About

Charles advises ZL Technologies on corporate strategy. He has been a member of the Board of Directors of Maxtor Corporation since August 1995 (subsequently acquired by Seagate) and served as Chairman of the Board of Directors of MaxOptix Corporation from October 1998 to July 2001. He has also served as Chairman of the Board of Directors of Dot Hill Systems Corp. since July 2000, and board director at Agilysys, formerly Pioneer-Standard Electronics, Inc. since July 1997.

Previously, Mr. Christ was President, Chief Executive Officer and member of the Board of Directors of Symbios, Inc. from 1997 to August 1998, until it was acquired by LSI Logic. From 1994 to 1997, Mr. Christ was Vice President and General Manager of the Components Division of Digital Equipment Corporation. Mr. Christ received an MBA from Harvard Business School and completed his undergraduate studies at General Motors Institute, now known as Kettering University.

Masaya Onagi advises ZL Technologies on Japan strategy. Until June 2011, Mr. Onagi was President and CEO of JSOL Corporation. In 2005, he was a corporate advisor at the Japan Research Institute which is an IT subsidiary of Mitsui Sumitomo Financial Group (SMFG). Prior to that, he was a member of the board, an executive director and an executive vice-president at IBM Japan. He had over 35 years of extensive experience in the area of sales, especially in financial industry. He holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from Keio University.

Lawrence Calof is a retired partner at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, one of the nation’s largest law firms. Mr. Calof’s practice focused on mergers and acquisitions representing both strategic and financial buyers and sellers. He also had extensive experience in licensing and other high-technology issues, public offerings of debt and equity securities and venture capital investments in private companies. Mr. Calof graduated from Stanford Law School in 1969, where he was a member of the Stanford Law Review. He joined the firm in 1970 after serving as a law clerk to the Honorable William P. Gray, a Judge of the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California. Mr. Calof became a partner of the firm in 1977. Mr. Calof founded the firm’s first Northern California offices in San Jose, Palo Alto and San Francisco and served as the managing partner of the Northern California office until 1995. Mr. Calof has been a director of several companies and has been on a number of panels at business and legal conferences. From 1982 through 1985, Mr. Calof was a partner of Catalyst Technologies, a Silicon Valley high-technology incubator for start-up companies. Mr. Calof is a member of the California Bar.

Pam is a marketing executive with global companies who retains her Silicon Valley startup mentality. She serves as the Chief Marketing Officer/VP of Marketing at Telefonica Digital North America (the fifth largest telco’s innovation arm), She previously served as CMO for Teleperformance (Paris-based, the world’s largest contact center outsourcer), LiveOps (an original leader in crowdsourcing, backed by Benchmark and Menlo Ventures), Metreo (pricing software, acquired by Symphony Software, backed by USVP, Sequoia and Redpoint) and Arcot Systems (security software, acquired by Computer Associates, backed by Accel, Onset and Goldman Sachs). Pam has also provided consulting services to a range of technology companies, large and small, including Cisco, NetApp, VMWare, Google, Splunk, Ariba, Amdocs, Samasource and Let’s Linc. She spent ten years as a Partner at Regis McKenna, Inc. Pam holds a B.A. degree in French and an M.B.A. degree, both from Harvard University.

Erna Arnesen was formally Chief Channel and Alliance Officer at ZL Technologies, where she directed global partner and alliance strategy, program development, and execution. She also serves as a board member of Viato. Arnesen was previously VP of Global Channel and Field Marketing at Plantronics and previous to that, VP of Global Services Channels and Alliances at Cisco. She also worked at other leading organizations, including Symantec, Fujitsu Softek, Cybersource, SGI, NeXT and Apple.

Erna has received honors such as: CRN Women of the Channel and Channel Chief: Woman Who Made her Mark by Watermark; Women of Influence Award by the Silicon Valley Business Journal; and the YWCA Tribute to Women in Industry award. She has served as Chair of the Watermark Board of Directors and is presently a sitting board member and also board member of the Association of Strategic Alliance Professionals. She previously served as board member of Women in Consulting. Erna has an MBA from Harvard Business School and a bachelor’s degree from Wellesley College.

Mr. Idei is founder and chief executive officer of Quantum Leaps Corporation, an innovation consultancy company, founded in September 2006. It serves to nurture and develop venture companies, help corporate transformation and enhance Japanese competitiveness for the 21st century.

Until his retirement in June 2005, for more than a decade, Mr. Idei held a wide variety of leadership positions at Sony Corporation (including chairman and group chief executive officer from 2000 to 2005, president and chief executive officer from 1999 to 2000, and president and representative director from 1995 to 1999). During his tenure as top management at Sony, he created new IT and networked businesses, such as the VAIO computer, mobile products with Ericsson, Internet service businesses leveraging Sony’s entertainment contents, and others, to transform Sony into a unique networked “AVIT” company. He played a key role in moving Sony Corporation into the digital age and in developing and enhancing Sony’s renowned design and brand image throughout his career. After his retirement from top management in June 2005, he held the position of chairman of Sony’s advisory board until 2012.

Mr. Idei currently serves on the boards of directors of Lenovo Group, FreeBit Co., Ltd. and Monex Group, Inc. He is also chairman of the National Conference on Fostering Beautiful Forests in Japan since June 2007.

Previously, he served on the boards of Nestlé S.A., Electrolux, General Motors, Accenture plc, and Baidu, Inc., and also served in a number of other advisory positions including as counselor to the Bank of Japan, vice chairman of Nippon Keidanren (Japan Business Federation) and chairman of the IT Strategy Council, an advisory committee to Japan’s Prime Minister.

Mr. Idei received a B.S. degree in economics and politics from Waseda University in Tokyo in 1960. He also attended L’Institute des Hautes Etudes Internationales in Geneva, Switzerland, and is fluent in English and French besides his native language of Japanese.