Event Archives

Maddy Dychtwald, Co-Founder, Age Wave
Date: Friday, October 11, 2019
Location: San Francisco

Maddy Dychtwald is an internationally recognized author, entrepreneur, business advisor, and thought leader on how longevity and the ascent of women are transforming the marketplace, the workplace, the retirement scape, and how we do business. Since co-founding Age Wave more than 30 years ago, Maddy and her team have worked with more than half of the Fortune 500 in industries ranging from pharmaceuticals and medical technology to financial services and marketing.

Philippe Bouissou, Managing Partner, Blue Dots Partners
Date: Friday, October 04, 2019
Location: Santa Clara

Philippe Bouissou joined us to discuss his unique methodology to helping companies build sustainable revenue growth engines. During his 29 years in Silicon Valley, he has led over 120 management consulting projects and served on the board of 20 companies. As a venture capitalist, he successfully invested $43M and generated double-digit IRR. Philippe also founded the Worldwide Internet Commerce group at Apple, where he started and managed the store and grew it from zero to $350M. Prior to Apple, Philippe was the founder and CEO of G2i, Inc. a Unix software company that was acquired by Matra.

Dan Warmenhoven, Former CEO of NetApp
Date: Thursday, July 11, 2019
Location: Foster City

Dan Warmenhoven is the former CEO of NetApp and, under Dan‘s leadership, NetApp grew to become a multibillion-dollar company and a recognized market leader in networked storage, a concept the company pioneered. He led the company’s IPO in November 1995 and was named one of the “50 Most Powerful People in Networking” by Network World in 2006.  Dan also received the Morgan Stanley Leadership Award for Global Commerce and won the prestigious “National Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year” award in 2004. He is a Director of Bechtel Group, Cohesity and Palo Alto Networks and also on the Board of the Tech Museum of Innovation.

Alliance Voices, East Bay Alliance Members Share Business and Life Stories
Date: Friday, June 21, 2019
Location: San Ramon

At our June 21st East Bay Regional Meeting, in the spirit of sharing the awesome collective wisdom of our Alliance community, we were treated to outstanding examples of the extraordinary wisdom and experience of our community of Alliance members as four members presented their “Alliance Voices": Evan Bailyn, CEO of First Page Sage; Augusto Cavalcanti, CEO of Daitan Group; Ed Fahey of RINA Accountancy; and Gabriel Fairman, CEO of Bureau Works.

Ann Winblad, Founding Partner, Hummer Winblad Venture Partners
Date: Friday, June 14, 2019
Location: San Francisco

Ann Winblad is a Founding Partner of Hummer Winblad Venture Partners, a venture capital firm she co-founded in 1989. She is a well-known and respected software industry entrepreneur and technology leader. Her background and years of experience in the software industry have been chronicled in many national and international business publications. 

John Chambers, Former CEO & Chairman Emeritus of Cisco
Date: Friday, June 07, 2019
Location: Santa Clara

We were excited to welcome John Chambers, retired CEO of Cisco, back to the Alliance of Chief Executives.  In 2016, John spoke with us shortly after retiring from his brilliant career growing Cisco from $70 million, when he joined in 1991, to $47 billion, when he retired in 2015!   John was voted one of the best performing CEOs in the world by the Harvard Business Review in 2014.  We look forward to discussing John’s new book Connecting the Dots: Lessons for Leadership in a Startup World along with his vision for the future.

Craig Goehring, Executive Chairman, Brown and Caldwell
Date: Friday, February 15, 2019
Location: San Ramon

We were pleased to have Alliance member Craig Goehring, Executive Chairman of Brown and Caldwell, join us for this Regional Alliance meeting to discuss his lessons learned from a very successful career in environmental engineering, consulting, design and construction.  Craig started with Brown and Caldwell in 1977 and progressed through various technical and management roles. He was appointed CEO in 1995 and named Executive Chairman in 2018.

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Alfred Chuang, Co-Founder, BEA Systems & Magnet Systems
Date: Friday, February 08, 2019
Location: San Francisco

Alfred Chuang, who founded BEA Systems in early 1995 with Bill Coleman and Ed Scott, had managed just about every aspect of BEA by the time he became CEO in October 2001. Alfred served in that capacity until BEA was purchased by Oracle in April 2008.  Chuang is currently the CEO of Magnet Systems, a company he founded in 2008 to power the next generation of mobile applications with an open architecture to enable businesses and developers to create more engaging and productive enterprise-class mobile applications.

