NorthStar has recruited recognized members of the financial services industry and top enterprise technologists to join our Advisory Board. The breadth and depth of their industry capabilities are well acknowledged through their many industry accomplishments. Their rich domain expertise, direct participation and value-added insights and advice make them an important part of the NorthStar team.

Byron Vielehr
Former Chief Technology Officer, U.S. Private Client Group, Merrill Lynch

Byron Vielehr was most recently the Chief Technology Officer for the U.S. Private Client Group at Merrill Lynch. In this role, Byron was responsible for a budget of over $1 billion and an organization of over 1,500 employees, 500 consultants, and 400 offshore developers. Earlier at Merrill Lynch, Byron worked as Global Chief Technology Officer for Merrill Lynch Investment Managers (MLIM). Byron's responsibilities included front-, middle-, and back-office platforms, Internet platforms, and provisioning all infrastructures for the division. Prior to joining Merrill Lynch, Byron was the head of eBusiness and Vice President for Strong Capital Management, a $45 billion mutual fund complex, the eighth largest direct marketer of funds. Before joining Strong, Byron was Vice President and Director of Information Technology at Thrivent Capital Management Corporation where he was responsible for all technology for a $10 billion mutual fund complex. In addition, Byron served as President of Systems and Software Technology where he held general management responsibilities for this $10 million value-added reseller. Byron has an MBA from the Wharton School of Business and has done graduate work at both MIT and the University of Chicago. He also has a BS from Drexel University.

Bill Coleman
Former Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, BEA Systems

Bill was most recently Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of BEA Systems. Together with Ed Scott and Alfred Chuang, Bill founded BEA in early 1995. Bill brought to BEA more than 30 years of high-technology experience with particular emphasis on software development. Prior to BEA, he held various management positions at Sun Microsystems, including founder, Vice President, and General Manager of Sun Professional Services; Vice President of System Software; and Co-founder of Sun Federal. Before his work at Sun, Bill co-founded and was Vice President of Engineering at Dest Systems. Prior to that, he held positions as Director of Product Development at VisiCorp and Manager of the high-frequency systems group at GTE Sylvania. Bill began his career in the U.S. Air Force as Chief of Satellite Operations in the Office of the Secretary of the Air Force. In 2001, Ernst & Young named Bill the Entrepreneur of the Year in the Technology/Communications category. The Robert H. and Beverly A. Deming Center for Entrepreneurship at Colorado University-Boulder also named him its 2001 Entrepreneur of the Year. The media have also awarded Bill several honors.  BusinessWeek named him one of 2001's e.biz 25 top executives. CRN named him one of the year's top 25 executives, and Network World named him one of the "most powerful vendor executives." He is president of the Colorado University Coleman Institute for Cognitive Disabilities Foundation and is on the board of directors of the Silicon Valley Manufacturing Group. He is also a member of the Trilateral Commission. Bill has a BA in computer science from the U.S. Air Force Academy, and an MA in computer science and computer engineering from Stanford University.

Rich Freyberg
Former Chief Information Officer, Capital Markets and Trading, Charles Schwab & Co., Inc.

As the former Chief Information Officer of Schwab Capital Markets and Senior Vice President Technology for Schwab Services for Investment Managers (SIM), Rich Freyberg managed an integrated group of technology experts, based on the West and East coasts, across Charles Schwab & Co. and Schwab Capital Markets (SCMLP). Rich and his team provided services and support for Schwab's presence on the primary and regional exchanges, its institutional trading division, fixed income and specialized products offerings, and the company's affiliated market maker, SCMLP, one of the country's largest OTC market makers. He also led the technology group aligned with AMPS, responsible for Schwab's $350 billion asset management business. AMPS encompasses Charles Schwab Investment Management, Schwab's money management division; the Mutual Fund OneSource and Mutual Fund MarketPlace programs; the Managed Accounts division; Insurance and Annuity Services; and Mutual Fund Clearing Services. Rich's 30 years of experience in the financial services industry led him to join Charles Schwab in August 1998 as Senior Vice President of SIM Technology team. Rich acted as the Chief Architect for the SIM and Corporate Executive Services (CES) divisions of Schwab Institutional. Prior to joining Schwab, he held senior management positions at Bankers Trust Co. and Security Pacific National Bank. Rich also gained extensive experience as an independent consultant, starting up and running several financial services software firms specializing in mission-critical distributed application development. Rich holds a BA and Masters of electrical engineering and computer science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Allen J. Gula, Jr.
Former Co-President and Chief Information Officer, Franklin Resources

