CORE Professionals
CORE's professionals have decades of successful experience as investment professionals and as technology entrepreneurs and executives. They have led successful entrepreneurial start-ups, worked as executives in large corporations, and managed substantial venture capital and investment organizations.
Joe F. Martinez - Founder and Managing Director
Mr. Martinez is a former senior executive with IBM, Xerox, and successful Silicon Valley start-up companies such as the ROLM Corporation, NetFrame Systems, and Network Equipment Technologies. In 1992 following a successful operating career in the high technology sector Mr. Martinez became the managing director of a major investment banking firm and started their high-tech practice. He left the firm to form a regional investment-banking firm that was successfully sold to a national online brokerage bank. After the sale of the firm he became the President and CEO of Centaur Partners a Palo Alto advisory firm and was a venture partner with Osprey Ventures a leading venture capital firm also in Palo Alto. In 2003 Mr. Martinez became the Vice Chairman and CEO of a publicly traded middle market media company that he funded privately and eventually landed up taking public leading to the eventual restructuring and sale of the company. Currently Mr. Martinez is the President and CEO of a Sports and Entertainment Company that he has restructured and is funding with his Wall Street relationships. Mr. Martinez holds an MBA from the University of Denver, and an MA in Organizational Psychology.
Richard Walker – Managing Director Australia Operations
Mr. Walker has worked at a senior level for several large multinational Corporations and has over twenty years experience in the management of the cash flows of these complex organizations. After completing his first degree in Accounting and Finance, he rose through the ranks of one of the largest Stock Brokerage Firms in the Asia Pacific Region where he was given the position of Assistant Treasurer managing the operations of the business. From there Mr. Walker moved to one of the world's largest banks where he was responsible for the trading of Government Bonds and other securities. After successfully building up this business, Mr. Walker moved to run the business enterprises of some of Australia's wealthiest families. As an entrepreneur he has been a Director of a number of private and publicly listed companies, and has a successful Corporate Advisory background having advised numerous companies on Strategy, Finance and Investor Relations managing the Pre and post IPO process of these public companies. Mr. Walker has a Bachelor of Pure & Applied Chemistry Degree and a Bachelor of Business in Finance along with Graduate degrees in Banking, Finance and Business Administration with distinction and a Masters in Law. In addition he is a graduate of the Institute of Company Directors and a Fellow of the Institute of Company Directors.
Ning Chen – Managing Director China Operations
Mr. Chen is a senior executive with technology related companies in the United States and China such as Gateway, eMachines and Brightpoint. His proven track record coupled with a solid financial background has enabled him to helped American companies launch their products and brands into the China market helping them achieve remarkable market share and profitability.
As Greater China General Manager for Gateway Mr. Chen was instrumental in the aggregation strategy of Gateway and eMachines and selling the entire entity to Acer Computer Corporation making Acer one of the largest computer companies in the world.
Mr. Chen started his career by working for the Foreign Economic Relations Office of the Tianjin Municipal Government, the third largest metropolitan area in China. During his six-year assignment he assisted, supported, and facilitated the well-being of the city’s foreign investments. He came to the United States in 1997 and earned his MBA degree from Penn State University.
Mr. Chen brings an impressive and extensive background to Core Venture Partners with over 10 years experience managing corporate finance operations. He rose through the financial ranks at Brightpoint, eMachines and Gateway. As the Senior Director of Finance at Gateway he managed $2.5 billion USD business covering markets in the USA, China, Europe, Japan, Mexico, and Canada. In this capacity he led Gateway’s financial operations that consisted of costing, pricing, inventory management as well as operational and financial analysis to maintain stable and consistent profitability in a very competitive industry. In addition he provided financial support to corporate executives on business development, marketing efforts, channel expansion, and new program evaluation.
