About

Panève has a proven management and engineering team. We not only have breakthrough technologies, we have the experience and track record to deliver our market-changing architecture and to develop a top tier, satisfied customer base. Our philosophy is that good business makes everyone successful: employees, customers, investors and the extended Panève family.

The Panève Team

Steven Frank, CEO

Steve is a computer and software architect with over 29 years of relevant experience that started when he was at MIT. His areas of technical expertise include high performance microprocessor architecture and design, parallel computing, embedded computing, caching, distributed software and peer to peer (P2P) software. Steve has co-founded two companies prior to Panève, Kendall Square Research, a leading supercomputer company as CTO and Mangosoft, as CEO for a software company focused on LAN based distributed fault-tolerant storage. Steve has developed multiple, novel, high performance microprocessor architectures, multiple, novel, high performance distributed computing systems and novel P2P software systems. He currently holds over 30 patents. Steve is on the Panève Board of Directors.

Shigeki Imai, PhD, CTO Asia

Dr. Shigeki Imai has over 35 years of experience focused on processor and display innovations. Prior to joining Panève, he spent his entire career working at Sharp Corporation in Japan. Over that period of time, Imai-san reached the level of Division General Manager in charge of display panel initiatives at Sharp. In addition to his work at Panève, He is currently working partime as a professor in the area of semiconductor materials and processes at The Institute of Scientific and Industrial Research in Osaka, Japan.

Jef Sharp, President

Jef is a serial entrepreneur. He co-founded Qteros in 2006 and led the biofuels company as CEO from a start-up through Series B funding. He also managed marketing, public relations, branding, communications, and government affairs and is currently on the Board of Directors. Jef is President of Jattra Ventures and TechCavalry and has led many innovative businesses, including XSCapacity, an online exchange for more efficient use and distribution of excess manufacturing capacity and Gravity Graphics, an Inc. 500 company he started from scratch while getting his degree at the University of N.H. He has received numerous awards for entrepreneurship, including New York State’s Small Business Person of the Year award. Jef is on the Panève Board of Directors.

Jeff Hausthor, COO

Jeff has worked as a technologist for more than 20 years, specializing in data center consolidations, data warehousing applications and security systems. He has served as CTO for several successful IT companies. He was Co-Founder and Senior Project Manager at Qteros. Jeff is a founding partner of Jattra Ventures, a venture development firm specializing in green technology commercialization. He also co-founded TechCavalry, a service-oriented IT company and XSCapacity, an online exchange for excess manufacturing capacity. At Sony Corporation, Morgan Stanley and Deloitte, he served as a systems architect, a technical specialist, and an applications manager, while overseeing a range of operations and development projects.

Stephan Rogers, EVP

Stephan holds a Masters degree in International Management. He has provided business management and consulting services for over 25 years and has been the principal in multiple successful startup companies. Most recently, Stephan was a co-founder and COO of Qteros Inc, a biofuels startup, that has raised over $50Million in funding from Venrock, Battery Ventures, BP, and Soros Group among others. Stephan has also devoted a significant portion of his career to solving the problems for low income populations, working in areas of affordable housing and economic development. He helped with early models of the micro credit industry in the US. He also has significant large scale project management and strong financial management experience.

Thomas Tessier, VP R&D

Tom has thirty years of experience in the ever expanding electronics industry. Early in his career Tom worked at Ball Aerospace where several of his designs are currently operational in space. At Ball, Tom led a team in the development of a 3D Graphics Engine. This launched his interest in ASIC design (Application-Specific Integrated Circuit). He went on to co-found Talcian Corporation, an ASIC consulting services company. In 1994, Tom started t2design Incorporated, a consulting company specializing in applying HDL/HVL languages and methodologies to solve engineering problems. Tom guided t2design into a successful EDA (Electronic Design Automation) services company which spans System, ASIC and FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array) designs with emphasis on process methodology to enhance productivity and predictability. In addition to running a successful consulting company for over 17 years, Tom has also authored papers for user conferences including: SNUG, JasperDA and DesignSuperCon as well as industry magazines. Tom has decades of experience optimizing EDA tools to attain their highest level of performance.

Board of Directors

Steven Frank (see bio above)

Jef C. Sharp (see bio above)

Robert J. Chicoski

Bob is a General Partner at Saturn Partners (www.saturnasset.com), a Boston-based venture capital firm that invests in early stage companies in a variety of sectors. Bob is responsible for sourcing and evaluating investment opportunities, as well as working with portfolio companies to drive growth, performance improvement, and harvest alternatives. Prior to joining Saturn, Bob was Managing Director at Junction Investors Ltd., a family office focused on direct private investments. Bob has helped build several technology-centric businesses including Industry2Industry, Inc., where he served as Chief Operating Officer. He has also been an advisor to larger institutions such as Pfizer and M.I.T. Earlier in his career, Bob worked for Deloitte Consulting and the Federal Reserve Bank. Bob holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and a BA in Economics from Georgetown University.

