The Board
Jonathan Brooks
Chairman of the Board
Brooks is a non-executive Director of Aveva Group plc (LSE), e2v technologies PLC (LSE) and Xyratex Limited (NASDAQ) . He is also a non-executive Director of Frontier Silicon Holdings Limited. Between 1995 and 2002 he was Chief Financial Officer and a Director of ARM Holdings plc. Before that, he performed a variety of financial roles for the Accor Group in London and Paris.
Graham O’Keeffe
Director
Graham O'Keeffe joined Atlas Venture in 1998 where he focuses on investments in the semiconductor and wireless sectors. Most recently he was Product Marketing Director at handheld computer specialist Psion Computers and previously held engineering and operational roles at Nokia Mobile Phones. He sits on the boards of Icera Semiconductor, RadioScape, Phyworks, Cognima and Orthogon Systems.
Richard Irving
Director
Richard is CEO of Pond Venture Partners. Based in Silicon Valley, he has 20 years experience in venture capital, business management, marketing and engineering in technology companies including Pond, AT&T Bell Labs, Advanced Micro Devices, Brooktree, and Irving International. Starting as a chip designer at Bell Labs, and strategic marketing manager at AMD, Richard later managed three business units at Brooktree. Richard, a founder of Pond, serves as Director of Transitive Technologies and SealedMedia.
Sean Dalton
Director
Sean is a Managing General Partner specializing in communications infrastructure and semiconductors. Sean is a former director of AccessLan Communications (acquired by Advanced Fibre Communications), Altiga Networks (acquired by Cisco), Envoy Networks (acquired by Texas Instruments), Ocular Networks (acquired by Tellabs), Telcobuy.com (merged with World Wide Technology) and Telica (acquired by Lucent). He currently represents Highland on the boards of Casero, CHiL Semiconductor, Covergence, Innovative Silicon, moka5, P.A. Semi, picoChip, QD Vision, Radiospire Networks, Starent Networks (Nasdaq: STAR) and Virtual Iron Software and also actively works with ANDA Networks, Simpler Networks and Tatara Systems. Sean has been recognized by the prestigious Forbes Midas List as one of the top venture capitalists in the industry.
Stuart Patterson
Director
Stuart specialises in communications and semi-conductor technology. He has worked on over 25 rounds of funding in the last 8 years with the Scottish Equity Partners team. Recent investments include leading the $21m round into wireless semiconductor company CSR, as well as investments in Zinwave, the wireless infrastructure company, the smart card operating system company Aspects Software, and DAB radio company Radioscape. His successes include a number of flotations on the London Stock Exchange including IndigoVision, Orbital Software and CSR as well as trade exits to Cisco, Agilent and Rolls Royce. Stuart has co-invested with many of the other leading UK and international venture capital firms over the years, as well as with a large number of trade investors across a number of deals including Cisco, Novell, Intel, TI, Philips, ARM, Sony as well as Psion.
Jamie Urquhart
Non-Executive Director
Jamie Urquhart has been a Director of PicoChip Designs since Mar 2002. In addition he is a non-executive Director of nCipher plc (Joining the board when it was a private company in January 2000) and Antenova Limited (July 2002). Jamie Urquhart is VP of Licensing and a Director of Splashpower Inc., a private company developing wireless power transfer systems. Prior to Splashpower Limited he was with ARM Holdings plc, from its inception (as a co-founder) in November 1990 until November 2002. During that time he undertook a number of roles, including VP Sales & Marketing, Chief Operating Officer (at the time of the ARM’s IPO) and Director, and latterly Chief Strategy Officer. Before that he was with Acorn Computers Limited, joining in 1984 as a VLSI Design Engineer, becoming VLSI Design Manager of the VLSI Design Group. Prior to that he was with Plessey Research Limited, where he worked on analog and digital developments utilising high-speed CMOS, Bipolar and Gallium Arsenide technologies. Jamie Urquhart holds a BSc from Bath University in Physics and Physical Electronics.
