RRE Ventures

Stuart Ellman is Co-Founder & Managing Partner of RRE Ventures. He has been immersed in information technology since the early 1980’s when he taught himself computer programming and sold computer hardware and software.

Since co-founding RRE in 1994, Mr. Ellman has been responsible for over forty technology investments, ranging from incubation-stage to post-revenue companies, many of which have successfully exited via either IPO or M&A. He has invested in sectors across information technology, from security to green IT, from consumer-facing web companies to enterprise software. He currently serves as a Board Director of AdmitOne Security, BetaWorks, drop.io, Ember Corporation, Kashless, Payfone, Rave Wireless, RecycleBank and Storm Exchange.

Mr. Ellman began his career as a management consultant with McKinsey and Company in Australia. Later, he was a Financial Analyst at Dillon, Read & Co. where he focused on leveraged buyouts and restructurings and an Associate at Morgan Stanley & Co., specializing in fixed income capital markets. After graduating from business school in the early 1990s, Mr. Ellman was a co-founder and Vice President at Advisory Capital Partners, a principal investment and advisory firm.

In addition to his work as a venture investor, Mr. Ellman has served as an Adjunct Associate Professor at Columbia Business School since 2002, where he teaches a popular Venture Capital Seminar to MBA students. He is also on the board of the 92nd St. Y, where he chairs the Simon Center, the Venture Investors Association of NY, and is a member of the New York City Investment Fund Clean Tech Sector Group and the Economic Club of New York.

Mr. Ellman holds an MBA with Distinction from Harvard University and a BA in Economics from Wesleyan University where he was a Gilbert Clee Scholar and a Horace White Fellow.

Mr. McGinn is a General Partner at RRE Ventures and brings a 30-year career in the global communication systems, networking and technology industries to the firm. He is a member of the Business Council, and Director of the American Express Company and the Mountain Top Foundation. He is the former Chairman and Chief Executive of Lucent Technologies. While at Lucent, Mr. McGinn oversaw and directed engineering, research and investments of more than $4 billion annually at Bell Labs, Lucent's research and development arm.

At Lucent, Mr. McGinn was involved in the acquisition of, or investment in, over 30 technology companies. He conceived of and led the investment by AT&T in Sun Microsystems in 1987 and continued to build and acquire technology companies, including the acquisition of Ascend Communications. In addition, he devised and guided the creation of Agere Systems, a leading supplier of semiconductors and optoelectronic components for the communications industry, which went public in 2001, and was acquired by LSI Corporation in 2006.

Previously, while President and Chief Executive Officer of AT&T's Network Systems Group he was responsible for the strategy to accelerate growth for that business, as well as R&D and systems engineering. Earlier he was responsible for AT&T's business activities in Europe, Middle East and Africa, and separately Asia Pacific and Latin America. 

Mr. McGinn holds a BA from Grinnell College.

Mr. Patel is a General Partner with RRE Ventures, anchoringthe firm's Silicon Valley presence. He was previously a Principal at In-Q-Tel,the venture capital arm of the U.S. Intelligence Community, where he led anumber of investments including Palantir Technologies, CallMiner and TendrilNetworks.

Prior to becoming a venture capitalist, Mr. Patel was on theother side of the table as Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer of OrbitCommerce, an early pioneer in web services (acquired by Digital River,NASD:DRIV). Mr. Patel led the development of an integrated suite of 24x7managed services for the small-and-medium business market, sold via trustedbrand partners such as FedEx, Gateway Computer, Network Solutions andCincinnati Bell. Mr. Patel began his career with the advanced technologyresearch organization of Accenture, where he was a recognized expert inE-Commerce technologies and co-author of the firm's first E-CommerceApplication Framework.  He has recently led investments in Flipswap andTendril, and manages investments in Vocera and Montavista.

Mr. Patel holds an MBA from the Stanford University GraduateSchool of Business and a B.S. in Engineering from the University of Illinois atUrbana-Champaign.

Mr. Porteous is a General Partner with RRE Ventures. Before joining the venture capital industry, Mr. Porteous held senior management positions in marketing and product management with SupplyWorks and NetMarket, the e-commerce pioneer now owned by Cendant Corp. Mr. Porteous is a Director of Data Robotics, Electric Cloud, Liquid Machines, Peek, and Skyhook Wireless and a former Director of Frictionless Commerce (acquired by SAP) and Tacit Networks (acquired by PKTR). He also serves as an Adjunct Associate Professor at Columbia Business School and as Chairman of the Dockery Farms Foundation which he founded.

Mr. Porteous holds an MBA from Harvard University, an MSc from the London School of Economics and Political Science, and a BA with Honors from Stanford University where he served as Captain of the Varsity Crew.

Mr. Robinson is a General Partner of RRE Ventures. He also serves as President, J. D. Robinson, Inc.

Mr. Robinson served as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of American Express Company from 1977 to 1993. Prior to that, Mr. Robinson held several executive positions within American Express, was a general partner with White Weld & Co., and served as Assistant to the Chairman and President of Morgan Guaranty Trust Company.

Mr. Robinson is the Retired Chairman of Bristol-Myers Squibb Company. He is a Director of Coca-Cola Company and Novell, Inc. He also serves on the boards of On Deck Capital, PrimeRevenue, SkyGrid and Visiprise.