Advisory Team

Fred Weber

Fred is an expert in computer and microprocessor architecture and design. He currently serves on the board of directors of SeaMicro and Glasspoint Solar. Previously, Weber co-founded MetaRAM, a leader in the field of high density memory modules, where he served as President and CEO. Weber spent the bulk of his career at Nexgen and AMD helping to get real competition to the microprocessor market with products like the AMD Athlon and AMD Opteron, the first 64 bit x86 processor. As CTO at AMD, he developed and promoted the strategy of “x86 everywhere” to drive x86 architecture processors beyond PCs into handheld portable devices, digital TVs, automobiles, and all forms of computing platforms.

Al S. Joseph, PhD

Joseph founded the semiconductor company Vitesse Semiconductor Corporation and served for many years as a Director on its Board. Joseph has served as a member of the Tessera board of directors since August 2001. Prior to this position, Joseph established Enhanced Energy Systems, Unitive Electronics, Inc. and Quad Design Ltd. He has worked in the semiconductor industry for more than 40 years and currently consults for several companies. He has published 32 papers, was a fellow of the American Institute of Physics, where he won the Chairman Award and National CIT Award, and has served on several government committees. He holds a doctorate in physics from Case Western University and he makes his own olive oil.

Anthony Tether, PhD

Tony served as Director of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) of the Department of Defense from 2001 to 2009. As Director, Dr. Tether was responsible for management of the Agency’s projects for high-payoff, innovative research and development. Dr. Tether served as Director of DARPA’s Strategic Technology Office from 1982 through 1986, and as Director of the National Intelligence Office in the Office of the Secretary of Defense from 1978 to 1982. Dr. Tether is the founder of The Sequoia Group, which provides program management and strategy development services to government and private industry, and has served as its President and CEO. He has held positions as EVP of Systems Control Inc., CEO for Dynamics Technology Inc, VP of Science Applications International Corporation’s (SAIC) Advanced Technology Sector, VP and General Manager for Range Systems at SAIC, and VP for Technology and Advanced Development at Ford Aerospace Corp. Dr. Tether received his Bachelor’s of Electrical Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and his Master of Science and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University.

Robert Geiman

A General Partner at Polaris from 2002-2010, Bob’s focus is on investment opportunities in information technology. Prior to joining Polaris, Bob served in product and business development roles at Envoy Networks, was the Senior Director of Corporate Development and advisor to the CEO at MCK Communications, and was an Associate at Boston-based private equity firm Summit Partners. A member of several corporate boards, Bob has an MBA from Harvard Business School and a BA, cum laude, from Dartmouth College.

Richard C. Eden, PhD

Richard received his Ph.D. in EE from Stanford University. Dr. Eden’s thesis research at Stanford University involved experimental studies of the electronic energy band structure of Gallium Arsenide, Gallium Phosphide, and Silicon. After a one-year postdoctoral appointment at Stanford, he spent 12 years at the Science Center of Rockwell International in the position of Principal Scientist. He is best known for his work there in making the world’s first LSI-complexity Gallium Arsenide digital integrated circuits. Eden co-founded GigaBit Logic, Inc., a semiconductor company dedicated to the commercial manufacture of ultra high speed digital GaAs Ics , serving in the position of Senior Vice President of Research and Development and member of the Board of Directors until the merger of the company with TriQuint Semiconductor in 1991. Since leaving GBL, Dr. Eden has been serving as an industry consultant in the areas of high performance electronics (analog/mixed-signal, RF/microwave and digital), electronic materials, advanced packaging and high-speed device technologies. Dr. Eden holds twenty seven U.S. patents and has authored over 150 technical papers.

Rajeev Surati, PhD

Founder, Chairman Scalable Display Technologies, MIT doctorate.

Rajeev has built several successful companies and been granted five patents to date including the core patent for Scalable Display Technologies. Among Rajeev’s many inventions are Enterprise Instant Messaging (for Flash Communications) and the distributed “Application push over HTTP” system (for Nexaweb). At Photo.net Corporation, which Rajeev cofounded, he was responsible for running the first photo-sharing site on the Web. He also cofounded Flash Communications, subsequently sold to Microsoft. Rajeev serves on the Boards of Tao Group and Photo.net and the advisory board of Prematics and Nexaweb Corporations. Rajeev’s Ph.D. from MIT focused on projector/camera feedback systems.