SLP SV Speakers for Nov 4: Obopay and Venrock

Speakers:

Carol Realini, Founder, Chairman & CEO, Obopay

In 2005, Carol Realini founded Obopay to meet the nascent need for an industry leader in mobile payments, raising capital from leading VCs and strategic investors including AllianceBernstein, Essar Telecom, Nokia, ONSET Ventures, Qualcomm, Redpoint Ventures and Wolfensohn. Today, Obopay — through partnerships with financial institutions such as Citi and MasterCard and mobile carriers — is using mobile phones to deliver financial services that empower people’s life and work. Committed to making an impact on financial inclusion in the developing world, Carol established the Grameen-Obopay Bank A Billion Initiative, a first-of-its-kind alliance to use mobile technology to deliver banking services to a billion of the world’s poorest people by 2018.

Prior to launching Obopay, Carol was chairman and CEO of Chordiant Software, developer of one-to-one marketing and customer interaction software. During her tenure, Carol raised played a key leadership role in the origination, development and successful IPO of the company. Before her success at Chordiant, Carol was CEO and president of J. Frank Consulting. As CEO/President, Carol Realini guided the Company through significant growth, eventually orchestrating the firm’s sale. As Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Legato Systems, Carol launched the company's first series of products and established key strategic business relationships. Carol also served as Director of Product Marketing at Ingres Corporation, where she was responsible for product strategy, planning and marketing. Carol began her career with Amdahl Corporation (now Fujitsu) a supplier of hardware, software, and operational consulting throughout the world, where she developed new operating system software and worked with Amdahl’s largest clients to further implementation of the software.

In 2009, she was a keynote speaker at the Nokia World Conference. In 2008, Carol was named one of the 50 Top Women in Technology by Corporate Board Member magazine. In 2007, Obopay was awarded the Fierce Wireless Fierce 15 Award, bestowed on the "most innovative private companies set to take the industry to another level." In 2000, McGraw Hill recognized her as one of the Top 100 Women in Computing.

Carol holds a B.A with Honors in Mathematics from the University of California and a Masters of Science in Computer Science from California State University. Additionally, Carol successfully completed the Executive Management Program at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business.



Sean O’Malley, Venrock

Sean is responsible for Quarry, Venrock’s incubator. He joined the Quarry in 2007 from Yahoo!. His product leadership at Yahoo! ranged from Director of Products on Messenger to Director of International Product Operations covering all of Yahoo! Products around the globe. Prior to Yahoo!, Sean served in product roles for various start-ups like Sylantro Systems, a telecom software company, and Pandesic, an internet company spin-off of Intel and SAP. He holds a B.A. in Quantitative Economics from Stanford University and an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Venrock was founded in 1969 as the venture capital arm of the Rockefeller Family and has $2.2 billion under management.Venrock provides funding and services for entrepreneurs with breakthrough ideas in technology, healthcare, media and energy.
Venrock's entrepreneurs have charted new advancements in cancer and HIV treatments, powered semiconductors and the digital era, secured our information technology infrastructure, pioneered on-line advertising, delighted consumers and most recently, generating power through alternative means. Venrock's 24 professionals currently back 122 ventures out of offices in Palo Alto, New York City, Cambridge, and Israel.

In attendance:



Irv Henderson, VP, Connected Life, Yahoo!

Irv Henderson is vice president of product development for Yahoo! Mobile, leading the global product strategy and development for the company’s mobile services. lrv and his team create revolutionary experiences specifically designed for the mobile phone, to extend Yahoo!’s leadership worldwide. lrv joined Yahoo! in 2004 and led product development teams in the global distribution of mobile communications products, including Mail and Messenger. During his tenure, he has co-invented the technology behind eight patent applications in mobile messaging and mobile web browsing. Prior to his current role at Yahoo!, lrv was vice president of product development at Obopay where he led the development of mobile payment applications and platforms for distribution through financial insitutions and wireless carriers. lrv also served as the director of product management at Infospace Mobile where he led product development for messaging and browsing applications. lrv earned a BA. in physics and economics from Whittier College and an MBA from Cornell University.