Geoffrey Moore, Managing Director, Geoffrey Moore Consulting
Date: Friday, February 01, 2019
Location: Santa Clara

Geoffrey Moore is an author, speaker, and advisor who splits his consulting time between start-up companies in the Mohr Davidow and Wildcat Venture Partners portfolios and established high-tech enterprises, most recently including Salesforce, Microsoft, Autodesk, F5Networks, Gainsight, Google, and Splunk.  Moore’s life’s work has focused on the market dynamics surrounding disruptive innovations. His first book, Crossing the Chasm, focuses on the challenges start-up companies face transitioning from early adopting to mainstream customers. It has sold more than a million copies, and its third edition has been revised such that the majority of its examples and case studies reference companies come to prominence from the past decade. Moore’s most recent work, Zone to Win, addresses the challenge large enterprises face when embracing disruptive innovations, even when it is in their best interests to do so. It’s time to stop explaining why they don’t and start explaining how they can. This has been the basis of much of his recent consulting.

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Scott McNealy, Chairman, Wayin
Date: Thursday, November 08, 2018
Location: Foster City

We were honored to welcome Scott McNealy to the Alliance of Chief Executives.  Scott, who did not have a technical background when he co-founded Sun Microsystems in 1982, served as the CEO of Sun through the 1980s and 1990s.  Oracle purchased Sun Microsystems in 2010 for $7.4 billion, and since then, McNealy has invested in and advised a number of technology companies from his home-base in Silicon Valley.  He is currently the CEO of Wayin, a social intelligence company that integrates social content into new experiences for consumers and delivers greater value and control for brands, that he co-founded in 2010.  

Patrick Renvoise, Co-Founder, SalesBrain
Date: Friday, October 19, 2018
Location: San Ramon

Patrick Renvoise co-founded SalesBrain in 2002 and served as Chief Persuasion Officer. SalesBrain, the world’s first neuromarketing agency, uses neuroscience discoveries to radically transform sales and marketing performance by targeting the decision making part of a customer’s brain: their primal, unconscious brain. He has three passions in life: the science of persuasion, marketing and the human brain. Prior to starting SalesBrain, Patrick marketed complex, multi-million super-computers first with Silicon Graphics then with LinuxCare. After two years of research, he developed the first 100% science-based persuasion model NeuroMAP™. This unique, scientific yet easy to apply persuasion model was first published in Patrick’s book NeuroMarketing: Understanding the Buy Buttons in Your Customers’ Brain. Patrick’s second book: The Persuasion Code: How NeuroMarketing can help you Persuade Anyone, Anywhere, Anytime was published in September 2018.

Benno Dorer, Chairman & CEO, The Clorox Company
Date: Friday, October 12, 2018
Location: San Francisco

Benno Dorer is the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of The Clorox Company. Benno joined Clorox in 2005 as vice president and general manager, Glad® Products.  Before joining Clorox, Benno worked for 14 years at Procter & Gamble in various marketing positions across a range of categories and countries, including laundry, home care, beauty care and paper products, in the United States and worldwide.

Curt Carlson, Founder, The Practice of Innovation
Date: Friday, October 05, 2018
Location: Santa Clara

Prior to founding the Practice of Innovation, Curt Carlson was President and CEO of SRI International. During Curt's 16-year tenure at SRI, its revenue more than tripled and SRI became a global model for the systematic creation of high-value innovations. Carlson is widely sought as a speaker and thought leader on innovation and global competitiveness. He advises U.S. governors, prime ministers, economic ministers, and education ministers around the world on innovation, competitiveness, and educational reform. His book, written with William Wilmot, called Innovation: The Five Disciplines for Creating What Customers Want was selected by BusinessWeek as one of the top 10 business books for 2006.  Curt discusseed why innovative success is a strategic imperative and why most companies' initiatives likely have no value.

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Bracken Darrell, President & CEO, Logitech
Date: Thursday, July 12, 2018
Location: San Mateo

As president and chief executive officer of Logitech, Bracken Darrell is responsible for Logitech’s strategy for growth and profitability, for the vision for the brand as well as for the company’s operations. Bracken has more than twenty years of experience in business management and brand management in successful global consumer companies, including Whirlpool, Procter & Gamble and General Electric. His broad executive management experience has spanned manufacturing, supply chain, product innovation, consumer services and marketing – targeting customers in mature and emerging markets. He has led growth and reinvention for iconic brands such as Old Spice, Gillette, Braun, KitchenAid and Whirlpool.

