Leadership
AbsolutelyNew is led by a group of accomplished advisors, an experienced management team and committed board members.
Advisors
Jon Dudas
FIRST, President
Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property
Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office
Staff Director and Deputy General Counsel for the House Committee on the Judiciary
Jon’s distinguished career includes significant contributions to the field of Intellectual Property on behalf of inventors. From 2004-2009, Jon served as the Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office. He was appointed to this position by the President of the United States.
As Director of the USPTO, Jon was responsible for administering the laws and regulations related to granting patents and trademarks, and the day-to-day management of the agency's $1.7 billion budget and over 8,000 employees. Previously, as Staff Director and Deputy General Counsel for the House Committee on the Judiciary, he guided enactment of major patent, trademark and copyright policy, including the last major legislation regarding U.S. intellectual property, the American Inventors Protection Act of 1999.
In June of 2010, Jon became President of FIRST, a not-for-profit organization (founded by prolific inventor Dean Kamen), that inspires students and professionals in engineering and technology fields, with the long-term aim of increasing the competitiveness of the United States in the global economy.
Myra Hart
Staples, Founder
Harvard Business School, Professor (retired)
Kraft and Office Depot, Board of Directors Member
Myra is a retired professor of management at Harvard Business School, where she received her PhD and taught for 10 years. She is also a founder of Staples, and a member of the corporate Boards of Directors of Kraft and Office Depot. In addition, Myra is a member of The Diana Group, a research team that collaborates in the investigation of the unique challenges and opportunities of female entrepreneurs. She has also co-authored several books, articles and papers.
Mark Copman
3M, Vice President for Corporate Development and Mergers and Acquisitions
Mark brings to AbsolutelyNew more than 25 years of business and leadership experience. He has been a business development executive at 3M since 2003, now as its VP for Corporate Development and Mergers and Acquisitions. Before 3M, he was a Managing Director in Piper Jaffray’s investment banking unit, where he worked from 1990 to 2003. Mark also served as a U.S. Navy officer from 1981 to 1988. He received BS degrees in Mechanical Engineering and Political Science from MIT, and a MBA from Harvard Business School.
Ray Brown
Sears and Kmart, Former Vice President
Ray has over two decades of experience in general management, merchandising, retail marketing and global sourcing. His tenure at Sears Roebuck & Co. and Kmart Holdings included P&L accountability, merchandising, sourcing and retail marketing responsibilities in Home Electronics/Home Entertainment/Home Office. As Sears VP of Retail Marketing, he led a team that launched Lands' End into Sears’ full-line stores.
Ajit Shah
Entrepreneur & Venture Capitalist
Ajit has more than 20 years of experience as an entrepreneur, operating executive and venture capitalist. He co-founded and served as an executive in six companies spanning personal computing hardware, software, medical devices and the Internet. He has almost a decade of VC experience between Worldview Technology Partners and Sierra Ventures. Ajit holds multiple engineering degrees and a joint Ph.D. in Bioengineering from The University of California at San Francisco’s School of Medicine and The University of California at Berkeley’s College of Engineering.
Management
Richard Donat
Chief Executive Officer
Richard has 20 years of international and domestic business development, sales and operational experience for both start-up and global Fortune 500 companies. Prior to joining AbsolutelyNew, Richard was VP of Sales & Business Development at Trinity Learning Corporation, a publicly held global learning company that provides advanced learning solutions for corporations, organizations and individuals. His career also includes working at Apple Computer, USL Capital (formerly U.S. Leasing, a subsidiary of Ford Financial Services), The Mortgage Acquisition Company, and Donaldson, Lufkin and Jenrette Securities Corp. Richard holds a Bachelor degree in Physics from The University of California at Berkeley.
Joe O'Neill
Chief Financial Officer
Joe O’Neill joined AbsolutelyNew in September 2009, bringing more than 25 years of corporate financial expertise to the company. His extensive experience includes serving as CFO at smoothie chain Jamba Juice, where he is best known for playing a hands-on role creating and implementing a financial strategy that enabled a 42% increase in the chain’s number of stores nationwide, from 2001-2005. Earlier, he served as executive vice president and CFO of Color Spot Nurseries and ABT Building Products, both companies in private-equity firm Kohlberg & Company’s portfolio.
Bill Feroe
Executive Vice President of Product Development
Bill has more than 25 years of successful retail experience in the areas of buying, planning, product development and sourcing, for mass, department and specialty retailers. Prior to joining AbsolutelyNew, Bill was the Executive VP of Merchandising & Product Development at The Sharper Image, where he worked for ten years and helped the company triple its revenues. He has also held merchandising positions at Williams-Sonoma, Target, Dillards and Mervyn’s.