Following his financial role at Gateway, Mr. Chen was promoted to the position of General Manager for Gateway China. He successfully launched Gateway into the China market and was the key driver in the development of Gateway’s Greater China’s strategies and operations. He took the primary leadership role in all aspects of business development, product presentation, marketing, public relation efforts, and revenue generation. He was instrumental for providing, establishing, and cultivating key partnerships throughout China. He coordinated with all of Gateway’s corporate functional departments to establish cost controls, and expense over sight. Before he left Gateway, he successfully built Gateway’s distribution channel in 308 cities in China and made Gateway a famous brand in the China market.
David M. Kubit, Managing Director
Mr. Kubit has 30+ years of experience in the acquisition and development of real estate and nearly 20 years experience in advising financial clients, and newly emerging companies, business startups, and including the formation and guidance of companies, both public and private. His experience began in 1976 with Lyon Associates, Sacramento, California. After spending three years there he began working with the Stanford Building Group, Palo Alto, California, and became Vice President, during which time he oversaw the development, syndication, and construction of multi-family apartments under HUD FHA 221(d)(4) lending programs and tax-exempt bond programs in California and Nevada(first tax-exempt housing bond in state). From 1983 through 1985 Mr. Kubit was a minority partner with the NOI Corporation Berg Holdings. He was responsible for property acquisitions and development, and financial analysis for the portfolio. The portfolio of properties consisted of nearly 4,000 units in 1985, and the Sears Point (Infineon) Motor Raceway in Sonoma, California In 1985 Mr. Kubit was hired to form The Carpenter Company as a Vice President of Capital Markets. His team organized a real estate mortgage banking company for an east coast insurance company. This company was formed to provide institutional tax-exempt bond financing, letters of credit, income property lending, and mortgages for development properties.
Mr. Kubit went into private practice in 1987. He provided real estate consulting services for builders, developers, and asset managers, including workout services to lenders, and builders. From 1991 through 1997 Mr. Kubit was a joint venture partner in a 410-acre land development project outside Sacramento, California which was the center of a 5,000-acre new community. In 1992, he became investor and advisor to and acting CFO of a family-owned toy company with known retail clients including Wal-Mart and Toy-R-Us. He was also an early shareholder in NexGen, Inc, which was later acquired by AMD. In 1994 he raised the initial capital and mezzanine funding for NewsMakers, Inc., and was the acting COO of the company, which later became Scoop, Inc (IPO in 1996) and continues to be a minority shareholder in the acquiring company Mr. Kubit also invested in the emerging technology at the University of Illinois (Champaign/Urbana) and served as CFO for Vosaic LLC from 1997 to 2000, including the overseeing the financial analysis related to the disposition of intellectual property to public companies. Vosaic (Video Mosaic) invented and licensed the first patented internet streaming video and audio; and network traffic management for the Internet. Clients included InterVu, Akamai, Nortel, and Forgent Networks. This technology was developed during the Mosaic browser program, the first Internet browser (i.e. Netscape and Internet Explorer, Mozilla). He additionally oversaw the investment in four additional pre-IPO companies, and continues to provide financial services to local and international clients. Mr. Kubit is married, the father of three children and lives in Orange County, California.
Andrew Chandler - Senior Vice President Northern California Operations
Mr. Chandler is a career investment banker formerly with ING Barings in Europe, where he was responsible for investment banking in the technology and consumer sectors. Prior to ING Barings, Mr. Chandler was a Deputy Manager with UAL Merchant Bank where he managed corporate finance activities, and was a Public Auditor with PricewaterhouseCoopers. He has an MBA in finance and operations from the University of Cape Town, is a Chartered Accountant, with international professional designation, and holds a B.Com (With Honors) in finance, accounting, and law, from Rhodes University.
Cathy Verlench – Partner
Ms. Verlench is a senior technology executive in the computer sector. She started her career in the computer industry with such notable companies as Tandon Computers, and ITT Information Systems. At the inception of the distributed computing revolution Ms. Verlench was one of the early employees at Compaq Computer Corporation and held numerous key sales and management positions. When Hewlett Packard acquired Compaq Ms. Verlench extended her management capabilities and became the Regional District Manager for HP. She left HP to head the Government and Commercial channels for high end super computer manufacturer Stratus Technologies. Stratus delivers a range of solutions that includes software-based high availability, fault-tolerant servers, availability consulting as well as assessment, and remote systems management services. Ms. Verlench provides Core with consulting services in the areas of distributed computing and high availability fault tolerant solutions. She has business and political science degrees from Stephens College in Missouri.
