Edgar Baum, Founder and CEO, Avasta LinkedIn

Edgar is deeply passionate about fellow business leaders having the right knowledge and expertise to build businesses that drive growth and prosperity. Edgar leverages his expertise in mathematics, finance, and business experience across over a dozen industries and four continents to solve today's most complex business challenges. He launched Avasta, The Profitable Growth Company, to operate at the intersection of end-customer insights, financial data analytics, and valuation, to identify the opportunities and risks in corporate strategy & M&A. Before Avasta, Edgar was the founder and executive at several valuation and business measurement firms, including finance and market development roles on Wall Street, at Merrill Lynch and Procter & Gamble. Since 2014 he has been a primary author on two next-generation business measurement standards: how to measure a brand financially from the customer's point of view and how to measure and report on the future value of intellectual capital and intangible assets to the board of directors. Edgar is on the board of advisors for two AI-technology companies based in the U.S. & Canada. He has been a member of the LES since 2016 spearheading the development and publication of the Intellectual Capital in the Boardroom Standard. He has taught the Finance of Brand Management graduate course at the University of Toronto since 2015 and is regularly present on strategy measurement and valuation at conferences and business schools.

Sean Clark, Director of North America IPR & Licensing, Ericsson LinkedIn

Sean currently works as a director of IPR & licensing for Ericsson, Inc, a Swedish telecommunications company. With more than 60,000 granted patents, Ericsson has emerged as holding one of the strongest portfolios in cellular technology and is a lead holder of 5G essential patents. He has worked for over 20 years licensing patents across a variety of companies and technologies. Prior to joining Ericsson, Sean was a director of licensing at TiVo, Inc., monetizing TiVo’s extensive media technology portfolio. Sean has also worked in similar roles at Microsoft, Intellectual Ventures and Lattice Semiconductor. He holds a degree of law (LL. B.) from the University of Birmingham, UK and Master of Laws in transnational business practice (LL. M.) from McGeorge School of Law, USA.

Efrat Kasznik, President, Foresight Valuation Group LinkedIn

Efrat is an IP valuation and strategy expert with more than 25 years of consulting experience assisting clients with the valuation, strategic management and monetization of their intellectual property and technologies. She is president of Foresight Valuation Group LLC – a Silicon Valley-based IP valuation and litigation consulting firm – as well as a start-up advisory firm. Efrat is also an appointed lecturer on IP management at the Stanford Graduate School of Business (GSB), as well as a lecturer in accounting at Stanford Law School. She also lectures on IP issues at the GSB’s various local and international executive education programs. Efrat specializes in analyzing IP and technology portfolios for a range of business transactions, including mergers and acquisitions, financial reporting, technology commercialization and business liquidations. She frequently testifies as an expert witness in legal cases involving damages or valuations of intellectual property and start-ups, as well as in high net worth divorce cases involving the valuation of intangible assets and technology startups. Efrat has been listed on the IAM 300 list of World Leading IP Strategists every year since 2013. She is actively involved in leadership roles with LES USA-Canada, where she currently serves as a board member, in addition to serving as Chair of the LES Silicon Valley chapter.

Kerry Kimes, Senior Business Decvelopment Director, Rambus Inc.

Since joining Rambus in 2013, Kerry has lead dozens of licensing deals with many of the largest semiconductor companies, sustaining a licensing program with hundreds of millions of dollars in annual billings. He also involved in managing the foundation of that licensing program, a patent portfolio with fundamental innovations in semiconductor memory, high-speed interfaces, and security. Prior to Rambus, Kerry worked for Dolby Laboratories where he was responsible for the business and licensing strategy with Dolby’s semiconductor partners. Kerry holds a BS in Computer Engineering from the University of Maryland.

Ken Korea, Arbitrator, Mediator, Colev Law LinkedIn

Ken has more than 30 years of experience in IP, including patent licensing and technology-focused M&A. He previously served as Senior Vice President of IP at Samsung Electronics and oversaw hundreds of patent acquisition, licensing and litigation matters, including the Apple-Samsung patent war. Ken personally negotiated three of the largest patent cross licenses in the industry and formation of several SSOs. He was involved in some of the largest SEP arbitration and litigation cases involving cellular SEPs and currently is a patent dealmaker. Ken also serves as an independent arbitrator and mediator for American Arbitration Association, ICDR, Northern District of California and other ADR panels. Ken received his BSEE from Cornell University and JD from Northwestern University School of Law. He served as a federal judicial law clerk and a federal prosecutor and practiced IP litigation as a partner at leading U.S. law firms.

