Board of Directors
Michael Borrus
Michael is the founding general partner of X/Seed Capital, a seed-focused early stage venture fund focused on breakthrough innovation. Prior to founding X/Seed, he was an Executive in Residence (EIR) at Mohr Davidow Ventures (MDV) in Silicon Valley. He is the author of three books and over 70 chapters, articles and monographs on a variety of topics including management of technology, high technology competition, international trade and investment, and financial strategies for technology companies. He is a frequent speaker before corporate and public audiences, and has appeared in numerous media outlets from CNN and NPR to Business Week and the New York Times. Michael serves on the Advisory Committee to the U.S. Government’s Advanced Technology Program (ATP), several National Academy of Science/National Research Council Steering Committees, the Board of Trustees of the National Center for Women and Information Technology, and is a Director of HMicro Inc. and Geniisis Agents (privately held companies). Michael is an honors graduate of Harvard Law School, the University of California, Berkeley and Princeton University. He is a member of the California State Bar.
Robert Chess Chairman
Rob currently serves as Chairman of Nektar Therapeutics, in addition to his work at OPX. Nektar Therapeutics is a publicly listed company (NASDAQ: NKTR) that develops improved pharmaceutical products using its innovative drug delivery platforms. Rob joined Nektar in 1991 as its first non-founder employee, and was the company’s CEO through 1999. Since 1999, he has served as Nektar’s Chairman and was also the acting CEO in 2006. Rob was previously the co-Founder and President of Penederm, Inc., a publicly-traded dermatological pharmaceutical company that was sold to Mylan Laboratories. He has held management positions at Intel Corporation and Metaphor Computer Systems (now part of IBM), and was a member of the first President Bush’s White House staff. Rob serves on the Board of Directors of the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO), is Co-Chairman of BIO’s Intellectual Property Committee, and has served as Chairman of BIO’s Emerging Company Section. Rob is Chairman of Bio Venture for Global Health, a member of the Board of Directors of Metabolex, and is on the Board of Trustees of the California Institute of Technology and the Committee for Economic Development. He is a member of the faculty of the Stanford Graduate School of Business, where he teaches courses in Entrepreneurship and Management of Health Care Innovation, and is an Adjunct Fellow at Stanford’s Center for Health Policy. Rob received his B.S. degree in Engineering from the California Institute of Technology and an M.B.A. from Harvard.
Ryan Gill Ph.D.
Ryan is the Patten Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Ryan has more than a decade of experience in the development and application of new genomics tools for metabolic and strain engineering purposes. Ryan has been at CU since 2001, after doing post-doctoral research at MIT from 1999-2001 and PhD research at the University of Maryland from 1995-1999. Ryan received an NSF CAREER award as well as an NIH Career Development Award in 2005.
Erik Straser
Erik leads Mohr Davidow's Cleantech investment team and applies his expertise in areas of solar, biofuels, energy storage, industrial biotech and clean coal. Prior to Mohr Davidow, Erik worked at Interval Research Corp., a technology incubator funded by Paul Allen, and at the Los Alamos National Laboratory as a technical staff member. He also consulted to several seed and early stage venture capital firms. While pursuing a PhD in engineering at Stanford, Erik led an interdisciplinary project between the electrical, mechanical, and civil engineering departments to develop a next-generation monitoring system for critical facilities. He holds a U.S. patent from his research work. Erik serves on the advisory council of the Stanford Precourt Institute for Energy Efficiency, as well as on the advisory boards of the Stanford Technology Ventures Program (STVP), Stanford's BASES, NVCA Cleantech Council, and Cleantech Venture Network. He is a winner of the 2006 World Technology Award for Finance, presented by the World Technology Network, in association with the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), Dow Chemical, Cisco, TIME magazine, Fortune magazine, Science magazine/AAAS, Red Herring, and CNN. Erik earned a bachelor's degree in engineering from Harvey Mudd College and both doctoral and master's degrees from the Stanford University School of Engineering.