James Spare, Chairman

Allan Thygesen

Steve Goldberg

Meir Friedlander

Craig White

Aaron Benway

Ed Fries

Mr. Spare's expertise is in successfully launching new, innovative technology products and companies. He leverages his prior experience in product management, marketing, and business development to lead the Canesta team.

Previously, Mr. Spare served as business development director for the Microsoft TV Platform Division where his team created and managed key alliances with OEMs and network operators including AT&T, Rogers Communications, and Motorola. In this role, Mr. Spare was a key driver of Microsoft's investments and strategic product plan for the cable and satellite industry in North America.

Prior to Microsoft, Mr. Spare led a product management organization at General Instrument (now Motorola) that exceeded sales and profit expectations for the company's flagship line of new, interactive set-top boxes. His team grew the business from concept to $300Million in revenue in less than 3 years, propelling the business to the highest grossing and most profitable product line in the company.

Most recently, Mr. Spare served as chief operating officer of INBOXTV Corporation where he managed marketing, engineering, business development and operations for this Internet startup. Mr. Spare holds an MBA from the Amos Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth and a BSEE from North Carolina State University.
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Allan co-founded early stage venture capital firm Metric Ventures in January 2009. Earlier, Allan was a Managing Director in the US venture and growth funds of The Carlyle Group, where he led investment in Air2Web, Archetype Solutions, Canesta, Indigo Systems (sold to NASDAQ: FLIR), Rhythm New Media, SMaL Camera (sold to NYSE: CY), TradeBeam and Viator.

Before joining Carlyle in February 2001, Allan served as the Executive Vice President, Sales and Business Development of Wink Communications, a provider of an end-to-end software platform for interactive television services. Allan joined Wink in July 1996, and developed and led Wink's relationships with Wink's largest cable and satellite operator customers, broadcast and cable networks, advertisers and advertising agencies, and consumer electronics manufacturers. At Wink, Allan also served as Interim Chief Financial Officer in preparation for the company's initial public offering (NASDAQ: WINK) in August 1999.

Earlier, Allan served in a variety of executive, sales, marketing, customer service and finance management roles at Gold Disk, Inc., a venture-backed publisher of personal and corporate productivity software, at Media Vision Technologies, Inc., a multimedia hardware manufacturer and publisher of CD-ROM entertainment software, at Pellucid, a venture-backed start-up developing 3D graphics hardware acquired by Media Vision in May of 1993, at Everex Systems, a manufacturer of personal computers and peripheral products, and at Radiometer A/S, a manufacturer of medical measuring equipment.

Allan received an MSc degree in Economics from the University of Copenhagen and a M.B.A. degree from the Stanford Graduate School of Business, where he graduated as an Arjay Miller scholar. He currently serves on the boards of Canesta, Novarra and Rhythm NewMedia as an independent director. Allan is married, has four children and lives in Menlo Park, CA.
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Steve Goldberg joined Venrock in 2009 after having been CEO of several early stage companies including DataRunway, Vidient, Arcwave, and CoWave Networks. He was Vice President of Research and Development at Nokia Internet Communications and VP and GM of the Wireless Communications Division at Cylink Corporation. Steve has also held senior management and engineering positions at Trimble Navigation and Hewlett Packard. Additionally, Steve enjoys teaching and public speaking, and has delivered a number of academic and industrial courses in the areas of wireless, telecom, and signal processing. Steve holds a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of California, Santa Barbara and a B.S. and M.S. in Electrical Engineering from Washington University in St. Louis, Mo.

Meir Friedlander manages SFK's Silicon Valley office and represents SFK in the Korean Global IT Fund. Meir brings more than 25 years of experience in execution and operations as well as in strategic vision, leadership and investments. Meir plays an active role on the boards and advisory boards of KGIF and SFK funds' North American and Israeli portfolio companies, including Canesta Inc., GCT Semiconductors Inc., SeamBI LTD and Loyaltytracking LTD. among others.

Previously, Meir served in various business managerial positions in Amdocs Inc, a market leader in customer care and billing systems for network service providers; Vsoft LTD. (Founder and CEO) a pioneer in IPTV, VoD and Networked PVR; Digital Equipment Corporation, Combact LTD. and ATL LTD.