Al is an accomplished financial services professional, having accumulated over 30 years experience in the US and global financial services industry. He has held executive positions in e-commerce, payments, technology, operations, strategic business planning, and mergers and acquisitions integration. Most recently Al is a senior executive at Greater Bay Bancorp, one of the Bay area's largest independent bank holding companies, as well as a consultant and board member to several privately held companies where he assists with strategic development, operational scalability and financing. Prior to Greater Bay Bancorp, Al was Co-President at Franklin Resources, a $650 billion+ global asset management company, Executive VP at KeyCorp, Chairman and CEO of Key Services Corporation, and a board member at KeyBank N.A., KeyBank USA, Electronic Payment Services, Inktomi and MasterCard USA. Together with his late wife, Lynn, Al founded The Marilyn B. Gula Mountains of Hope Foundation (www.mountainsofhopefoundation.org), a non-profit Foundation dedicated to funding the diagnosis and treatment of advanced breast cancer research. Al received an MBA in Management from Case-Western Reserve University.

Christopher Larsen
Former Executive Vice President, Global Field Operations for TIBCO Software, Inc.

Christopher is a 25-year veteran of information technology with experience at a number of industry-leading companies. Most recently as Executive Vice President, Global Field Operations for TIBCO Software, he was responsible for all field operations, including sales, alliances, professional services and pre-sales support as the company doubled in size over three years, while entering new industry and geographic markets. Prior to this, Christopher served as president of SAP America. During his eight-year tenure at SAP, he held a variety of positions of increasing responsibility culminating in his position as President of the U.S. subsidiary where he was responsible for a $1 billion P&L, overall market strategy, and operational execution for the largest German ERP subsidiary. Christopher brings with him a wealth of comprehensive information technology experience, vertical industry experience, and a proven track record of global field operation expertise. Christopher is a graduate of Wake Forest University.

David Levi
Managing Director and Head of Global Product Management and Marketing, Alliance Bernstein Investment

 David Levi leads Global Product Management and Marketing for AllianceBernstein.  In his product management capacity David manages product positioning and product advocacy through all retail channels, defining and managing the tools used in all aspects of the sales process, including training, competitive analytics and detailed product positioning.  In his marketing capacity, David oversees the direction and creation of collateral and web content to support sales activities globally.  Most recently, David was responsible for Marketing and Wealth Management at Legg Mason (formerly Citigroup Asset Management).  In this capacity, David managed and set the direction of marketing functions, including institutional, retail, and high net worth businesses.  In his wealth management capacity, David was responsible for the global advisory and product strategy associated with the creation and support of multi-asset class, advice-related products and services offered by Legg Mason (Citigroup).  Prior to Citigroup, David was responsible for product development and strategic direction for Morgan OnLine, the JPMorgan Private Bank’s client advisory and client management capability. During his tenure at JPMorgan, David led several new business strategy and product development efforts, including the creation of the JPMorgan Private Bank’s Personal Financial Services business. He was previously responsible for JPMorgan Investment Management’s strategic planning functions. Prior to joining JPMorgan, David worked at Alliance Capital as a global quantitative research analyst. David holds an MBA from Columbia University Graduate School of Business and a BA in economics and public policy from Hamilton College. David is a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA).

Peter Lim
Former Vice President Core Technology and Group Vice President, Engineering, Siebel Systems

Peter Lim has over 18 years of experience designing and building large, enterprise systems. He has 18 patents in the areas of data replication, mobility and CRM, including several pending patents around the use of service-oriented architecture (SOA) in enterprise applications.  Peter worked at Siebel Systems for over 12 years and held positions including Vice President Core Technology and Group Vice President, Engineering.  He was responsible for delivering the Siebel platform and infrastructure to all 5,000 customers. He assembled and led the engineering team that developed Project Nexus (Siebel’s next generation SOA suite on J2EE and .NET) in tight collaboration with IBM, Microsoft and BEA. Peter also architected and wrote Siebel’s mobile replication solution, which is in use by hundreds of thousands of field sales and services users today. Prior to Siebel, Peter worked for seven years as an Engineering Manager at Oracle in the Applications Division. Peter worked on nine releases of Oracle Applications, built the team that ported Oracle’s eBusiness Suite to 18 platforms, and for four years also administered Oracle’s internal production financial systems. Peter has a BS from Carnegie Mellon University.

