| Dr. Zvi Schreiber, Founder & CEO, has many years of
experience as a software innovator and executive in the
US, UK and Israel. Most recently he was the Founder and
CEO, then CTO of Tradeum Inc., which pioneered the concept
of business-to-business exchanges, creating a generic software
platform for dynamic trading of direct goods - some months
before the term "B2B" was invented. Schreiber
founded Tradeum in October 1998, and in March 2000 sold
the company to VerticalNet Inc. for $500 million, and renamed
it VerticalNet Solutions. It was chosen shortly afterwards
as the platform for the Converge consortium of high-tech
companies (including HP, Compaq & NEC) in a deal worth $115
million.
Prior to Tradeum, Schreiber was the Founding Partner of
a successful consulting business advising high technology
firms and venture capital funds. This followed a number
of years implementing and selling OEM implementations of
complex communication protocols at Data Connection Limited
and supporting customers including IBM, HP & Alcatel. There,
Schreiber founded a business unit in safety critical software,
servicing clients such as the General Electrical Company
and British Rail. Schreiber earned a Ph.D. in Theoretical
Computer Science and an M.Sc. with Distinction in Theoretical
Physics from Imperial College of Science, London and an
M.A. in Pure Mathematics with First Class Honors from the
University of Cambridge.
Schreiber is a frequent speaker at major industry events,
including ED Venture's PC Forum, the Wilshire Meta-Data
Conference & DAMA (Data Management Association International)
Symposium, the Wilshire Enterprise Data Forum (EDF), TTI/Vanguard,
and the IRM UK Data Management and Information Quality Conferences
Europe, among others.
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Rannen Meir, Co-Founder & VP Product Development, has
over a decade of experience in both senior managerial and
technical positions at leading high technology companies.
As the visionary behind AccessGear, a division of NDS
Technologies (NASDAQ:NNDS), Meir pioneered solutions
for the next generation of security and data management
in e-commerce taking operational responsibility for all
aspects of the venture. Previously, Meir served as VP R&D
for Pegasus Medical Inc. up to its sale to HBOC Inc., with
overall responsibility for product management and product
development comprising inter-disciplinary teams including
software engineers and physicians. Prior thereto, Meir was
a senior software engineer at QX Israel supporting customers
such as NEC and for a period, representing the company in
its Japan office. Meir earned an M.Sc. in Artificial Intelligence
and a B.Sc. in Computer Science, both with Distinction,
at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.
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Victor Ofstein, VP Professional Services, has
many years of experience within the field of enterprise
applications and solutions delivery. Formerly with Andersen
Consulting (now Accenture)
and later Amdocs
(NYSE:DOX), Ofstein managed the design, implementation and
data integration of large-scale information systems for
clients such as Vodafone, British Telecom, Seeboard, British
Gas, and Cedel Bank. Most recently, as Senior Director of
Product Development with VerticalNet Solutions (NASD:VERT),
Ofstein led the product delivery cycle of the first generation
of business-to-business infrastructure solutions, and their
subsequent deployment for clients, as industrial web-based
trading engines. One of these implementations, CATEX 2000®,
currently has over 170 subscribers trading from 80 cities
worldwide, with on-line transactions totaling over $3bn
of reinsurance coverage and over $400 million of cash premium
throughput. It also won Forbes' 'Best of the Web 2000' award
within the Financial Services category. In addition to professional
training, Ofstein earned a B.A. with Honors from University
College, London.
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Jonathan Beller, CPA, Director of Finance, brings
12 years of experience in a broad range of industries in
financial control and management. Prior to joining Unicorn,
Beller served as CFO of JVP,
a leading Israeli Venture Capital Group, where he reported
to investors and internal management, worked with portfolio
companies on their systems and processes, managed rounds
of financing in portfolio companies, managed the fund-raising
process for JVP itself, and was involved in the due diligence
process prior to investing in target companies. Prior to
JVP, Beller served as a senior finance officer for three
companies in a range of industries in the UK and Israel.
Beller gained his CPA qualification at BDO Stoy Hayward
in London where he acted as auditor to tens of companies
in various industry sectors. He also gained experience in
corporate and individual tax, insolvency and corporate finance.
Beller earned a B.A. in Economics and Accounting from Manchester
University.
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BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Yoni Hashkes, Managing Partner,
Jerusalem Global Ventures (JGV) joined Unicorn’s Board
of Directors in September 2001. Hashkes brings over 20 years
of experience in hi-tech companies, and is a well-known
entrepreneur on the Israeli hi-tech scene. As a Managing
Partner at JGV, a leading Israel-based Venture Capital firm.
