Monthly Programs - May 13, 2008

Worcester Polytechnic Institute
Campus Center - Odeum Room

Doors open: 5:30 p.m.
Meeting: 6:30 - 9 p.m.
Cost: $15 members, $25 non-members
Pre-registration
Parking

Succeed with Your Start-up Team

Tom Crotty, Vic Odryna

Tom Crotty

The management team is critical to the success or failure of a start-up. But for first-time entrepreneurs, and even some seasoned veterans, building the team can be a daunting enterprise. How do you attract, identify and keep top talent? When should you add key positions, and when should you fire executives who aren’t working out? And how will your investors be evaluating you?

Our keynote speakers for the May 13 WPI Venture Forum meeting, Tom Crotty and Vic Odryna, will address these questions and more from the perspectives of an investor and an entrepreneur.

Vic Odryna

Tom Crotty is General Partner at Battery Ventures, a leading venture capital firm that focuses on technology investments. Crotty has extensive experience investing in communications and e-commerce companies. He has worked with dozens of entrepreneurs and their management teams in his more than 20 years in venture capital.

Vic Odryna is a serial entrepreneur who is co-Founder and CEO of ZeeVee, a start-up that is bridging the last fifty feet between home computers and HDTVs. Odryna was also Founder of PixelVision, a pioneer in flat-panel monitors, President & CEO of Inceptor, a search marketing company, and has been a key marketing executive at other companies. He will share his experiences building teams in his companies.

Case Presenter: LTSave, Inc., Sunil Bhatia

Sunil Bhatia

Our case for the evening is LT Save is a technology-enabled business services provider to employers, banks and bank platforms, affinity groups and membership organizations that provides retirement planning and investment management services to individuals for the management of their retirement assets. The case will be presented by Founder, Chairman and CEO Sunil Bhatia. Bhatia was also Founder of Asset Sciences, one of the first Internet-based investment advice companies.

Case Panelists

Ross Gibson

Ross Gibson will join Crotty and Odryna as a panelist reviewing the case. Gibson is currently Corporate Vice President, Human Resources - North America at Charles River Laboratories, a global company advancing the search for drugs from discovery through market approval. With almost 25 years of HR management experience, he has also held senior HR positions at American Superconductor, a leading supplier of power solutions, and Cambridge NeuroScience, a development stage biotechnology company.

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Last modified: Apr 25, 2008, 13:27 EDT