Directors & Advisors
John Major
Chair of Board of Directors
John Major is a successful entrepreneur with over 30 years of business experience leading technology brands. He is currently the Founder and President of MTSG, an investment company and an advisor to Northwater Capital. He has chaired the Broadcom Corporation (Nasdaq: BRCM) board since 2008 and served as a director since 2003.
Prior to his current positions, Mr. Major held various executive and leadership positions with Motorola Inc., the most recent of which was senior vice president and chief technology officer. He was Chairman and CEO at Novatel Wireless, where he led the company’s successful IPO in the fall of 2000 and he also held executive positions with Qualcomm and served as CEO of Apacheta. He participates in multiple industry organizations and holds 10 US patents.
He serves on the University of California President’s Board on Science and Innovation, the Dean’s Advisory Committee of the University of Rochester Hajim School of Engineering and Applied Science and as Chairman of the University of Illinois at Chicago-Engineering School Advisory Board. Major also serves as Chairman of the Board of CommNexus, a non-profit telecom industry group, which includes the highly successful incubator EvoNexus. Major received a B.S. in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering from the University of Rochester, an M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Illinois, an M.B.A. from Northwestern University and a J.D. from Loyola University.
David Patterson
Director
David Patterson is the Founder, Chair and CEO of the Northwater Group of Companies, which includes the main operating company, Northwater Capital Management Inc. Mr. Patterson’s role as Chair and CEO involves strategic planning and initiatives, corporate governance, and managing key senior client relationships. He is chair of the investment committee for Northwater’s Northwater Intellectual Property Fund.
The Northwater Intellectual Property Fund holds positions in a broad spectrum of investments that have intensive intellectual property. These range from early stage start-up companies to theatre properties and patent litigation management.
Prior to founding Northwater in 1989, Mr. Patterson held a number of senior positions in capital markets and in the investment and finance industry including president of Security Pacific Futures Inc. in Chicago and director of Futures and Options for Burns Fry Limited. Throughout his career he has had numerous directorships and is currently a Director of Textura Corporation of Chicago.
Mr. Patterson holds an Honours BA from Trent University (Peterborough, Ontario) and an MBA from the University of Toronto.
Brian Collie
Founder, Chief Executive Officer and Director
Brian Collie serves on SeaWell’s Board of Directors and is the Founder and CEO, responsible for SeaWell’s overall management and strategic direction of the company, as well as business development and partnership activities.
He is a recognized technology entrepreneur who has started five new businesses in the last fifteen years, including co-founding both SeaWell and Chantry Networks. Chantry is a WLAN (WiFi) equipment provider, named one of Canada’s top 10 High Tech Stars in 2002 by the National Post and acquired by Siemens AG in January 2005. While with Siemens, Brian held the role of Senior VP, Business Development and established a new HD Video Conferencing Business Unit. Prior to Chantry, Brian co-founded the first Internet division at Nortel Networks and started their first VoIP business unit. Both of these divisions contributed significant revenue growth for Nortel. Brian has also held positions at Motorola’s Internet and Data Networking Group and started his career with Bell Canada.
Brian holds a B.Sc. in Honors Physics from the University of Waterloo and a M.Sc. in Systems Science from the University of Ottawa. He is in high demand in the tech community, where he spends time sharing his vision and experience with young and aspiring entrepreneurs.
Nazmin Alani
Director
Nazmin Alani has more than 20 years of experience in the telecommunications industry. Nazmin has worked with incumbent and new service providers involved in wireline, cellular, personal communications systems (PCS), and satellite communications. His work experience includes assignments in Canada, the U.S., Mexico, Argentina, Asia, and Australia. His professional experience includes business development, product planning, product management, strategic planning, market strategy, business modeling, and strategic sales support.He joined BDC in 2004. Prior to BDC, Nazmin spent 6 years with Gartner Consulting.
Nazmin holds a bachelor of applied science (BASc) degree in electrical engineering from the University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, and an MBA from the University of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. Mr. Alani also completed the Executive Telecommunications Program at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina.
Bob Myers
Founder, Chief Technology Officer and Director
Bob Myers serves on SeaWell’s Board of Directors and is the Founder and CTO, responsible for setting the company’s technology direction and promoting ongoing innovation.
Bob has extensive experience in launching new businesses, building and executing product strategies, managing M&A activities, and developing OEM relationships. He has defined successful high-revenue product strategies for dial access, IP-VPN, VoIP, wireless LANs and video conferencing portfolios. Along with Brian Collie, Bob co-founded Chantry Networks and served as CTO, pioneering the evolution of wireless LAN solutions. After the acquisition of Chantry by Siemens, Bob served as VP of Emerging Solutions at Siemens Enterprise. Bob also helped found several key new businesses at Nortel Networks including the first program to address VoIP for carriers and the first initiative to directly address the Internet Service Provider market. While with Nortel he held several senior positions in product management and architecture, leading product strategy efforts.