Erin Mendez, President/CEO, Patelco Credit Union
Date: Friday, June 15, 2018
Location: San Ramon

We were pleased to have Alliance member Erin Mendez, President/CEO of Patelco Credit Union, join us for this Regional Alliance meeting to discuss her lessons learned from a very successful career in the financial services industry. Prior to joining Patelco, Erin served as executive vice president and chief operating officer at SchoolsFirst Federal Credit Union Santa Ana.  Erin was recently recognized as one of the Most Respected CEOs in the Bay Area by the San Francisco Business Times.

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Jes Pedersen, CEO, Webcor Builders
Date: Friday, June 08, 2018
Location: San Francisco

We were pleased to have Alliance member Jes Pedersen, CEO of Webcor, join us for this Regional Alliance meeting to discuss his lessons learned from a very successful career in the construction industry.  Jes joined Webcor in 2000 and was named CEO in 2012.  While with Webcor, he has overseen the construction of the Foundry Square office buildings at First and Howard Streets, as well as one of the most complex projects ever built in San Francisco, the $500 million California Academy of Sciences, a combination of an aquarium, research institute, planetarium and science museum. Pedersen spearheaded Webcor’s transition from a company focused entirely on private development to a diversified contractor with robust public, private and infrastructure divisions. Jes was recently recognized as one of the Most Respected CEOs in the Bay Area by the San Francisco Business Times.

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Alliance Voices, South Bay Alliance Members Share Business and Life Stories
Date: Friday, June 01, 2018
Location: Santa Clara

At our June 1st South Bay Alliance Regional Meeting, in the spirit of sharing the awesome collective wisdom of our Alliance community, we were excited to have four of our Alliance members share their “Alliance Voices” presentations about topics of interest and value. We heard from Alliance members Will Anderson, CEO of Complete Solar; Victor Chapela, CEO of Suggestic; Gary Gysin, CEO of Liquid Robotics; and Navin Nagiah of Sierra Ventures.

Alliance Voices, South Bay Alliance Leaders Share Business and Life Stories
Date: Friday, March 02, 2018
Location: Santa Clara

The collective wisdom within the Alliance community of members is truly extraordinary. This was clearly evident at our March 2, 2018 South Bay Regional meeting when we were treated to the business and life “Alliance Voices” presentations of Alliance members Bill Barhydt of ABRA ("The New World of Crypto Currency"), John De Santis of HyTrust (true stories of two company exists, and a difficult personal journey), John Paul of VenueNext ("Virtual Currency - Changing the Sports Season Ticket Experience"), and Christy Wyatt of Dtex Systems ("Landing the Plane").

Cara Hale Alter, Founder & President, SpeechSkills
Date: Friday, February 09, 2018
Location: San Francisco

As Founder and President of SpeechSkills, Cara Hale Alter has provided training to some of the world’s best-known companies, including Allstate, Caterpillar, Google, Intel, PayPal, Pixar, Pinterest, Salesforce, Schwab and Wells Fargo. Cara has also been a guest lecturer at UC Berkeley, Harvard University, Stanford University, and the Hastings College of Law. She is a frequent media resource, with appearances in Forbes.com, The Globe and Mail, USA Today, and countless other media outlets. In addition to penning The Credibility Code: How to Project Confidence and Competence When It Matters Most, Cara has produced award-winning educational videos on public speaking and managing nervousness.

Alliance Voices, East Bay Alliance Leaders Share Business and Life Stories
Date: Friday, November 17, 2017
Location: San Ramon

At our November 17, 2017 East Bay Regional Meeting, we were treated to outstanding examples of the extraordinary wisdom and experience of our community of Alliance members as three members presented their “Alliance Voices." Chris Burnley of Corefact talked about "Direct Marketing in the Age of Social Media" as we learn how an integrated omni-channel marketing strategy generates superior results. Jason Petralia of Raizlabs discussed a team-based approach to company management in his talk on "In Team We Trust." Rachel Haurwitz of Caribou Biosciences discussed how the CRISPR gene editing technology is changing the future of healthcare and food, “CRISPR: Hacking the Genome.”