Nick Bateman - Boston

For the last three years Dr. Nick Bateman has been director of technology development at RadioMed, a start up developing and manufacturing radioactive implants for medical use. He is responsible for evaluating new technologies and building business models for them. He established the manufacturing workflow for radioactive products, and managed radiological product development.

After earning his MBA at Cornell, he went to work for quantumbuy, a start-up marketplace for optical networking gear that was funded by McKinsey directors. At quantumbuy he developed the roll out plan for the company web site, and managed a partnership with Federal Express to implement e-procurement solutions and customer/supplier integration.

Nick Bateman earned his bachelors in physics at MIT, and his PhD in nuclear physics at Yale. His PhD research was on the production of long-lived radioactive elements in the early solar system.

While at Yale he taught Science and Public Policy under Allen Bromley, science advisor to President George HW Bush.

From Yale Dr Bateman went to work at TRIUMF, Canada’s national laboratory for particle and nuclear physics. He led the team that developed and obtained funding for the first experiment at TRIUMF’s flagship accelerator.

Nick speaks fluent French.

Barry Butler - Cambridge, England

Barry has over 20 years of business experience combining both commercial experience within the telecoms/Internet industry and as an engineer within high-tech industries. He runs Deben Ventures in the UK and offers consulting and freelance hands on assistance to technology businesses, or businesses that can benefit from embracing new technologies.

He graduated from Durham, UK, before heading south to Antarctica for 2 years continuous service as a support scientist (ionosphericist) and electronic engineer with the British Antarctic Survey. On his return to the UK, he joined STL research labs where he helped to develop lasers for the first transatlantic optical cable. He then researched and successfully transferred into production a new technology for fabricating GaInAsP/InP semiconductor communication lasers, working at nanometer dimensions, published research papers and developed multi-quantum well lasers in a manufacturing environment – a forerunner of nanotechnology.

He studied at business school for a year, following which he joined Cable & Wireless/Mercury Communications where he project managed the development of an advanced intelligent network based fax product, undertook primary and secondary market research of the groupware market, and then relocated to Sand Hill Road in Silicon Valley to assess emerging Internet and broadband technologies and to provide strategic feedback to the global business units of C&W. On returning to the UK, he continued in C&W as a strategy consultant, helping the company to reorient its strategy towards the supply of Internet and business IP services and to determine sources of new revenue in an increasingly competitive market. He was instrumental in the delivery and execution of a strategy to rapidly build a new pan-European business Internet/IP operation, an outcome of which was to manage commercial due diligence activities across multiple countries during the acquisition of ISPs and valued added service providers. After taking a break to travel around the world, he set out to establish Deben Ventures, his own management and funding consultancy, located in East Anglia in the UK.

He has a BSc in Applied Physics and Electronics and an MSc by research from Durham University, an MBA from Warwick Business School and a Diploma in Marketing from the Chartered Institute of Marketing. He is a Chartered Engineer and Chartered Physicist.

Christopher Montano - Silicon Valley

Christopher Smith was formerly Communications Practice Leader with Hambrecht & Quist's Private Equity Fund. In that capacity he was responsible for all communications technologies & services investments made in H&Q’s $335M private equity portfolio. Representative investments include Chromatis (acquired by Lucent), Silicon Spice (acquired by Broadcom) and Sonus Networks (NASDAQ: SONS). Christopher held a directorship in Paragon Software (sold to Phone.com), and served as observer on the boards of Vocal Data, Cadant, and Lightwave Microsystems. Christopher has also sourced and represented as agent, a private Internet security firm acquired at a valuation of $575M by VeriSign. Prior to private equity, Christopher worked in communications equity research at H&Q. Companies covered included CheckPoint Software, Corsair Communications, Tekelec, Qualcomm, and RF Microdevices. Christopher has participated in multiple IPOs and private financings.

Christopher has held several operational roles including two start-ups. He served as the Program Manager for the Madrid region during the network build of the Airtel GSM wireless services start-up in Madrid, Spain. Christopher was also a Director of Business development with Yipes Communications, an optical data service provider. Christopher began his career as a device engineer in a radio frequency semiconductor components wafer fab with Motorola Semiconductors. Chris is most recently an equity research analyst with Wells Fargo Securities where he liked to focus on public nanotechnology companies.

Christopher graduated with a Master of International Management from Thunderbird (the American Graduate School of International Management), MBA from Arizona State University and a B.S. Electrical Engineering from University of New Mexico. He is also a Chartered Financial Analyst.

Chris speaks fluent Spanish.

