Business Advisors

Mark Biestman has 30 years of sales, marketing, and professional management experience during which he helped guide Netscape Communications and Commerce One through successful initial public offerings.

Mark began his professional career in sales at IBM and subsequently worked for Tandem Computers and Metaphor. He joined Netscape as Vice President of Sales for the Western US, and he also helped launch a subsidiary that developed and marketed Netscape's eCommerce portfolio.

He was then hired by Commerce One, Inc. as Senior Vice President, Worldwide Sales and Global Field Operations. He has also served as the CEO of both Seven Networks and Real Clear Technologies, a software and services company in the Service Delivery Management sector. Prior to joining Rearden Commerce, Mark served as Executive Vice President, Worldwide Operations for Enquisite, a software as a service company (SaaS) in San Francisco focused on the search engine optimization (SEO) and analytics category.

Mark is also the co-founder of LinksMark Multimedia and The Sports Retail Networks, a point of sale digital advertising company, whose flagship product, The Golf Network, is currently installed in 85 retail locations throughout North America.

Andrea (Andy) Cunningham was the Founder and CEO of CXO Communication, a privately held brand strategy and communication firm focused entirely on matters critical to corporate officers and their teams. Based in Palo Alto, California, CXO creates and executes branding and communication programs that advance corporate reputation, increase shareholder value and accelerate business growth. Andy was founder and CEO of Cunningham Communication, a public relations agency she founded in 1985 and sold to Huntsworth plc in 2000.

Andy sits on the following non-profit boards: The Aspen Institute, The Computer History Museum, and ZERO1: the Art and Technology Network, a contemporary arts organization she founded in 2000 that acts as a catalyst and platform for the development and presentation of innovative art. She is also a member of the advisory board of Specialized Bicycle Components.

Andy was named a 1998 Henry Crown Fellow and is a member of the Arthur W. Page Society, Committee of 200 and the World Presidents Organization where she is an officer. She received a B.A. in English from Northwestern University and resides in Palo Alto, California with her husband, Rand Siegfried, and two children.

John Hagel has over 25 years of experience as a management consultant with a focus on defining actionable business strategies to create business value, accelerating near-term performance improvement goals, and targeting longer-term growth options.

Prior to forming his own consulting practice, John served as Chief Strategy Officer for 12 Entrepreneuring, a San Francisco-based operating company building businesses in web services technology. While there he helped launch Grand Central and Oxygen Software. Prior to that he founded and led McKinsey's strategy and e-commerce practices, where he served a broad range of clients across the world. Earlier, he was Senior Vice President of Strategic Planning for Atari, Founder and CEO of the Sequoia Group, and a Consultant with BCG.

John has a BA from Wesleyan University, BPhil from Oxford University, and JD/MBA from Harvard University, and is the author of three successful business strategy books.

Alex Mendez has been a General Partner of Storm Ventures since October 2000. Previously, he was an investor and CEO/Chairman of Sanera Systems (acquired by McData) and served on the McData Board of Directors until 2007. He was also an investor and board member of Airespace, which was acquired by Cisco. His investment focus is on wireless, computing and storage data centers and Web 2.0 and Enterprise software. Alex spent twenty-one years in high tech at ROLM, IBM, Stratacom, and Cisco, holding several executive positions, most recently as an SVP/GM at Cisco. He was part of the founding team of Stratacom, which Cisco acquired.

Alex holds a BSEE from Stanford University and an MBA from Santa Clara University.

Peter Sealy is the founder, CEO and majority shareholder of The Sausalito Group, Inc. and specializes in business and marketing strategy and expert witness testimony. His background includes over 20 years at The Coca-Cola Company where he held a variety of key positions, including CMO, and was responsible for the now-famous "Always Coca-Cola " advertising campaign. Peter was also President of Marketing and Distribution at Columbia Pictures where his releases included GhostBusters, La Bamba, Karate Kid, Stand By Me and Tootsie.

Peter served as Adjunct Professor of Marketing and Co-Director of the Center for Marketing and Technology at the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley. In 2004, he joined the faculty of the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University, and in the summer of 2007, he assumed the position of Adjunct Professor of Marketing at the Peter F. Drucker Graduate School of Management at Claremont Graduate University. He is currently a board member and advisor at a number of technology companies.

Peter earned his PhD at the University of California, Berkeley.