Guillaume d'Eyssautier
Chief Executive Officer & President
Guillaume joined picoChip from Cadence Design Systems in Bracknell, UK, where he was Senior VP and General Manager EMEA. Prior to joining Cadence, Guillaume served at board level in IBM technology Group EMEA in Switzerland, Rockwell Semiconductor Systems in France and GEC-Plessey Semiconductors, France. Educated in France, his early career included positions at RTC, La Radiotechnique, Signetics Corp. USA, and Matra Harris Semiconductors.
Peter Claydon
Chief Operating Officer and co-founder, picoChip
Prior to founding picoChip, Peter was General Manager of Oak Technology Limited, which was sold to Conexant Systems in January 2000. He has 20 years of management and engineering experience, having previously worked at Pioneer, Brooktree and The General Electric Company (now Marconi).
Abdul Guefor
Investor Representative
Abdul Guefor is Managing Director for Intel Capital EMEA. He is one of two Managing Directors for this sizeable region which stretches from Russia to Portugal. His responsibilities include setting investment strategy, reviewing proposals and deal structuring. He is also a member of the investment committee for EMEA deals. The regional investment team consists of some 20 investment professionals located in seven countries. Investment focus areas include wireless communications, digital content and software. Before joining Intel in 1999, Abdul spent 7 years with PricewaterhouseCoopers Transaction Support. Before PwC, Abdul was a design engineer at Plessey Semiconductors and Ikerlan research centre, Spain. Abdul is a Chartered Accountant and holds an honours degree in Electronic Engineering.
Jean-Michel Beghin
Investor Representative
Jean-Michel joined the Venture Capital sector after more than 10 years of engineering, operational and consulting experiences both in the Silicon Valley and in different European countries. After holding a position as Partner of the Natexis Venture Capital activity, one of the first Private Equity firm in Europe, he joined the Venture Capital activity of the Rothschild Group. Prior to joining the Venture Capital sector, he worked throughtout Europe as Senior Manager in the Strategy and Management Consulting department of Ernst & Young and in the Corporate Finance area. Before his European experience, Jean-Michel held various engineering and management roles in the Silicon Valley at several small and large companies such as Fault Tolerant Systems, startup based in California, and Hewlett-Packard.
Brian Kang
Investor Representative
Brian Kang is a Managing Director of Samsung Ventures and makes investments in the telecommunications and digital media sector. Brian led Samsung Ventures’ investments in Beceem Communications, Fortemedia, Gracenote, PicoChip, Radioframe Networks, Strix Systems, Starent Networks, Teknovus, and Xponent. Prior to joining Samsung Ventures, Brian worked as a Business Development Manager at Samsung Electronics' Telecommunications System Division, building numerous business partnerships for the Division, including those with Qualcomm, Starent Networks, and Metawave.
Brian holds a BS in Mechanical Engineering from the State University of New York at Buffalo, MS in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Washington at Seattle, and an MBA from the University of Texas at Austin.
Technical Advisory Board
Prof David May
Head of Computer Science, Bristol University
David was previously chief architect at ST Microelectronics and the developer of the Occam programming language used for the Transputer developed at Inmos.
Simon Saunders
Chief technology officer, Cellular Design Services
Simon is an expert in antenna, modem and cellular architectures and leads a team developing and introducing innovative radio services within Cellular Design Services, as well as providing training and technical support services. He was previously a senior lecturer at the University of Surrey and part of the Centre for Communication Systems Research and worked for leading mobile companies such as Philips, Ascom and Motorola on private mobile radio, paging and digital cellular systems.
Professor Wenbo Wang
Professor and Dean of School of Telecommunication Engineering at the Beijing University of Posts & Telecommunications (BUPT)
Professor Wang is one of the world’s leading authorities in the field of digital signal processing and wireless communications. In addition to his role at BUPT, Professor Wang is a member of the standing committee of Beijing Institute of Communication, and spent a period in the US working in a commercial R&D role. His current research interests include 3G, B3G and WiMAX radio transmission technology, wireless network theory, digital signal processing and software radio technology.