George Park, Vice President, Business Development, IPValue LinkedIn

George joined IPValue in July 2005. In his role as lead for business development, he is actively involved in identifying and developing relationships with major innovative enterprises to generate returns on their patent portfolios. He also manages marketing activities for the firm. Prior to joining IPValue, George was a Managing Scientist at Exponent, a national science and engineering consulting firm, where he oversaw the Menlo Park branch of the Technology Development practice, leading technology assessment and development efforts for various government projects. George also worked as a consultant at McKinsey & Company, where he helped to develop corporate strategy on a wide range of projects, including the identification of IP acquisition targets for an enterprise software vendor, the development of a new product line for a CE manufacturer, and the formulation of a growth strategy for a major networking vendor. Earlier in his career, George served as a Senior Scientist for Arete Associates, where his responsibilities included management of engineering and marketing teams for a software spin off serving customers in both the entertainment and defence industries. George also served as an Analyst at the RAND Corporation, a think tank conducting policy and technology analyses, where he worked on such projects as a competitive analysis of the satellite imaging industry, a forecasting and data visualization tool for the California higher education system, and a market forecast for alternative energy vehicles. George holds an MBA from the University of California at Los Angeles, as well as a PhD in Physics from Stanford University. During his PhD program, he also worked as a Visiting Researcher at NEC Labs in Tsukuba, Japan.

Michael Pierantozzi, Principal/Owner, Andiamo Associates, LLC LinkedIn

Based in Silicon Valley, Michael is a technology and intellectual property (Tech/IP) entrepreneur, strategist and transaction expert. Andiamo Associates is a management consulting firm that specializes in Tech/IP business catalyzing and monetizing matters. Previously, Michael was responsible for strategic business development, including sales, acquisitions, and licensing for the IP Licensing group at Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE). Previously, Michael held executive leadership positions at Hewlett-Packard Company (HP) including HPE, Intellectual Ventures (IV), IPotential, and an IP transaction data services startup that he co-founded. Since 2009, Michael has been recognized by Intellectual Asset Management (IAM) Magazine in their IAM 300 rankings as one of the “World’s Leading Intellectual Property Strategists”. He is a frequent speaker at Tech/IP industry events in the US, Europe, and Asia, and has delivered IP management seminars at Stanford University.

Kent Richardson, Partner, Richardson Oliver Law Group LinkedIn

Kent counsels clients on a variety of patent and business matters, including patent buying, selling, licensing, valuation, prosecution, and operations. He provides data driven advice using his firm’s proprietary database of patent market information covering more than 230,000 patent assets. He has licensing and marketing patent portfolio experience, resulting in more than $600 million worth of patent license bookings. Kent has served as an expert witness on patent monetization and licensing practices in UK and US cases. Before founding ROL Group, Kent was general manager of ThinkFire Services USA, Ltd’s Silicon Valley office. He has worked in various senior management roles with growth businesses such as Senior Vice President of Business Affairs at Sezmi, Managing Director at Constellation Capital, Vice President of Intellectual Property at Rambus and General Counsel at Numerical Technologies. He was also a private practice attorney at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati. Kent has over 40 published articles and has lectured on patent strategy, intellectual property, and related business issues at Stanford, Santa Clara, Center for Intellectual Property, IPBC, and LES. He is a member of the California Bar, and a US Patent and Trademark Office registered patent attorney. Kent holds five US patents. He has a JD and a BSc in computer engineering from the University of Alberta, Canada.

Pallavi Shah, Managing Director, Transactions and Alliances, Mobity LLC LinkedIn

Pallavi Shah is the managing director of transactions and alliances at Mobity LLC, a Silicon Valley boutique specializing in transaction brokering, venture incubation and acceleration, and business transformation. As a FINRA-registered broker-dealer through GT Securities and serving venture-backed companies as board observer, she is renowned in the IP investment banking community and has closed 75+ IP transactions in the last five years. Before joining Mobity in 2020, Pallavi served Houlihan Lokey as head of IP transactions. Earlier, at HP she served in various IP strategy, product management and business incubation executive roles. At Sun (now Oracle), she invented, productized and commercialized leading-edge streaming media technologies in various engineering and market development roles where she cultivated and managed over 120 digital media strategic alliances generating over US$250 million in new revenues annually. At Stanford Research Institute, she pioneered and showcased the world’s first interactive HDTV. Pallavi is an acclaimed media spokesperson, the inventor of 18 highly referenced patents worldwide and a published author, including “The role of IP and Intangible Assets in Tech Private Placements,” a chapter in the 2023 Springer Nature book titled “IP Management for Startups.” Over 260 patents and over 200 publications by many mega-cap technology and media companies have cited her work. Pallavi holds a BE in electronics and telecommunications engineering from the Savitribai Phule Pune University (Maharashtra, India) and an MS in electrical engineering from Utah State University.