Tom Krysiak
Senior Vice President of Operations
Tom has more than 20 years of experience in international product sourcing & purchasing, logistics and operations. Prior to joining AbsolutelyNew, Tom was Senior VP of Manufacturing & Quality at The Sharper Image, where he worked for ten years. In this role, he delivered more than 200 proprietary products with gross margins exceeding $1 Billion. He also has extensive packaged goods experience from years in Colgate-Palmolive manufacturing.
Bill Freund
Vice President of Marketing & Business Development
Prior to joining AbsolutelyNew, Bill was the General Manager of a successful marketing company, and VP of Marketing & Business Development at several successful Internet start-ups (sold for over $100 million). He has also worked in marketing at AOL, Microsoft and Lotus. In his spare time, he enjoys inventing and launching his own inventions, which have received national recognition and sold in dozens of countries. Bill earned his MBA from Harvard Business School, and was recently elected to the Board of Directors of the United Inventors Association, a non-profit dedicated to inventor education and support.
Henry Lo
Vice President of Corporate Development
Henry Lo brings more than 20 years of industry experience leading financial organizations at a number of public and private technology companies. He has played major roles in raising equity and debt capital for launch and expansion and has demonstrated accomplishments in scaling growth businesses. Prior to joining AbsolutelyNew, Henry was instrumental in completing a private placement for Friendlyway and completed the company’s merger and its ultimate sale. Henry was CFO at Planet Intra Software where he was instrumental in raising $15M in venture capital financing and scaling the company’s business during a dramatic growth period. Prior to Planet Intra, he held CFO positions at Versata Software and SyQuest Technology. He is also a Certified Public Accountant.
Greg Waples
Vice President of Retail Sales
Greg has more than 20 years of experience in sales, strategic planning and marketing. Before joining AbsolutelyNew, he served as Senior VP of Global Sales at Jarden Corporation, a $6 billion company. His extensive retail sales background also includes leadership positions at Procter & Gamble, Mead Corporation, Polaroid and Day Runner, Inc.
Phillip Levers
Vice President of Science+Technology Division
Phillip is a serial entrepreneur with more than 15 years experience guiding new technologies and platforms to profit, often by marrying new IP with existing product lines manufacturers wish to strengthen. Phil spent nine years as a principal in a firm launching Silicon Valley innovations into Asia. His marketing and business development successes include the licensing of compression software to Pioneer, the licensing of cryogenic technology to Japanese manufacturers, and the sale of many U.S. products into Japan and Japanese products into the U.S. via companies including Toshiba Semiconductor, Sony, Yamaha, NTT-Neomeit & NTT DoCoMo, and Kyocera.
Board of Directors
Amit Shah
Artiman Ventures, Managing Partner
Amit is a successful venture capitalist who oversees more than $400 million of investments. He is also an early investor in AbsolutelyNew. Prior to founding Artiman Ventures, he worked as VP of New Markets & Technologies for Cisco Systems’ Business Development & Alliances group. Prior to that, he founded and was CEO of several successful companies, one acquired by Cisco and another by Cabletron. He has taught numerous courses and seminars at The University of California at Berkeley and other forums in the U.S. and abroad. He holds a B.S.E.E. from a top university in India and has completed graduate work in the U.S.
MJ Aravind
Artiman Ventures, Partner
MJ has over 25 years of global operational experience with large, multinational corporations including Compaq, DEC and Xerox. Prior to joining Artiman Ventures, he was co-founder of one of India’s largest independent business processing organization (BPO) companies, which over four years he grew to more than 6,000 employees before selling to IBM for $170 million. Prior to that, MJ was Country Head for Compaq in India, where he was responsible for supply chain and manufacturing operations supporting a $200 million revenue stream.
Richard Donat
AbsolutelyNew, Chief Executive Officer
Richard has 20 years of international and domestic business development, sales and operational experience for both start-up and global Fortune 500 companies. Prior to joining AbsolutelyNew, Richard was VP of Sales & Business Development at Trinity Learning Corporation, a publicly held global learning company that provides advanced learning solutions for corporations, organizations and individuals. His career also includes working at Apple Computer, USL Capital (formerly U.S. Leasing, a subsidiary of Ford Financial Services), The Mortgage Acquisition Company, and Donaldson, Lufkin and Jenrette Securities Corp. Richard holds a Bachelor degree in Physics from The University of California at Berkeley.