Simon Speight – Senior Advisor Information Technology
Mr. Speight is a senior information technology (IT) executive; he is currently the Chief Operating Officer (COO) of Dex.tv. Dex.tv is an international financial news channel broadcasting economic and financial information to global markets. Prior to Dex.tv he was the CIO of Market News First, an online financial news service, and the CIO for SUAI a publicly traded Insurance company. Overall Mr. Speight brings over 21 Years of experience in the IT industry with programming and senior development management experience in a number of programming languages including C/C++ and C# .NET and VB. In addition he brings extensive experience in corporate software implementations and planning. From a financial perspective he was the Vice President of Ridium Capital LLC an investment banking firm.
Sasha Talebi - Senior Vice President
Mr. Talebi is the Founder and Managing Director of Capital Fusion Venture Management. Mr. Talebi has several years of hands-on experience in venture capital, investment management/advisory, and entrepreneurship. He has co-founded two venture-backed companies (both profitable), and held operational roles in the semiconductor, networking, and enterprise software industries. In addition, he served as director of a global private equity research firm. Mr. Talebi holds an MBA with honors from the Graduate School of Management at UC Irvine, a BS in astrophysics and a BS in mathematics, both from UC Irvine.
Cheryl Isen - Head of Public Relations
Ms. Isen is the President of Isen & Co. a strategic marketing and public relations firm. Ms. Isen is a skilled communications executive offering 20 years of diversified marketing, corporate communications and executive management experience; she offers a proven record in helping companies use strategic communications to build bottom line results. Key strengths include increasing corporate visibility and marketplace opportunities through innovative company branding, product positioning, media relations, investor-relations and integrated marketing communications programs. Ms. Isen has assembled a team of seasoned professionals that work in unison with her as needed to deliver proven marketing strategies for early stage start-ups to emerging-industry leaders.
John F. Slitz Jr. – Venture Partner
Mr. Slitz was the Senior Vice President of Corporate Marketing for Novell reporting to the CEO. Prior to Novell Mr. Slitz was a top executive with IBM, and was the co-founder of Netwise, Inc. a software company purchased by Microsoft. Mr. Slitz holds a Bachelor's degree in Economics from the State University of New York, a Master's degree from the Graduate Faculty for the New School of Social Research, and an MBA from the Farleigh Dickenson University Executive Program. Currently Mr. Slitz is a turnaround expert in the technology sector.
Robert M. Esecson - Senior Managing Director East Coast Operations
Mr. Esecson is the Senior Managing Director of The Esmarox Group, LLC. Mr. Esecson is a successful entrepreneur in his own right having built and sold several businesses. He has been an investment and merchant banker, as well as a corporate consultant to corporations for over 20 years. His specializes in Mergers and Acquisitions throughout North America in a variety of different industries. Mr. Esecson operates the East Coast Affiliate of Core Venture Partners. Mr. Esecson has a Bachelor’s Degree in management and Accounting from Bentley College and his Juris Doctorate from The New England School of Law.
Neil Reizman - Corporate Attorney
Mr. Reizman is a corporate attorney who has advised numerous clients on business formation, acquisitions, and public and private equity and debt placements. Mr. Reizman holds a BS and MBA from UCLA and a Law degree with honors from Bolt. Mr. Reizman was an analyst for Osprey Venture Partners, LLC and the corporate attorney for Centaur Partners.
Jennifer Owings - Senior Analyst
Ms. Owings is an advisor to Core in the area of telecommunications and project management. She has over 16 years in the telecommunications industry having worked for such companies as MCI Communications (World Com) and Nortel Networks where she worked in the areas of software development. She provides research and associate level support to Core in the areas of wireless networking and enterprise software.