He has spearheaded the development of many hi-tech start-ups
and served as a consultant to startups such as Mercado software
and E-Color, assisting them in bridging technology with
marketing and business strategies. Yoni previously held
an executive position at
Magic Software Enterprises Ltd. (NASDAQ: MGIC), where
he founded the Magic family of 4GL development tools. He
is also one of the founders of
NDS (NASDAQ: NNDS), a subsidiary of News Corporation,
the world leader in digital TV infrastructure. Yoni holds
a M.Sc. in Computer Science and a B.Sc. in Mathematics and
Computer Science from Bar-Ilan University in Israel. He
served in the Israel Air Force R&D division.
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Al Aguirre joined Unicorn's Board of Directors in
March 2003, having previously served on Unicorn's Advisory
Board since early 2001. Al was previously the CFO of QuantumShift,
overseeing the health and growth of this company. He was
formerly the Chief Financial Officer at Tradeum Inc., and
previous to that a Managing Director for E.M. Warburg Pincus
& Co., LLC, where he generated deal flow, executed investments,
and guided the management teams of portfolio companies in
Latin America. Prior to this, he served as Chief Financial
Officer for a Warburg Pincus portfolio company, directing
it through a successful IPO and subsequent Senior Notes
offering of almost $200 million. Aguirre has been an investment
banker at Morgan Stanley & Co., Inc. and a corporate finance
attorney at Sullivan & Cromwell.
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Zev Laderman joined Unicorn's Board of Directors
in February 2003, having previously served on Unicorn's
Advisory Board since early 2001. Laderman possesses a breadth
of business strategy expertise, with experiences as both
an entrepreneur and a global business leader. Prior to assuming
the role of President and CEO of VerticalNet Solutions,
Laderman served as Chief Executive Officer for Tradeum,
a commerce software provider for business-to-business digital
marketplaces. As Vice President of Oracle's Industrial Sector
global business unit, he helped lead Oracle's transformation
from a horizontal enterprise application vendor to a strategic
vertical solution provider for global clients such as GM,
Honda, Motorola and GE. Laderman also established sales
and service organizations and solutions competency centers,
as well as Oracle's first pan-European sales, implementation
and service organization. Laderman has an LLB and LLM degree
in law. He also holds an MBA from the Stanford University
Graduate School of Business.
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ADVISORY BOARD
Bobby Lent joined Unicorn's Advisory Board in August
2001. Lent founded and currently leads XLLents, a venture
capital firm focused on the B2B Internet. Prior to that,
Lent was Co-Founder and Senior Vice President, Strategic
Development of Ariba.
He led Ariba's corporate development activities and was
instrumental in defining Ariba's mergers and acquisitions
strategy. As a co-founder of Ariba, he took the company
from concept to B2B market leadership. In addition, his
early market vision defined and greatly contributed to the
development of the booming B2B category. Prior to co-founding
Ariba, Mr. Lent was Vice President of Marketing for Inmac,
an international supplier of networking and computing equipment
to Fortune 1000 enterprises. Mr. Lent managed Inmac's marketing,
sales, and inventory management operations. Prior to that,
he held senior product-marketing positions at Quantum and
Softbridge Microsystems. Bobby received his undergraduate
education at U.C. Berkeley, his M.B.A. from Harvard Business
School, and is also a CPA.
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TECHNICAL ADVISORY BOARD
Dr. David Schwartz, joined Unicorn's technical advisory
board in May 2001. Currently, Schwartz heads the Information
Technology division of the Bar-Ilan
University Graduate School of Business and is a partner
at leading venture capital firm Apropos. A noted authority
on Distributed Artificial Intelligence, Logic Programming
and Intelligent Agent Architectures, Schwartz has published
over 20 research papers and has authored two books on IT
and Knowledge Management. Schwartz is also the editor of
the internationally acclaimed Journal of Internet Research
and is Israel's leading computer science expert on Internet
business applications. Schwartz has over 15 years of hands-on
experience as a software engineer, systems analyst, VP marketing,
and technology investment analyst and has worked extensively
with a number of Israeli venture capital firms including
the Etgar (Challenge) Fund, Oscar Gruss & Son, and Dovrat-Shrem
Polaris. He currently serves as a director of two companies
listed on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, Cham Food Industries
Ltd. and C.I. Systems Ltd. Schwartz received his Ph.D. in
Computer Science from Case Western Reserve University, MBA
from McMaster University, Canada, and B.Sc. in Computer
Science from the University of Toronto.
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