Meir focuses on the business, execution and market-technology match-ups of advanced Software Applications; Media and Entertainment: Video, Voice and Content; Vision systems; Semi-conductors, Internet Web 2.0, telecommunication next generation services, and consumer electronics.

In order to satisfy his entrepreneurial nature, Meir also helps many startup companies grow into successful market leaders.

Meir holds a B.Sc. in Mathematics and Computers Science (Magna Cum laude) and an M.Sc. in Computer Science (Magna Cum laude) degrees from Tel Aviv University.
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Craig White has more than 20 years of leadership experience in technology innovation and development across multiple industry segments including automotive, consumer, military, and industrial. An accomplished corporate technology strategist and engineer, his vision and diverse expertise bring together commonly understood technology and methods in unique ways to provide notable enterprise growth from truly new product development ideas, and unique cost savings and efficiencies.

As president of "The Craig White Group", Mr. White advises senior executives across multiple industries. In addition to innovation methodology and product design, Mr. White is working to develop winning ethical solutions to major problems created by the acceleration of technology development, and deployment and the growth of the global workforce.

Previously Mr. White was Senior Vice President of Engineering and Chief Technical Officer of Key Automotive Group, and BREED Technologies, Inc. With responsibility for worldwide engineering and R&D, Mr. White drove change that raised Breed's technology rating from 20 to number 1 by developing several new unique product and service offerings, while reducing overall expenditure by over 40%.

Before joining BREED in June 1997, Mr. White served as Executive Director of Electronics Systems and Operations for Takata Corporation. He was also Vice President of Engineering for Semi-Conductor Reliability Associates where he specialized in ASIC design.

Mr. White has been awarded more than twenty patents, authored various publications, and is member of multiple industry groups such as the Society of Automotive Engineers, International Electrical and Electronic Engineers, and is a past board member of the Automotive Occupant Restraints Council.
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Mr. Kareemi co-founded Canesta in 1999 and was its CEO from inception to 2004, and Chairman of the Board until 2006. He has many years of experience in the high technology industry in engineering and management positions, and has been a successful entrepreneur, building and growing emerging technology companies with unique cultures. He has a SB in EE from MIT and an MSEE and Engineer's degrees from Stanford University.

Along with two co-founders, Mr. Kareemi assembled an outstanding team at Canesta and raised several rounds of VC funding. Canesta has developed breakthrough electronic perception technology, acquired a substantial number of patents to protect its intellectual property, and built innovative products used in automotive and security markets.

Prior to Canesta, he founded PenWare in 1992 and raised VC funding. He attracted and retained some of the best people in the industry to develop award-winning software. PenWare established itself as a leader in spreadsheets for mobile devices; its OEM customers included Sony, Motorola and Sharp. PenWare also acquired another company to successfully enter retail point of sale terminal market and became public in 1996. PenWare changed its name to Atpos and was later acquired by Symbol Technologies, Inc.

Before founding PenWare, he held engineering positions or consulted for well-respected companies such as Zilog, Xerox, and Intel.
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Aaron Benway is a Vice President focused on growth-stage investments and small leveraged buyouts in the U.S. telecommunications, media, technology and business services sectors. He is based in Washington, DC.

Prior to joining Carlyle, Aaron was an Associate in the private equity group at Deutsche Bank. Previously, he was an officer in the U.S. Navy, first as a Nuclear Engineer aboard the USS California and then as a Staff Officer within the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Mr. Benway received his undergraduate degree in electrical engineering from the U.S. Naval Academy and his M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.
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Ed Fries joined Microsoft in 1986, and spent the next ten years as one of the founding developers of both Excel and Word. For the next eight years, he helped to define the new era of interactive entertainment and created Microsoft Game Studios in the process. In 2004, Fries retired as a Microsoft vice president to focus on serving as a board member, advisor and consultant to a broad range of technology, entertainment, and media companies. In 2007 Fries launched his own startup, FigurePrints, an innovative company that uses 3-D color printing technology to bring video game characters to life. He holds a BS in Computer Science from New Mexico Tech.

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