Ivan Stewart - Dublin

Through his consulting company, Ivan is advising various start-ups in the life science and food technologies sectors on fund-raising, strategy and commercial development.

When, as General Manager, at NTera a venture-backed Irish nanotechnology start-up, Ivan developed a business plan, sought funding for and established a life science division to focus on the development of nanotechnology-based drug formulation and diagnostic sensor technologies.  Operationally, Ivan was responsible for developing and executing the strategy, fund raising and business development.

Ivan completed his Bachelors in Pharmacology as well as his PhD in cancer research at University College Dublin, Ireland. His PhD focused on the sequence-specific binding of various DNA-binding agents, with a particular emphasis on antisense oligonucleotides.  

On completing his PhD, Ivan held a Post-Doctoral Fellowship at the Institut Curie, Paris. While at Curie, using gene therapy technologies, Ivan developed a novel approach to clone and develop transgenic animals. Here, in addition to conducting research and supervising post-graduate students, he was instrumental in the establishment of a multi-disciplinary, multi-centre, EU-wide developmental biology research network.

Awarded a Fulbright Scholarship, he completed an MBA at Cornell University. While at Cornell, Ivan assisted a French directed evolution gene therapy start-up in fund raising and commercial development.

Ivan also speaks fluent French.

Herve-Andre Durand – London

Dr. Hervé André Durand is Managing Director of AAIPX ltd based in London (UK) and his main interests lie in technology transfer and intellectual property exploitation. AAIPX is a consulting boutique based in London advising international clients on technology strategy, management and markets. Dr. Herve Durand was Managing Director of London offices of Cientifica, a global nanotechnology consultancy providing business information, marketing analyses and business strategy consulting to Fortune 500 companies and investment firms.   He has a wide variety of international strategy consulting experience and has held senior strategy roles in the UK, Japan, Germany and France.

In his previous life, Dr Hervé André Durand was Investment Associate of the Technology Team of UBS Capital, the Venture Capital and Private Equity arm of the Swiss Bank UBS, managing more than $5 billion. Hervé conducted due diligence on investments related to telecoms, engineering and information technology. He had previously worked as an R&D project manager for NEC in Tokyo (Japan) and as an International Technology Consultant in Karlsruhe (Germany), Paris (France) and Tokyo (Japan).

Hervé André DURAND is originally a Physics and Material Science Engineer (Diplôme d’Ingénieur ENSPS) and obtained both his Photonics degree and Ph D from the University of Strasbourg (France). Hervé obtained his MBA from the prestigious London Business School.

Herve speaks French fluently.

Nick Smith - London

Nick is currently a Senior Executive in the operational advisory group of a Big Four Corporate Finance team. Working for both Private Equity and strategic buyers, his engagements include pre-deal operational due diligence (assessment of operational and commercial drivers of EBITDA, sensitivity of valuation assumptions to operational variables and target company management's ability to deliver on initiatives). In a post-deal situation he typically works with portfolio company management to implement operational improvements identified pre-deal, or in a corporate setting to integrate acquisitions or implement carve-outs/separations.

Prior to this Nick was a Senior Manager with FreeMarkets Inc., a provider of strategic sourcing consulting and e-procurement solutions (and the dot-com era pioneer of the online reverse auction). In this role Nick has led engagements with global blue-chip clients including Alcoa, BP, ConocoPhillips, Royal Bank of Scotland and Norsk Hydro.

Before joining FreeMarkets, Nick was an Associate with the management consultancy Booz Allen Hamilton in London. Here he gained experience in post-merger integration, corporate turnarounds and strategic sourcing in the automotive, retail and financial services sectors. His clients included GM Europe, B&Q and Old Mutual plc.

Prior to Booz Allen, Nick spent six years in various management and engineering roles at ABB AG in Zurich, Switzerland. As a sales engineering manager Nick led the commercialization effort for an innovative modular switchgear system. Over 18 months he helped develop a go-to-market strategy, built relationships with prospective pilot customers and finally closed the first commercial deal for $20MM with a major power transmission utility in Australia. As a development engineer in the high voltage products division he played an integral role in the development of new generation gas-insulated switchgear, managing the interface to ABB's Corporate Research Centre and prominent research Universities in Germany and Sweden. During this time Nick authored and co-authored papers in a number of scientific journals and was awarded both US and European patents.

Nick received his MBA (with distinction) from Cornell University in Ithaca, NY. He received his M.Sc. and B.Sc. degrees in Electrical Engineering (both with distinction) from the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa.

He is a Member of the IEE and speaks fluent German. 

Steve Smith - Associate