Board Members
- Bill Clifford, Chairman
- William Turner, Director
- Eugene Chinal, Director
- Steve Cone, Director
- Joseph Farrelly, Director
- Gary Kline, Director
- Paula Schmitz Ph.D., J.D., M.B.A., C.F.A.
- Secretary to the Board of Directors and General Counsel
William Turner, Director. Managing Director of Signature Capital, a venture capital firm that he co-founded in 1997 and an affiliate of the Placement Agent. From 1983 to 1989, Mr. Turner served as President, Chief Operating Officer and a Director of Automatic Data Processing (ADP - NYSE), a computerized transaction processing, data communication and information services firm with 1989 annual revenues of over $2 billion. In 1989, Mr. Turner formed Turner and Partners, a management services firm, specializing in the management of leveraged buy outs. For one client, Forstmann Little, he served as Chairman and/or Chief Executive Officer for over thirty separate business units with combined annual sales of over $2.5 billion. From 1979 to 1983, he served as the President of Texas Instruments’ Consumer Products Division. Earlier in his career, he held systems engineering, marketing and senior management positions at Sylvania Electronics and Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC). He has served on the Board of Directors of the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (Freddie Mac - NYSE) since 1990 and currently serves on the boards of several private venture capital companies including Acoustic Technologies, NetNumber, ZOUNDS, Tango Networks, Helium, OurStage and VIRxSYS Corporation.
Eugene Chinal, Director. For the past 34 years, Mr. Chinal has been the Chairman and Managing Director of the Chinal Consulting Group, which incorporates The Harry Mitchell College as the Company’s Training Division. Operating in 84 countries, the Chinal Consulting Group is recognized as leaders in assisting organizations to achieve their strategic goals through the implementation of operational systems and techniques of continuous improvement to Create Competitive Advantage. Mr. Chinal advises Governments and Public Bodies on issues of Performance and Continuous Improvement, Cost Reduction, Operational Efficiency, Organization Development and Leadership skills around the world. Mr. Chinal has worked with a number of eminent personalities such as Dr W. Edwards Deming, Sir John Harvey-Jones and Sir Michael Edwardes. Chinal Consulting Group’s clients include American Express, Ford, GM, Rolls Royce, GE, Unilever, Siemens, BMW Group, City Bank, Nissan, Bentley Cars, DHL, Robert Bosch, BP, Exxon, Kuwait Petroleum, IKEA, and Al Raji Bank, Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, Airbus and Nokia.
Steve Cone, Director. Former Managing Director, Advertising & Brand Management, at Citigroup Global Wealth Management, inclusive The Citigroup Private Bank, Citigroup/Smith Barney and Citigroup Investment Research. In this position, Mr. Cone coordinated brand management for all of Citigroup's businesses in more than 100 countries, encompassing 200 million customers. Prior to joining Citigroup, Mr. Cone was president of Fidelity's retail business and Fidelity's Chief Marketing Officer. Mr. Cone’s 30-year expertise has earned a reputation for innovative marketing, with stops along the way at Key Corp, an earlier stint at Citibank and seven years at American Express managing their branding strategy worldwide. Mr. Cone’s first book was published by Bloomberg Press in 2005, entitled Steal These Ideas: Marketing Secrets That Will Make You A Star! It has been distributed in fifteen languages and was the #1 Marketing Book in America in the winter of 2005/2006. Mr. Cone graduated magna cum laude from Coe College with a degree in English literature.
Joseph Farrelly, Director. Mr. Farrelly brings over 25 years of experience as a senior IT executive. He is presently the Senior Vice President, Chief Information Officer at Interpublic Group of Companies, Inc. Interpublic Group is a global provider of advertising and marketing services. He has held the position of Executive Vice President and Chief Information Officer at Aventis, Vivendi Universal, Joseph E. Seagrams and Sons, and Nabisco. Mr. Farrelly’s experience covers the Advertising, Pharmaceutical, Consumer Products, Entertainment, Financial Services and Software Industries. Mr. Farrelly also had extensive experience as a senior IT executive at Automatic Data Processing (ADP). Mr. Farrelly is a member of the Boards of Directors of NetNumber, Helium and Tango Networks.
Paula Schmitz Ph.D., J.D., M.B.A., C.F.A. - Secretary to the Board of Directors and General Counsel. Dr. Schmitz has extensive experience in technology based companies, handling a variety of legal issues including patents and other intellectual property rights, as well as health care and technology licensing. Dr. Schmitz has worked in both large law firms and as inside general counsel to technology companies in biotechnology, software, hardware, internet, medical device, wireless communications and healthcare. In addition to her legal background, Dr. Schmitz has an extensive professional background in corporate finance, is a Chartered Financial Analyst (C.F.A.) and an arbitrator for the N.A.S.D. Dr. Schmitz earned a law degree from The University of Texas at Austin, following her completion of a Ph.D. in finance, as well as a M.B.A., also from The University of Texas at Austin. Dr. Schmitz earned her undergraduate degree from Davidson College.