BDNA's leadership team is composed of successful technology veterans from a variety of disciplines.
- Dr. Ossama Hassanein - Chairman of the Board
- Constantin Delivanis - Chief Executive Officer, Director
- John Borchers - Director
- Ed Ekstrom - Director
- Rami Elkhatib - Director
- M.R. Rangaswami - Director
- Ernest M. von Simson - Director
Dr. Ossama Hassanein – Chairman of the Board
Ossama is an entrepreneur and venture capitalist. He managed over $1 billion of international technology funds in diverse leadership roles as EVP of Berkeley International in San Francisco, Chairman of Technocom Ventures in Paris, President of Newbridge Networks Holding in Canada, Senior Managing Director of Newbury Ventures and Chairman of the Rising Tide Funds in Silicon Valley. He was chairman or co-founder of eight successful startups including ACC in Santa Barbara (acquired by Ericsson), Algety in France (acquired by Corvis), HighDeal (acquired by SAP), Highwave Optical (Listed on Euronext), NetCentrex (acquired by Comverse), nCipher in Cambridge (listed on LSE), and Echovox in Geneva (private).
He served on the Boards of Advisors of Harvard Center for Middle Eastern Studies and of UCSF Department of Ophthalmology, School of Medicine in San Francisco, and lectured on international business at UC Berkeley, the University of San Diego, Santa Clara University, and the American University in Cairo.
Constantin Delivanis – Chief Executive Officer, Director
Prior to cofounding BDNA in 2000, Delivanis cofounded Sand Hill Group LLC to invest in and provide management advice to emerging enterprise technology companies. He also cofounded EnaTec Software Systems, where he served as Chief Executive Officer until its acquisition by Wonderware Corporation, now a part of Invensys Systems.
Earlier in his career Delivanis held a number of executive positions in marketing, engineering and business development. He has been listed in Forbes' "Midas 100 List" as one of the most influential investors in technology.
Delivanis holds an M.B.A. from Santa Clara University, an M.S. from Stanford University and a B.S. from the University of Alexandria.
John Borchers is General Partner of Crescendo Ventures. Borchers joined Crescendo Ventures in 1997 and has played a leading role in developing the firm's international presence. After spending nearly three years working in Crescendo's London office, in 2003 he relocated to Palo Alto, where he focuses on investment opportunities in the enterprise infrastructure market. Borchers currently serves on the Board of Directors of Credant Technologies, Dust Networks, SealedMedia, StoneFly Networks and Transitive Corporation.
Prior to joining Crescendo Ventures, Borchers worked in the data warehousing and predictive analytics fields where he held various operational roles including a two-year posting to Sydney, Australia, where he opened the first Asia Pacific office for a U.S.-based data warehousing firm.
Borchers holds an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School and a B.S. from the University of Richmond.
Ed Ekstrom - Director Ed is a high tech pioneer. Before joining the vSpring team, Ed served as Vice President of the Intel Communications Products Group and General Manager of the Intel Utah Software Development Center, a post given to him after Intel acquired LANSystems where Ed was a Principal. Prior to Intel, Ed was a Vice President at CeriSyn and a founder at Cericor, which was acquired by Hewlett Packard in 1985.
Ed is a Trustee and serves on the Executive committees of the Economic Development Corporation of Utah and Envision Utah. Ed is the former chairman of the Utah Information Technologies Association (UTC).
Ed holds a BS in computer science from Brigham Young University and a MBA from Westminster College. Ed led the firm's investment in Celio Corp, Fatpipe Networks, Penguin Computing, Sparxent, XAware, PS'Soft, LanDesk Software(AVCT) and Soronti(AVCT).
Rami Elkhatib - Director
Rami Elkhatib is General Partner of Olympus Capital Partners, focusing on growth equity investments in IT and Clean Energy. Prior to Olympus, Rami was General Partner at Southeast Technology Funds where he focused on IT infrastructure and software investments, and served on the Board of Directors of Pixel Magic (acquired by Dai Nippon), Waveguide Solutions, Elumens Corporation and Arsenal Digital (acquired by IBM). Prior to venture capital, Rami held multiple roles in high tech and finance - he co-founded Datacme Software, held multiple senior management roles at Oneworld Software Solutions and worked as a technology investment banker at UBS Warburg where he led the execution of several public offerings and M&A deals that in aggregate raised over $800M for high tech companies.
Rami holds an MBA in finance from M.I.T. where he was named Henry du Pont III Scholar, a B.S. in Computer and Electrical Engineering from Purdue University, and is a member of Stanford University’s Materials Science & Engineering Program where his research has focused on new materials for fuel cells, thin film solar and other Clean Energy applications of Advanced Materials, and where he contributed to writing the 2nd edition of the leading textbook on fuel cells (Fuel Cell Fundamentals).
M. R. Rangaswami is Managing Director of Sand Hill Group LLC. Rangaswami cofounded Sand Hill Group, where he directs their investment, conference and media businesses. He has been a strategic advisor to several fast-growing software companies. Rangaswami has held global VP marketing positions at Baan Company, Avalon Software, and Oracle Corporation. He was profiled on the front page of the Wall Street Journal and has been named in Forbes' "Midas 100 List" as one of the most influential investors in technology. He is also a popular speaker and moderator at many technology events. Rangaswami holds an M.B.A. from Kent State University and a B.A. from the University of Madras.
Ernest M. von Simson – Director
Ernest von Simson is Senior Partner and cofounder of Ostriker von Simson, a consultancy that formulates IT strategies for the assessment, acquisition, monitoring, and management of emerging technologies and technology-related ventures. von Simson and his partners also chair the CIO Strategy Exchange, which brings together CIOs from the largest multinational enterprises.
He was cofounder of the Research Board, where he directed the professional staff in examining evolving business models, advanced technology, business applications and IT best practices. von Simson's articles have appeared in Harvard Business Review, Computerworld, and Fortune. He currently serves on the Board of Directors of Arcsight, Good Technology and Levanta. von Simson holds an M.B.A. from New York University and a B.A. from Brown University.
