BizTech@Wharton Conference

Michael B. Aronson

Founder and Managing Director, MentorTech Ventures (Moderator)

Michael Aronson is the Co-founder and Managing Partner of MentorTech Ventures, a family of early stage venture funds that invest in IT, eCommerce, Healthcare IT and Medical Devices and Materials companies that are connected to to Penn. Michael founded MentorTech after a long career of teaching at Wharton and founding four successfully exited software companies with Faculty colleagues and students. MentorTech is the only venture fund that invested in all rounds of financing of Diapers.com , commencing with the Series A. He is currently a board member or observer at Neat Company, Ticketleap, EyeIC, SeniorHomes, Soft Tissue Regeneration, Gentis, Molecular Detection, Innova Dynamics, Wanderfly, Kembrel and Medivo. Michael also led MentorTech’s investments in Yodle, Merchant Circle and ClickEquations. Michael received his B.S. in Economics from Wharton in 1978.

Dr. Leonard Lodish

Professor of Marketing, The Wharton School

Leonard M. Lodish (Ph.D. MIT, AB, Kenyon College) is the Samuel R. Harrell Professor in the Marketing Department of the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, Wharton’s Vice Dean for the Program for Social Impact, and Leader of the Wharton Global Consulting Practicum (GCP) that has subsidiary partnerships with leading business schools in Israel, Chile, Peru, China, Taiwan, India, and Spain. Through the GCP program, groups of Wharton MBA’s work with MBA students at the partner institution on real projects to help a foreign client company leverage a relationship with North America. Len was the initial Vice Dean for Wharton’s San Francisco campus from 2001-2009 and is currently Senior Advisor in San Francisco.

In 1995, he initiated, developed, and currently teaches Wharton’s Entrepreneurial Marketing MBA Course and wrote Entrepreneurial Marketing: Lessons from Wharton’s Pioneering MBA Course, with Howard L. Morgan, and Amy Kallianpur, published in 2001 by John Wiley. In 2007 Wharton Publishing published Marketing that Works: How Entrepreneurial Marketing can Add Sustainable Value to Any Sized Company, written by Len, Howard Morgan, and Shellye Archambeau. He has published over 50 articles, and is active as an editor in leading Marketing and Management Science Journals.

As a part time entrepreneur, Professor Lodish co-founded Management Decision Systems, Inc. (MDS) in 1967 with $4000 of initial equity capital. In 1985 MDS’s, 300 employees, merged with Information Resources, Inc. to become a premier international decision support and marketing data supplier.

He is a Corporate Director of J&J Snack Foods, Inc (NASDAQ) and also is a director or advisory board member of private companies — DVtel, Diapers.com, and First Flavor, as well as an advisor to the Jerusalem Global Venture Funds and First Round Capital. Len was the first outside director of Diapers.com which has become the fastest growing Internet retailer for 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2008. Professor Lodish has consulted with many major firms world wide.

Marc Lore

Founder and CEO, Quidsi

Before founding Quidsi, Marc was the Chief Operating Officer of Wizkids, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of The Topps Company, Inc. (NASD: TOPP) and a leading game manufacturer. Prior to joining Wizkids, Marc was the co-founder and CEO of The Pit, Inc., an Internet market-making collectible company constructed as an alternative to eBay that was sold to the then publicly traded Topps Company in 2001.

Earlier in his career, Marc held various investment banking positions, including Executive Vice President of Sanwa International Bank in London where he was head of the bank’s Risk Management Division. In 2000, he was named by The Sunday Times Magazine of London as one of Britain’s top 10 “new high-tech entrepreneurs and whiz kids.”

Marc graduated from Bucknell University, where he received a BA in Business Management/Economics, cum laude, and is currently on leave from the Wharton School’s MBA program. Marc lives in New Jersey with his wife and two young daughters.

Alexa Hirschfeld

Co-Founder, Paperless Post

Alexa is the co-founder of Paperless Post, a technology startup that has delivered nearly 50MM online invitations since it launched in 2009. Every invitation sent to date has been paid for using a virtual currency called “Stamps”. This month the company is introducing a new, free line of invitations in addition to its paid model.

Paperless Post has revolutionized both the style and substance of the online invitation category. It has introduced top-end design, removed ads, and changed the way people look at the vertical. The company found a new kind of consumer for online invitations who is willing to pay for a product they value, and use the web for the most important events of their lives. The company is 35 people, and has offices in NY and SF.

A year after graduating from college, Alexa and her brother James began working on nights and weekends to create the prototype for what would became Paperless Post. In September '08, an early beta product was delivered to users and the company raised its first round of financing. They raised a second round in November 2009 and a third in June 2010. In total the company has raised a total of $6.3MM in outside funding.

Alexa received a A.B. from Harvard College in 2006. She has been recognized as one of CNN Money's “10 Most Powerful Women Entrepreneurs” and Fast Company's “Most Influential Women in Technology.” She was recently named a New York Ventures Fellow from the New York City Economic Development Corporation.