"Strategic Alliances, Partnerships, and Licensing"

Presentations

Note: Meeting at The Conference Center at the Bay Colony Corporate Center, 1100 Winter Street, Waltham, MA. PRE-MEETING DINNER at 5:15 PM (sharp) at Bertucci's, Waltham.  Directions.

Meeting Overview:

For today's entrepreneur - who faces high hurdles to funding, ever increasing competition, thin barriers to entry, and shortened cycles from invention - strategic alliances, partnerships and licensing have become a key survival technique. For the startup company, your strategic partner can be your first source of outside funding, the beta tester of your product or service, and source of credibility for your first angel or venture capital investment round. For the early stage company, alliance partners can help you to gain competitive advantages, increase sales, scale up production, penetrate new markets and deliver new products and services. Sounds good. Well, how do you do it? Our panel will consist of a Director of New Ventures and Alliances for a global company (IBM), a Director of Partner Programs for a startup which recently went public (Constant Contact), and the Director of Commercial Ventures & Intellectual Property for the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. Our distinguished panel members will also look into such important issues as: (a) the process of identifying possible partners and technology to license, drilling down to the best one and securing the relationship; (b) sharing experiences on what made partnerships and licensing successful, and what went wrong and why (c) discussing how these relationships can increase (or decrease) the company's valuation, and (d) risks involved and things to look for at each stage of the partnership or licensing relationship.

Panel:

Peter M. Anderson, Director, New Ventures and Alliances in the Contracts  Negotiations Group of IBM Corp.

Len Bruskiewitz, Director of Partner Programs at Constant Contact®, Inc.

Dr. Louis J. Petrovic, University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth

Moderator:

Michael S. Chester, Chairman of the IEEE Boston Entrepreneurs' Network and President, International Manufacturing Consultants

Panelists:

Peter M. Anderson is Director, New Ventures and Alliances in the Contracts & Negotiations Group of IBM Corp. Mr. Anderson manages a team that negotiates alliance and other strategic relationship agreements. His team also manages a Global Center of Excellence supporting acquisitions and divestitures. Prior to joining IBM, Mr. Anderson was Associate IP Counsel at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an associate in the New York and Washington, D.C. offices of Milbank, Tweed Hadley & McCloy, LLP. Mr. Anderson is a graduate of the State University of New York at Stony Brook with a degree in English and Mathematics. He received his J.D. from Brooklyn Law School and an LL.M. in International Trade Regulation from the New York University School of Law and is admitted to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, State of New York and District of Columbia Bars.

Len Bruskiewitz is the director of partner programs at Constant Contact®, Inc., a leading provider of email marketing and online surveys for small organizations. In this role, he leads the company's efforts to recruit and engage partners, ranging from local marketing agencies to national service providers such as Network Solutions, American Express and VistaPrint, who promote the company's products to their small business, association and non-profit customers. Prior to Constant Contact, Len held a variety of leadership roles at Intuit, including launching an award-winning Internet business (QuickBase), running UK operations, leading business development efforts for multiple groups and managing corporate financial planning. Len also was the director of business development at Pragmatech Software (now Kadient) and founded a consulting practice focused on high growth start-up companies which gave him direct experience in running a small business. Len holds a Bachelor of Science degree with concentrations in Finance & Economics from Boston College and a Master of Business Administration degree from the University of San Diego.

Dr. Louis J. Petrovic holds a BS from the Case Institute of Technology. He earned his MS and Ph.D. degrees in chemical engineering and MBA in business management from Northwestern University and Boston College respectively. Currently, he holds the positions of Director of the Advanced Technology & Manufacturing Center, the Assistant Vice Chancellor for Research Development, and the Director of Commercial Ventures & Intellectual Property for the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. Prior to this job, Dr. Petrovic was the Director of External Funding, Technology Transfer & Partnering at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. In this position, Dr. Petrovic was responsible for the administration of the Research Foundation, the management of a Commercial Venture Development Center (CVDC), and the activities of the commercial venture and intellectual property licensing function at this campus. The Research Foundation administered over $24 million in faculty research. Five companies were started based on university patents and the CVDC catalyzed over $120 million in investments in these companies.

Moderator:

Michael S. Chester, m.chester@ieee.org, Chairman of the IEEE Boston Entrepreneurs' Network, and President, International Manufacturing Consultants, has founded and built companies, set up manufacturing operations, formed strategic partnerships, set up global joint ventures, raised over $40M, and commercialized technologies. Mike was VP Business Development for startup Tonbu, which grew to 142 employees and developed web-based collaborative environments which enabled global electronics companies to speed up time to market. He spent 16 years with IBM designing robots and automation, marketing and selling IBM products to manufacturing companies, setting up global operations and supply chains, and founding an IBM consulting organization for manufacturing clients which he grew into a $20M business. Mike lived in China from 1986-1987 while consulting to companies owned by the Machine Building Ministry and taught graduate courses at Hunan University. Mike serves on the board of Rudilian BV, www.rudilian.com, which is setting up wireless payment and banking systems in China and is a partner and advisory board member of Massachusetts based BioHermes, www.biohermes.com, which forms partnerships between US based biotech startups and Chinese companies to develop medical devices and pharmaceuticals. Mike earned a BS in Electrical Engineering and MS in Computer Engineering from Syracuse University and a MBA from Union College.

Site and Cost:

5:15 PM Pre-meeting Dinner
Bertucci's Restaurant
475 Winter St., (exit 27B off Route 128), Waltham, MA ("pay-as-you-go")

7:00 - 10:00PM Meeting Presentation
The Conference Center at The Bay Colony Corporate Center, 1100 Winter Street, Waltham, MA

There is a $20.00 fee for nonmembers of ENET.