partner in Odgers Berndtson’s Silicon Valley office and a member of the Technology practice and leads the Diversity practice in the US. She focuses on senior executive and board searches for major corporations and venture-capital-backed companies in software, systems and services, and has specific expertise in autonomous vehicle technology, cloud, cyber security, data analytics, Internet, IoT, SaaS, and other disruptive technologies.
Prior to Odgers Berndtson, Kathryn spent twenty years in executive search at Heidrick & Struggles, Russell Reynolds Associates and her own boutique search firm. Earlier in her career, Kathryn worked in software product marketing at Siebel Systems (now Oracle), strategy consulting at Accenture, and engineering at GTE (now Verizon) and Motorola. Kathy also led Alumni Career Services at UCLA Anderson School of Management and was Executive Director of MBA Career Services for Working Professionals, the trade organization of peers across top 30 business schools.
Kathryn is passionate about diversity. She is the founder of a Silicon Valley non-profit for women in technology and actively works with clients on increasing diversity in technology. In 2016 she was honored by Silicon Valley Business Journal as a Woman of Influence for her work in diversity and inclusion.
She has a B.S. cum laude in electrical engineering from University of Michigan and an MBA with Carter Award top honors from UCLA Anderson School of Management.
Sarah Wang
Vice President, TA Associates
Sarah Wang is currently a Vice President at TA Associates, one of the largest global growth private equity firms. Ms. Wang focuses on investments in financial and business services companies across North America. Prior to attending graduate school, she was a Consultant at The Boston Consulting Group. She previously served as a Global Capital Markets Analyst at Morgan Stanley. Ms. Wang received an AB, cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, in Economics and a Citation in Mandarin Chinese from Harvard University and an MBA as an Arjay Miller Scholar and Siebel Scholar from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
Erika M. Cramer
Managing Director, Silver Lane Advisors
Erika joined Silver Lane in 2007 and currently manages the firm’s California office. With over 25 years of investment banking experience, Erika manages mandates involving asset and wealth managers, leads the firm’s alternatives practice and conducts capital raises for fintech firms. Prior to joining Silver Lane, Erika co-founded Alternative Access Capital, a private placement firm specializing in marketing and capital raising for hedge funds and fund of funds. Prior to that, Ms. Cramer was a Senior VP of Strategic Development for the U.S. Trust Company where she was responsible for the execution of acquisitions, de novo operations and lift-outs.
Erika is a Board Director for Atlanta Life Financial Group and a committee member of 100 Women in Finance in Northern California. She earned an MBA from Pace University and a BA in finance from West Virginia Universit
y.
Mike D. DiLecce
FSO Americas Talent Managing Partner, Ernst & Young LLP
Mike has been with EY for more than 34 years, and is the FSO Americas Talent Managing Partner. Mike is based in New York. For the vast majoirity of Mike’s career, he was most recently the Assurance Leader for the Wealth & Asset Management practice of EY’s Financial Services Office (FSO). While continuing with client facting responsibilities, Mike is EY’s Global Assurance Leader for Wealth & Asset Management Sector.
Mike has over thirty years of experience in the audit, financial reporting, regulatory and operational aspects of the asset management industry. His experience covers mutual funds, hedge funds and other investment funds, advisers and distributors. He has extensive experience with many types of investment fund products, including country-specific, tax exempt, international, real estate funds and ETFs. He has helped several asset managers launch their operations. Mike’s experience includes dealing with SEC compliance and reporting issues. He also has experience with domestic and off-shore investment partnerships, as well as GIPS compliance.
Mike has been a frequent speaker at various asset management industry events, including the ICI Tax and Accounting Conference and the JP Morgan Pricing Direct Conference.
Mike graduated from Pace University, Pleasantville with a BBA in accounting.
