Judges for 2016 McGuire New Venture Competition Announced
Five judges will evaluate the 21 McGuire Entrepreneurship Program student startup teams at the 2016 McGuire New Venture Competition and Showcase, a rapid-fire rocket pitch competition and trade show on April 29. This year's judges, industry experts from California, Washington, Texas and Arizona, represent an exceptional level of business leadership experience and commitment to principles of entrepreneurship and innovation.
"I'm thrilled to welcome this year's panel of judges," said McGuire Center Executive Director Joseph P. Broschak. "They represent a diverse set of industry backgrounds and interests. The fresh perspectives they bring to the the New Venture Competition will both challenge our students and develop them as well.”
In the first round of the pitch competition, each of the 21 new venture teams will present a three-minute rocket pitch. The judges will select six teams to return for the final round, and the finalists will present a five minute pitch and engage in five minutes of Q&A with the panel of judges. The judges will then select the winning teams for the grand prize, second place and third place awards of $10,000, $5,000 and $2,500 respectively.
Meet the Judges
Mike Chadwick has over 20 years of technology, finance and business management experience, primarily focused on hyper-growth and scalable enterprises. As a licensed investment banker for CKS Securities, Chadwick successfully closed two large venture rounds totaling 40MM for fast-growing technology companies in Arizona. Previously he was the Senior Managing Director of YAM Capital, the private equity arm for GoDaddy founder Bob Parsons. Chadwick co-founded CopiaMobile (later nGage) where he served as COO for three years. Before venturing into small business entrepreneurship and banking, Chadwick was Vice President of Technology and CTO of the technology business unit at GoDaddy.com where he was responsible for the development of GoDaddy’s core Internet presence products and building the product engineering team from 12 engineers to over 350. Chadwick holds a B.S. in Computer Science, with minors in Math and Psychology, from the University of Arizona. He has 11 issued patents and multiple patents pending.
Christopher McGuire is the Vice-President of Programs and Director of the H.N. and Frances C. Berger Foundation. He is responsible for executive leadership, vision and oversight for a variety of programs and services, and he has initiated new philanthropic endeavors. The Berger Foundation and its VP have provided significant support — financial and personal — to the center and its program, since its inception. The McGuire Center for Entrepreneurship and the McGuire Entrepreneurship Program were both renamed in 2003 in recognition of McGuire, a University of Arizona graduate, and his wife, Carol.
Steve Scarpino has nearly 30 years of experience in the transportation, high-tech and oil and gas industries and has been an advisor and mentor to a number of start-up technology and internet businesses. Prior to his current role as Director of Ethics and Compliance for BP, Scarpino was the Ethics & Compliance Officer for NCR Corporation where he was a member of the legal department’s Law Leadership Team, handling major contract negotiations, development of emerging businesses and intellectual property licensing. Scarpino is a member of the Ethics & Compliance Initiative, a Fellow for the Ethics Resource Center and is a past Board Member of the National Association of Contract Managers (NACM).
Stefan Weitz is the Chief Product and Strategy Officer for Radial and is responsible for leading the planning and execution of the overall corporate strategy, including defining Radial’s portfolio of global products, product marketing, and inventing technologies to deliver the industry’s best post-click commerce solutions. He is also the GM for Radial’s Payments business. Prior to joining Radial, Weitz spent 17 years at Microsoft where he served in key engineering and strategic roles to help turn whitespace opportunities into viable business lines. He most recently was one of the founding members of the Bing search engine, helping to drive that product to 30 percent of search market share and billions in revenue. He began in eCommerce at Microsoft with the acquisition of eShop in 1997. Weitz holds a half-dozen patents in various disciplines and is a frequent lecturer to industry and academic groups on the future of data, information storage, retrieval, and usage. He recently published his thoughts in the international best-selling book, Search: How the Data Explosion Makes Us Smarter.
Matt Williams, a 1993 McGuire Program graduate, started his career as a technology entrepreneur as co-founder and CEO of LiveBid.com, a Seattle-based company that pioneered real-time, event-based auctions online. Amazon acquired LiveBid in 1999 and Williams spent 11 years in a variety of executive roles at Amazon. Williams was CEO of Digg from September 2010 until completing the sale of the company in July 2012. He spent a year as Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Andreessen Horowitz before raising $17.5 million in funding in 2014 to launch Pro.com, a nationwide pricing engine for home projects.
Meet the Teams
McGuire Entrepreneurship Program students receive a year of intensive experiential education that engages them in the process of moving innovation from an early-stage idea to a sustainable investor-ready venture. Learn about all of the 2016 McGuire Program New Venture Teams!
All events take place at the Eller College of Management in McClelland Hall, 1130 E. Helen St., in the Berger Auditorium and adjoining Estes Atrium. Please plan to join us for this exciting event! It is free and open to the public.
Schedule
10 a.m. - Trade Show
11:30 a.m. - First Round Rocket Pitches
1:30 p.m. - Business/Law Exchange Presentation
2 p.m. - Finalist Pitches
3:30 p.m. - Awards Ceremony
4:15 p.m. - Reception