Advisors
Steve Cakebread
Since March 2010, Mr. Cakebread has served as the chief financial officer of Pandora Media, Inc., a provider of personalized internet radio and music discovery services. Mr. Cakebread served as the chief financial and administrative officer of Xactly Corporation, a provider of on-demand sales performance management software, from February to December 2009. Mr. Cakebread also served as the president and chief strategy officer of salesforce.com, a customer relationship management service provider, from February 2008 to January 2009 and as salesforce.com?s executive vice president and chief financial officer from May 2002 to February 2008. From April 1997 until April 2002, Mr. Cakebread served as senior vice president and chief financial officer at Autodesk, a software company. From April 1992 until April 1997, Mr. Cakebread was vice president of finance for Silicon Graphics World Trade. Mr. Cakebread also serves as a member of the board of directors of SolarWinds, Inc. Mr. Cakebread holds a B.S. in business from the University of California at Berkeley and an M.B.A. from Indiana University
Mike Johnson
Mr. Johnson began his career in 1975 with Conoco Inc. and most recently served as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Conoco Gas and Power from 1997 until his retirement in 2003. Mr. Johnson holds a B.S. in Geology from New Mexico State University, an M.A. in Geochemistry from Rice University, an S.M. in Management, as a Sloan Fellow, from the Alfred P. Sloan School of Business, M.I.T., as well as a Ph.D. from New Mexico State University. He serves on several boards of directors with private and public companies, advisory roles at Rice University, M.I.T., and New Mexico State University, and is currently the Chairman of the New Mexico State University Foundation.
Becky Kilbourne
Ms. Kilbourne provides management consulting and advisory services in the areas of marketing and business development. She has over 30 years of leadership experience in the energy industry including marketing, regulation, strategic planning and finance. As a principal in the North American Energy Credit and Clearing Corp (“NECC”) Ms. Kilbourne was instrumental in developing clearinghouse services for traded physical energy markets. NECC is the first and only firm to provide clearing for both gas and power instruments going to physical delivery in the US.
Prior to NECC, Ms. Kilbourne was a firm director for the Global Energy Markets practice at Deliotte & Touche, LLP where she led RTO business development. Engagements included work with regulators and market surveillance administrators encompassing evaluation and recommendations as to market structure and bidding rules for new electricity markets. Other work with major existing independent system operators focused on analysis and recommendations for enhanced credit and clearinghouse practices to reduce settlement risk in restructured electricity markets.
Ms. Kilbourne was a founding director for the California Power Exchange where she served as an integral part of the senior management team in establishing California initial operations and in developing expansion opportunities. In this role she contributed to evolving markets in California as well as throughout North America and worked extensively with regulators, legislators, lobbyists and policymakers in state and federal arenas.
In her earlier career, Ms. Kilbourne provided vision and direction in the energy markets through numerous executive positions at Public Service Company of New Mexico, an investor owned utility. She held senior management positions in marketing, finance, planning and regulatory affairs. Ms. Kilbourne earned an MBA in finance and a BBA in accounting and has been a certified management accountant since 1979.
Marcus Dantus
Mr. Dantus is the CEO of Abdeo Medical, a Medical Device R&D outsourcer and incubator that has successfully spun off its first company in the US (Critical Perfusion Inc). He is an innovative thinker with broad-based expertise in operations, business development and finance. Before joining Abdeo, he gained start-up experience as a founder and CEO of several companies within the software, telecommunications and Internet businesses, both in Mexico and in the US.
He is a renowned high-impact entrepreneur, recipient of multiple international, industry, and organizational awards, including the Intel Technology Prize, the Endeavor Dedication award and the Top 10 Mexican Technology Entrepreneurs recognition among others. Since 2003 he became part of the Endeavor (www.endeavor.org) network both as an entrepreneur and mentor.
Mr. Dantus was a co-founder and CEO for PEERANT, Inc., a peer-to-peer telephony applications developer launched at the end of 2006 in Sunnyvale, CA. the company achieved a successful round of funding in January 2007 and became the first Mexican telecommunications spin-off in Silicon Valley. From 2001 to 2006, he co-founded and was CEO of SIMITEL, a speech recognition and advance telecommunication software developer in Mexico City. Previously (1996-2001), he co-founded and managed Mexico.com (Mexico's first Internet portal) and Latin American Telecom, a pioneer in E-commerce in Latin America.
Mr. Dantus earned a Bachelor of Arts in Communications from the University of Pennsylvania and a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science and Administration from the ITESM (Monterrey’s Institute of Technology).
Eric (Rick) Lentz
Mr. Lentz is currently President of EOL Associates, LLC a consulting firm with SunGard Consulting, PNM Resources, Regency Gas Services, Southcross Energy and Estrella Energy as its major clients. Prior to forming EOL Associates, he has held significant technical (Monsanto, Bechtel and Rockwell), consultative (Booz & Co.) and executive positions (ENSERCH and TXU) where he was responsible for the effective business use of information systems and technology, including developing real-time control systems, building business systems infrastructure and linking systems investments to business strategy.
He has participated in the reengineering of large corporations through enabling information technologies, with particular emphasis on the transformation of regulated companies as deregulation was enacted. He is currently a member of the North American Energy Standards Board representing SunGard. He is also on the Board of an Albuquerque-based company (Wellkeeper) who provides remote monitoring services to oil and gas producers.