Bob holds a BSEE degree from the University of Waterloo. He holds a number of patents on networking technologies, and his work has garnered two “Best of Shows” awards at Network World/Interop.
Douglas Parrish
Advisor to the Board
Douglas Parrish serves on SeaWell’s Board of Directors, and is currently the executive vice president of global operations at Ascent Media Group, a provider of creative, technical and content distribution services to the media and entertainment industries. He is responsible for leading Ascent’s core media management operations and content distribution services.
Prior to Ascent Media, Parrish served as senior vice president, operations and development at Move Networks, an early leader in the Internet video streaming technology with its proprietary adaptive bit-rate protocol. Parrish also served as executive vice president and chief technology officer at the Walt Disney Internet Group, and divisional chief information officer at Polaroid Corporation.
Margo Crawford
Advisor, Human Resources and Administration
Margo, an Advisor through her organization, Business Sherpa, provides support with respect to people and process management at SeaWell. Margo’s career has spanned diverse and challenging environments with a focus on the high tech industry. Margo has provided HR and administrative services to Kindsight, a spin-out from Alcatel-Lucent, which is a value-added services provider specializing in network-based security solutions for residential internet use. Prior to Kindsight, Margo was a co-founder of Meriton Networks, a successful Ottawa-based start-up that raised over $75 million in equity financing. She was instrumental in hiring Meriton’s worldwide team and setting up office locations for offshore development and to serve Meriton’s customers around the world. Prior to Meriton, Margo worked for several years with EMS Technologies (formerly CAL Corporation). In addition to the high-tech industry, she has worked in the public and non-profit sectors and served on the boards of a number of non-profit organizations.
Margo has an undergraduate degree from Carleton University and an MBA from Ottawa University. In Ottawa in 2005, she was recognized as a leader in her field, receiving the prestigious Vision Awards as Human Resources Professional of the Year.
Rich Mavrogeanes
Advisor
Rich Mavrogeanes is an Advisor to SeaWell Networks, using his experience to help shape the company’s technology development and go-to-market plans. Rich is the Founder of VBrick Systems, Inc., a world leader of live online networked video solutions. Rich serves on the board of directors of the Internet Streaming Media Alliance, the MPEG Industry Forum, the Connecticut Technology Council and the Connecticut Commission for Education Technology.
Rich previously served as CEO and Chairman of VBrick, a company he founded in 1997. Rich has spent the last 35 years in the communications industry and has been a founding executive at several other successful technology companies. His background includes senior technical, marketing and management positions at Avidia, Switched Network Technologies, Dataproducts Corporation (Government Division) and General DataCom. He also served in the U.S. Air Force.
Rich has received the “Innovator of the Year” award and was named one of seventeen industry executives to Federal Computer Week’s “Federal 100″ list for making a difference in Federal Information Technology. He was named an “A List” executive by Telecom Magazine, received the Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year Finalist Award, and accepted ComputerWorld’s Hero’s Award. He has authored many articles on the subject of networking, video, and streaming media and was named one of the top most influential people in the streaming media industry by Streaming Media Magazine.
Per Suneby
Advisor, Strategic Alliances
Per Suneby is an Advisor to SeaWell Networks, using his experience to help shape the company’s business and financing plans and to pursue strategic alliances.
Per is an established entrepreneur and start-up company executive with more than 20 years experience in the IT and network communications space. He currently serves as Executive Chairman of LiquidPiston, Inc. and SVP, Business Development for SiCortex, Inc, a Massachusetts-based “green computing” company.
In 1996 Per co-founded and served as President & CEO of Indus River Networks, Inc., an Internet communications company that was acquired by Enterasys Networks Inc. in January 2001. Following that acquisition, he was SVP of Corporate Development and responsible for Enterasys’ mergers and acquisitions, strategic partnerships and strategic technology investments. Per joined Flagship Ventures in 2002 as a Venture Partner and Executive-In-Residence. In 2004, he joined Chantry Networks, a Flagship portfolio company, as Vice-Chairman and Chief Strategy Officer. Following Chantry’s sale to Siemens AG, Per joined Converged Access Inc. as Chief Strategy Officer and later served as President & CEO. Per spent the early part of his career with General Electric and then joined Motorola, where he completed his 12-year career there as the head of the industry-leading cable data modem and enterprise data networking businesess.
Per has an Electrical Engineering undergraduate degree from the University of British Columbia and an MBA from the Harvard Business School.