The Technology Industry Group of Combined Jewish Philanthropies invites you to an evening of conversation with four of Boston's premier venture capital general partners. They will discuss the challenges and opportunities in today's market and what entrepreneurs and VCs are doing differently to make their companies and investments successful. Find out the keys to not just surviving, but thriving in this tough environment.

Wednesday, December 17, 2008, 6:30 p.m.
Temple Israel, 477 Longwood Avenue, Boston

Featuring

Izhar Armony
General Partner, Charles River Ventures

David Aronoff
General Partner, Flybridge Capital Partners

Larry Bohn
Managing Director, General Catalyst Partners

Jeff Bussgang
General Partner, Flybridge Capital Partners

The panel discussion will be moderated by Scott Kirsner, Boston Globe columnist and technology author.

Register Now

$25 per person in advance; $36 at the door.
A light buffet dinner will be served. Dietary laws will be observed.

For questions, please contact Larry at 617-457-8732, larryt@cjp.org.

Click here for directions.

In case of inclement weather, please call 617.457.8888 or visit http://www.cjp.org/ for event updates.

Izhar Armony
Izhar is a General Partner at Charles River Ventures, whose investment interests and experience include mobility, open source and SaaS, and Intellectual property.

Prior to joining Charles River Ventures, Izhar was with Onyx Interactive, an interactive training company based in Tel Aviv where he served as vice president of marketing and business development. Izhar also served as an officer in the Israeli Army. He received an M.B.A. from the Wharton School of Business and an M.A. in Cognitive Psychology from the University of Tel Aviv in Israel.

David Aronoff
David is a General Partner at Flybridge Capital Partners whose investment interests and experience include the semiconductor, enterprise systems, and security sectors.
 
David currently represents the firm on the boards of Blackwave, CHil Semiconductor, MOBIVOX, Sand9, and VidSys. His blog, "The Diary of a Geek VC", can be found at http://www.geekvc.com/.
 
Prior to joining the firm in June 2005, David spent nearly a decade focusing on early-stage investing at Greylock Partners where he led several of the firm's successful investments in the communications and systems markets. During his time at Greylock, he built a strong investment track record including investments in Akara (acquired by CIENA), Cimaron (acquired by AMCC), e-Dial (acquired by Alcatel), Ikanos (IPO), Sandburst (acquired by Broadcom), SiTera (acquired by Vitesse), Xedia (acquired by Lucent) and Xros (acquired by Nortel).
 
Prior to Greylock, David held management roles at Chipcom, an enterprise network equipment vendor, where he led development efforts in Ethernet bridges, switches and routers. While working full-time on his MBA, David co-founded the Attitude Network (acquired by TheGlobe.com), an Internet content startup with the top two game sites of the day, HappyPuppy.com and GamesDomain.com. Earlier in his career he held technical positions at Bell Labs where he developed secure network systems.

Larry Bohn
As a managing director of General Catalyst Partners, Larry invests in both new and existing technology businesses. Areas of special interest include: open source information technology systems and software on-demand business models.  Larry is a board member of Advanced Electron Beams; Black Duck Software; ChoiceStream; Demandware; HubSpot; Optaros; QUMAS and VisibleMeasures, which are all active General Catalyst investments. Larry also served on the board of Venetica, a General Catalyst investment that was acquired by IBM in October 2004.

Prior to joining General Catalyst, Larry was the chairman, president and CEO of NetGenesis, a leading software and analytic solutions provider.  Larry led NetGenesis from 1997 to 2001, overseeing the company’s business, product strategy and direction.  During this time, NetGenesis was a two-time winner of the Deloitte & Touche Fast 50 award and was included in the Inc 500.  In February 2000, Larry took the company public (NTGX) and in December 2001, NetGenesis was acquired by SPSS, Inc. (SPSS).

Prior to his role as CEO and president of NetGenesis, Larry was president of PC DOCS, Inc. (DOCSF), a leading developer of document management software for enterprise networks. Under his leadership, PC DOCS’ product advanced to the number one market position.  He also led the company's public offering in 1998.  Prior to joining PC DOCS, Larry was senior vice president of marketing and business development at Interleaf, Inc. (LEAF), where he defined and implemented the corporate strategy that put its electronic publishing solutions in a top market position and helped grow the business to more than $120 million in revenue.

Jeff Bussgang
Jeff is a General Partner at Flybridge Capital Partners whose investment interests and entrepreneurial experience are in consumer, Internet commerce, marketing services, software and wireless start-ups.

Jeff currently represents the firm on the boards of BzzAgent, ClickSquared, go2 Media, i4cp, InnerWireless, Mall Networks, SimpleTuition, and Transpera and was previously a director at Brontes Technologies (acquired by 3M) and PanGo Networks (which merged with InnerWireless).

Jeff's popular blog on helping demystify the venture business for entrepreneurs, "Seeing Both Sides", can be found at http://www.bostonvcblog.com/.  Jeff is also currently a guest blogger for Businessweek.com's Business at Work: Staying Entrepreneurial website.

Jeff was named to the Boston Business Journal’s “40 under 40” list in 2006.
Prior to joining the firm in January 2003, Jeff co-founded Upromise (acquired by Sallie Mae), a loyalty marketing and financial services firm that currently manages $20 billion in college savings assets, where he served as President, Chief Operating Officer and Board Director. Prior to Upromise, Jeff was an executive at Open Market, an Internet commerce software leader that went public in 1996 and grew to nearly $100 million in revenues. During his five-year tenure, he served as vice president of Worldwide Marketing and Business Development, vice president of Worldwide Professional Services and head of Product Management. Prior to Open Market, Jeff was with The Boston Consulting Group, a strategy consulting firm and served on the executive team of Athena Design, an object-oriented software start-up.

Scott Kirsner
Scott writes about new technology and innovation in several blogs and publications including the "Innovation Economy" blog and weekly column in the Boston Globe . His writing has also appeared in the New York Times, BusinessWeek, Salon.com, the San Jose Mercury News, CIO, and the San Francisco Chronicle.

Myra H. Kraft
Chair, Board of Directors
 
Barry Shrage
President
 
Stephen D. Lebovitz
Arthur I. Segel
Chairs, 2009 Annual Campaign

Jonathan G. Davis
Chair, Committee on Development
 
Zamira Korff
Vice President, Development

Jarrett Goetz
Neal Karasic
Chairs, Technology Industry Group

Phyllis Swersky
David Teplow
Chairs, Ezra Society

Larry Tobin
Development Officer
 

The fee for attending this event reflects the cost of goods and services provided and is not tax-deductible. Any donations above and beyond the fee are tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law.
 
CJP welcomes those who would like to connect with the Jewish community and encourages the participation of interfaith families, couples and significant others in all its activities.