Larry Udell, LES Silicon Valley Chair Emeritus & Founder, LES-SVC Past Chair LinkedIn

Larry joined LES in 1982 and founded the Silicon Valley chapter in 2000. He has a long history of innovation with over 60 years of new venture start-ups. He began by creating the California Invention Center in 1986 with a $100,000 federal grant from the DOC, DOE, and the USPTO. The Center is the only inventor educational organization federally funded. As a consultant to many Fortune 100 companies, he has mentored inventors creating over 40 new ventures and is always on the look-out for new inventors. He serves as a Board Member and/or officer of several corporations, and a founding member of Jump Sport, Eye-Com Corporation, and C4Cube. He currently serves as Executive Director for: The California Invention Center; The Center for New Venture Alliance, founded in 1990 as part of California State University; and The Intellectual Property International, Ltd. – founded in 1998 with 50 colleagues world-wide. Larry’s teaching career began in 1984 at Cal State University Hayward where he served as a Professor of New Ventures. He teaches accredited courses in New Ventures & Entrepreneurship at leading universities throughout the U.S. and Canada, and has lectured throughout the U.S. for the USPTO, clients, and the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). He serves as an adjunct professor of Entrepreneurship at New Mexico Tech. Larry is now writing his autobiography entitled “55 Years Without a Boss (Except My Wife).” Many world-famous inventors who he mentored will be in the book.

N. Darius Sankey, General Partner and Managing Director, Innovation Acceleration Capital LinkedIn

Darius is a seasoned executive in the venture capital and technology. He is currently a Managing and founding member of Innovation Acceleration Capital (IAC). IAC’s mission is to fuel open innovation by connecting the right people at the right times to solve challenging problems while rewarding both commercialization and the soup to nuts innovation behind it. Prior to IAC he served as the Co-President of Ocean Tomo China, an Ocean Tomo division operating in China in partnership with Sinofaith IP from February 2018 to December of 2019. He also served as the Chairmen and Director of 3Discovered, Inc. Darius has served as a Managing Director at Sway Ventures, and Ocean Tomo, leading their Innovation Management Practice. Before his work with Ocean Tomo, Darius served as a Senior Director of Portfolio Management at Intellectual Ventures, a Managing Director at DFJ – Zone Ventures, and has served as a board member for several companies including Unium, 3Discovered, Siimpel Corporation and Neven Vision (acquired by Google). Darius is also a member of the Finance Advisory Committee for SPIE (the International Society for Optics and Photonics), the advisory board and investment committee for Luminate, the largest optics and photonicsaccelerator within the Rochester based NextCorp incubator. Finally, Darius is also a board member for LES (Licensing Executive Societies Silicon Value Chapter. He has worked as a management consultant at McKinsey & Company, Inc. and held strategic planning, consulting, and R&D positions at RAND and AT&T Bell Laboratories. Darius holds a Ph.D. in Optical Engineering from the Institute of Optics (1993), University of Rochester and B.S. degrees in Physics and Electrical Engineering from MIT (1988). He is also has served as an adjunct professor and lecturer at the Rady School of Business at the University of California, at San Diego (UCSD) since 2008.

Joseph Yang, Tech & IP Transactions Partner, PatentEsque Law Group LLP LinkedIn

Joe is a partner at PatentEsque Law Group, LLP, specializing in tech/patent transactions & strategic partnerships. He has led hundreds of deals worth tens of billions of dollars for IT, electronics, entertainment, consumer, healthcare, automotive, manufacturing & energy clients. Joe is especially active in SEP patent licensing, cross-industry deals & U.S./Japan deals. He is also an expert witness in high stakes litigations involving patents, licensing, and strategic alliances. Joe is a long-time Lecturer in Law at Stanford Law School, and chair of 3 nationwide licensing conferences at PLI. He has developed landmark corporate patent portfolios, worked on 100+ M&A deals, overseen complex patent litigation, and served as an arbitrator. Joe was formerly General Counsel of Cryptography Research and handled its IP licensing (10+ billion devices/year) and eventual M&A ($400M+). He also co-founded and later led the IP Strategy & Transactions practice in the Silicon Valley office of Skadden, Arps. Joe is profiled by SuperLawyers, and in various Intellectual Asset Management experts’ guides (IP Strategy, Patent Professionals, and Global Leaders). He has also authored book chapters, and been cited by courts & law reviews. In his early career, Joe was a research engineer in the aerospace and energy industries.

Michael Zachary, Partner, Bunsow De Mory LLP LinkedIn

As a partner at Bunsow De Mory, Michael focuses his practice on intellectual property litigation and licensing, and regularly represents clients in patent infringement, trade secret, trademark and other intellectual property litigation cases. He counsels clients on a variety of technology and intellectual property agreements, including design and development, manufacturing and supply, product evaluation, and patent and trademark license agreements. He has represented large, mid-size, and start-up companies based in the United States, Japan and Europe, including Volkswagen, Bradium, Skype, Amazon, Wacom, PRISM Pharma and Boston Scientific. In 2016 and 2017, he was recognized as a California “IP Star” by Managing Intellectual Property.