Howard Behar - Advisor to CEO

Howard Behar is former president of Starbucks Coffee Company International and the author of It's Not About The Coffee: Leadership Principles from a Life at Starbucks. He joined Starbucks in 1989 when the company had just begun to venture outside the Northwest region. Initially serving as vice president of sales and operations, he grew the retail business from 28 stores to more than 400 stores by the time he was named president of Starbucks Coffee International in 1995.

Under Howard's leadership, Starbucks opened its first location in Tokyo in 1996. Following this historic opening, over the next three years he introduced the Starbucks brand across Asia and the United Kingdom. After a two-year hiatus, he returned to Starbucks as President of Starbucks North America until his retirement in January 2003. He was a director of the Company from 1996 to 2008.

He has been a Director of The Gap Inc., since May 29, 2003 and is a Member of the Compensation, Management Development, Governance, Nominating and Social Responsibility Committees. He has been a Director of Anna's Linen Co. since 2003. A frequent speaker on the topics of organizational and personal leadership, Howard serves on several profit and nonprofit boards, including Anna's Linens, The Gap, Inc., Jewish Family Service of Seattle, and the Washington State Budget and Policy Center, and he is sponsoring a joint educational initiative with the University of Washington School of Social Work and the Business School.

Mark Goines

Mark Goines is a seasoned Silicon Valley executive. His experience includes five years in retailing (Sam Goody and Circuit City), fourteen in consumer financial services (Wells Fargo and Charles Schwab), ten in software and online services (ChipSoft and Intuit), and ten working with new technology companies.

In retailing, Mark was Director of Marketing and ran consumer advertising, direct marketing, research and store location programs.

Mark was VP of Marketing at Wells Fargo (then Crocker Bank) where he built a network of consumer lending centers. As VP of New Products at Schwab, he developed and marketed early stage software and other electronic services that formed the foundation of today's online trading industry.

Mark joined ChipSoft in 1991 and managed its TurboTax business until its merger with Intuit in 1993, where his initial position was running Intuit's Consumer Tax Division. By 1995, he was SVP of Intuit's International Division and grew that business to over $100 million, managing businesses on every continent, creating new products, acquiring companies and building partnerships to expand distribution and reach. Mark then served as Senior Vice President and General Manager of the Consumer Division of Intuit including Quicken, Quicken.com, Quicken Insurance and Quicken Mortgage. In this role, he created relationships with most major financial institutions in the U.S. generating over $200 million in annual revenues serving 15 million customers across a broad range of software and e-commerce services.

Since 2000, Mark has focused on investing in technology companies. He was CEO and co-founder of VeraCarta (deal management, sold in 2009), co-founder and Chief Marketing Officer at PassMark Security (sold to RSA in 2006), and also serves on the board and as an investor in other companies in the sector: Credit Interlink (consumer credit data), Nolo.com (self help legal books, software, online), Quantal International (portfolio performance management), TrackVia (data base tools), Mint (consumer online financial management sold to Intuit in 2009), and Home-Account.com (helping consumers find the right mortgage).

He holds an M.B.A and a B.S. from the University of California at Berkeley. In his spare time, Mark also served as President of the Los Altos Educational Foundation and has been elected as a trustee of the Los Altos School Board supporting public education through his service in this leading K-8 school district.

Dr. Charles Stryker

Dr. Charles Stryker is the Founder and President of the Venture Development Center (VDC). Founded in 1992, VDC is the preeminent advisory firm assisting companies in the information services industry in all aspects of their strategy and business development activities. VDC has advised many of the traditional market leaders in the space including: Acxiom, Affinion, Catalina Marketing, First Data Corporation, Harte-Hanks, IAC, IBM, LexisNexis, Nielsen, Yahoo, Zagat Survey, and many other market leaders. In addition, VDC has been an active advisor for over 150 early stage firms that include many of the market leaders of tomorrow. A few of the recent VDC engagements have included BlueKai, Groupon, Jigsaw, Mint, Quova, and Zave Networks. The VDC success story is based on identifying new and powerful applications for data assets and marrying the product concept to solid revenue results utilizing both distribution experience and an extensive network of industry relationships.

In addition to his current professional activities, from 1991 to 1999, Dr. Stryker was a Lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania, Wharton School, where he taught in the Sol C. Snider Entrepreneurial Center. From 1986 to 1991, he served as a President of InfoUSA. Since 1992 he has also served on many Boards of Directors of both Public and Private companies including 24/7 Real Media, Greenfield OnLine, InfoGroup, Intelliquest, and Naviant.

Dr. Stryker has received the BS and MS degrees in Electrical Engineering and the Ph.D. in Computer Science from New York University.