At his most recent software start-up, Persistence Software, Chris raised over
$20 million in venture funding from Morgan Stanley Ventures, Intel Ventures and
Cisco, took the company public on NASDAQ in 1999 and ultimately sold it to
Progress Software.
After the stock market crash, he was responsible for
restructuring the company, reducing costs by over 50% while growing revenues by
20% in a difficult business climate.
At Persistence, Chris helped pioneer the field of in-memory data management and holds several patents in this area. During this time, Chris led the company through several major technology transitions, from proprietary platforms, to standards-based platforms.
As a industry visionary, Chris helped create multi-million dollar technology partnerships with companies like Cisco, Sun, Reuters, Fedex and Citigroup. He also drove technology outsourcing decisions, both for Persistence and for its partners.
Chris has written extensively on Silicon Valley, entrepreneurial management
and technology and has appeared in forums ranging from Comdex to the Wall Street
Journal. He has acted as a business advisor to technology start-ups and sat on
several boards.
He is also a frequent lecturer at business schools, and
has led courses on entrepreneurship at Stanford, the Berkeley Haas School of
Business, and the London School of Business.
Currently, he is living in
Paris and serving as an entrepreneur-in-residence and lecturer at INSEAD.
Chris graduated with a B.S. in Mathematical Sciences with honors from Stanford University. He also earned an MBA from the Wharton School. Before Persistence, he worked for McKinsey and Company in New York and Hamburg. Before that, he worked at Ashton-Tate in California, at Hewlett-Packard in Germany and at a medical software startup, MEDAID. He is fluent in German.
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