Cary Liu
Former Vice President of eCommerce, BEA Systems

Cary is a seasoned executive with over 20 years of experience in driving strategy and development of innovative products at leading enterprise application, infrastructure, and system companies. Cary was the Vice President and General Manager of the Platform and Shared Services Division at Ariba, developing industry-leading collaborative business process solutions for Global 2000 companies. He joined Ariba via the acquisition of Trading Dynamics where he served as Vice President of Product Development and Operations, developing sophisticated electronics trading systems used for sourcing complex goods and materials. This product led Ariba's marketplace and enterprise sourcing solutions and accounted for 50% of new license revenue. Prior to Trading Dynamics, Cary was Vice President of eCommerce at BEA where he initiated the breakout strategy and acquisition of WebLogic, and subsequently ran the product development of BEA WebLogic, which generates 85% of BEA's license revenue and transformed BEA into the market leader for application servers. Before joining BEA, Cary built and led the engineering team that developed the award-winning Enterprise Server for Netscape Communications and served in senior management positions at HaL Computer Systems and Convergent/Unisys. Cary graduated from the University of California at Berkeley with a BA in computer science and attended the executive management program at Stanford University.

Steven M. Mankoff
Former Senior Vice President, Global and Technical Services, Siebel Systems

Steve was most recently an employee of Siebel Systems where he was an officer of the company and a member of Siebel's Founders Circle. As Senior Vice President Global and Technical Services, Steve was responsible for Siebel's global Expert Services, Education, Professional Services, Quality Engineering, Technical Account Management, and Technical Support organizations and Customer Satisfaction and Offshore Development programs.  The combined organization had over 2,100 employees, over 700 dedicated contractors and annual revenue of approximately $1 billion.  Steve worked closely with many of Siebel's largest customers to help ensure the success of their Siebel CRM implementations. In the seven years prior to Siebel, he held various product, marketing, and sales management positions in several software companies including Oracle. He earned an MS in management from the MIT Sloan School and a BS in electrical engineering from Brown University.

Roger Portnoy
Managing Director, Starting-Right Limited

Roger Portnoy is Managing Director of Starting-Right Limited, an advisory firm focused on financial technology and data publishing markets, in which capacity he has served a wide range of globally-recognized clients including investment banks, commercial banks, infrastructure providers, information providers, and hedge funds, in both Europe and the U.S.  He was previously a Director of Thomson Financial where he led the European Private Equity Group and, prior to that, he was a proprietary trader at Swiss Bank/UBS.  He received a BA, magna cum laude, from Colgate University.

Ken Rudin
Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer, LucidEra

Ken Rudin is co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of LucidEra, where he focuses on redefining the reporting and business analytics market by providing a complete business intelligence on-demand solution. Before founding LucidEra, Ken held executive positions at Siebel Systems, where he created and was Vice President and General Manager of Siebel’s CRM OnDemand business unit. Ken was also the Vice President and General Manager of Siebel’s flagship Sales Force Automation product line, and was Vice President of Marketing for Siebel Analytics. Prior to Siebel, Ken was Senior Vice President of Engineering and Products for Salesforce.com, where he spearheaded all product development and product marketing functions for the first release of the company’s groundbreaking hosted CRM solution. Before that, Ken was Chief Executive Officer and co-founder of Emergent Corporation which was acquired in 1999 by Keane.  Ken is a sought-after speaker for on-demand software as a service and business intelligence topics. In addition, he has co-authored information technology books and has written more than 50 articles appearing in leading industry publications. He was also one of the original 12 faculty instructors for the prestigious Data Warehousing Institute. Ken holds a BA in computer science and electrical engineering from Harvard University and an MA in business administration from Stanford University.