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Board of Directors
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John Diehl
CEO
Black Sand Technologies, Inc. |
As CEO of Black Sand Technologies, John Diehl is responsible for setting the strategic direction of the firm and assembling the resources and expertise necessary to execute the company's business plan.
Before joining Black Sand, Mr. Diehl worked at Freescale Semiconductor as Director of Strategic Business Development for its Wireless and Mobile Solutions Group. Previously, Mr. Diehl co-founded PrairieComm Inc., a provider of baseband processors and protocol software for 2G and 3G cellular handsets, which he sold to Freescale in 2005. Mr. Diehl began his career at Motorola and held engineering positions in its Cellular Products Division and Corporate Communications Research & Development Center. He holds a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana and a master’s degree in electrical engineering from the Illinois Institute of Technology. |
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Dave Pietruszynski
VP Engineering
Black Sand Technologies, Inc.
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Mr.Pietruszynski co-founded Black Sand Technologies and serves as the company’s Vice President of Engineering. Mr. Pietruszynski has 25 years of design and marketing experience in the semiconductor industry including management positions at Silicon Laboratories, the Crystal Semiconductor division of Cirrus Logic, and AT&T Bell Laboratories. In his most recent positions at Silicon Laboratories, Mr. Pietruszynski was the Director of Engineering for the Wireline division, and later the Networking division of the company.
During his career, Mr. Pietruszynski led teams that developed products for high volume manufacture in diverse applications including transmission, datacom, telecom, audio, optical communications, optical storage, and high precision timing products. He holds an MSEE from UC Berkeley and a BSEE from Lehigh University.
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Venu Shamapant
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Venu Shamapant is co-founder of LiveOak Venture Partners. Prior to co-founding LiveOak, Venu joined Austin Ventures in 1999 and was a General Partner there since 2005. At Austin Ventures, he worked with companies focused on enterprise solutions, communications infrastructure, semiconductors, technology enabled services, and infrastructure and mobile software. Prior to joining Austin Ventures, he was with McKinsey & Co. serving clients in the enterprise systems and software markets. He started his professional career as a software developer and engineering lead at Mentor Graphics.
Venu received his MBA from the Harvard Graduate School of Business, MS in Computer Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin, and a BS in Electronics and Communications engineering from Osmania University, India.
Venu is one of the founding members and currently serves on the board of Directors of TiE-Austin. He is also a founding board member of Austin Speech Labs - a non-profit focused on providing affordable speech and cognitive therapy for stroke survivors.. |
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Basil Horangic
Partner
North Bridge Venture Partners
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Basil Horangic joined North Bridge in 2007. Basil came from Austin Ventures, where he spent over 6 years as Partner and then General Partner. He started in the venture business at Oak Investment Partners, where he spent 3 years as an Associate and then Principal. Previously, Basil worked at McKinsey and Goldman Sachs.
Basil’s venture investing started in telecommunications equipment and consumer internet. Over time, he has added servers and storage, semiconductors, EDA/IP, and consumer electronics. He primarily starts or incubates companies, with selected activity in later stage projects.
Basil is a graduate of MIT with bachelor degrees in Computer Science and Economics, and a Masters Degree in Management Science. He is ABD for a Ph.D. in Industrial Organization from the University of Chicago, and also received and MBA during his time there. |
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Kari-Pekka Wilska
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Kari-Pekka “KP” Wilska has an extensive history within the cellular industry and was a driving force in the rise of Nokia Corporation (NYSE: NOK) to its position as the largest wireless supplier in the world. Mr. Wilska joined Nokia in 1973 and served in executive posts with Nokia Inc., Nokia Mobile Phones, Nokia Cellular Systems, Nokia Telecommunications, Kinex Corporation, Mobira Oy, and Vertu Ltd. before retiring in 2005 as president of Nokia subsidiary Vertu Ltd.
Mr. Wilska also serves on the boards of directors of Brightpoint, Inc. (CELL), 724 Solutions Inc, Sotto Wireless Inc, Mavenir Systems Inc, and PulseWave RF, Inc. He served as a Board of Director of Spectra Site Inc (AMT), Agere (LSI) and Zarlink Inc (ZL). Mr. Wilska serves as well on the Board of Dallas Opera and Forth Worth Opera.
Mr. Wilska holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Radio and Television Technology from the Helsinki Institute of Technology. He was a recipient of the Electronics Engineering Association of Finland’s bi-annual EIS Award in 1995, received the CTIA’s President Award in 1999, and was recognized by Wireless Foundation with Industry Achievement Award 2002 and Engineering Association of Finland appointed him as the Engineer of the Year 2003.
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