Mr. Robinson is a member of the Business Council, the Council on Foreign Relations and the Committee for Economic Development. He is Honorary Chairman of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center; an Honorary Trustee of the Brookings Institution; and Chairman Emeritus of the Partnership for New York City and the World Travel and Tourism Council. Mr. Robinson served as Co-Chairman of the Business Roundtable and as Chairman of the Advisory Committee on Trade Policy and Negotiations.

Mr. Robinson has a Masters of Business Administration from Harvard University and a B.S. from Georgia Institute of Technology.

Jim Robinson is a co-Founder & Managing Partner of RRE Ventures. He has been active within the technology community for over twenty years as a venture capitalist, entrepreneur and banker.

Since co-founding RRE in late 1994, Jim has been responsible for over thirty technology investments, with a focus on digital consumer, enterprise and financial services technologies.  He is currently a Director of AdaptiveBlue (semantic personalization) GoMobo (mobile order systems), iCrossing (e-marketing technologies), Mixed Signals (digital broadcast monitoring), m-Via (mobile remittances), OpenPeak (home infotainment platforms), SmartPay Jieyin (mobile top-up & payments in China), Vivre (luxury brand retailing), and WisdomTree (developer of indexes/ETFs).

While earning a dual degree in Computer Science and Business Administration at Antioch College during the early 1980's, Jim worked as a programmer for state government, and later founded and was President of IV Systems Inc., a firm that created small business applications for unix workstations. In 1986, Mr. Robinson joined JP Morgan & Company, where he spent four years working on technology-related assignments, first within the group charged with building global risk management systems, and later as an investment banker in corporate finance. Mr. Robinson earned an MBA from Harvard in 1992, and subsequently joined Hambrecht & Quist Venture Capital in San Francisco. While at H & Q he led investments primarily within the software and communications sectors.

Jim is involved in several non-profit endeavors, with a particular interest in children’s issues and rights.  He is also involved with the New York Software Industry Association (NYSIA), the New York City Investment Fund's Information Technology Group, and as a member of the Advisory Board of the National Association of Drug Abuse Problems. Jim has been a member of the Young President's Organization since 1998.

Mr. Zalasin is CFO and General Partner at RRE Ventures. He is a Director of Odyssey Logistics, NTM, Inc. and Massive Incorporated. From 1991-1996, Mr. Zalasin was with the law firm of Mound, Cotton & Wollan, where he specialized in structuring, negotiating and litigating complex corporate, commercial and intellectual property matters. From 1983-1988, he managed day-to-day operations, evaluated potential acquisition targets and negotiated the purchase of pharmacies for Jaglo Pharmacies, Inc. While at Jaglo, he designed, implemented and maintained pharmacy-related software systems.

Mr. Zalasin holds a JD with Honors from Yeshiva University where he was the Executive Editor of the International Law Journal, and received a BA with Honors from The City College of New York where he was a Hubert H. Humphrey Legislative Fellow, a Leskes Scholar and an Epstein Scholar.

Ms. Orban is a founding member and partner of RRE Ventures.

In 1994, Ms. Orban created and now heads the firm's advisory sales, marketing and communications services for portfolio companies. Her counsel helps companies build strategic alliances and sign licensing agreements as well as long-term contracts with Fortune 500 companies. This requires leveraging RRE's corporate network. As a result of her expertise, she has served on the boards of several RRE client companies.

Before RRE, Ms. Orban ran the corporate affairs unit as an executive at American Express. In this position, she created and executed the community relations, public affairs and communications strategies that drove the company's business objectives in the U.S. and abroad. She joined the company in Washington DC as a lobbyist on tax and trade issue. Prior to American Express, Ms. Orban was a legislative assistant to a member of the U.S. Congress on the House Ways and Means Committee, the late James C. Corman, served as a congressional liaison at the US Department of Agriculture and helped open the Embassy of the State of Qatar as chief of staff to its Ambassador Abdullah Salah al-Mana.

Ms. Orban is a member of the board of the Women's High Tech Coalition, Duke Comprehensive Cancer Center and Coro New York Leadership Center. She is a member of The Economic Club of New York.

Ms. Orban has a B.A. in Political Science from George Washington University.

Eric Wiesen is a Principal at RRE Ventures. Prior to RRE Mr. Wiesen worked for Updata Partners where he focused on growth-stage software investments. He first got interested in computers and everything you can do with them when his dad brought home an Apple II+ and a book on writing programs in 1980 and has been hooked ever since.

More recently, Mr. Wiesen was an attorney in the corporate group at Fenwick & West, a leading Silicon Valley law firm. As an attorney, he represented both startup companies and venture capital funds on a range of issues, including financing and protection of technology. He also represented more mature technology companies in M&A and securities transactions.

Earlier, Mr. Wiesen was a two-time entrepreneur. His first company, launched while he was an undergraduate at U.C. Berkeley, built and sold hardware and professional services to the 3D Graphics and animation communities. Later, Mr. Wiesen co-founded an enterprise software consulting firm specializing in CRM systems. He has also served as a staff attorney at a non-profit in New York, and worked in the White House during a semester in college.

Mr. Wiesen holds an MBA from Columbia Business School, a JD from the University of Michigan and a BA from the University of California at Berkeley.

Girish Gupta is an Associate with RRE Ventures. Girish is actively involved with the following RRE portfolio companies: drop.io, Ember, Payfone, and Rave Wireless.

Prior to joining RRE, Girish was an Investment Banker in the Global Technology Group at Lehman Brothers. At Lehman, Girish was primarily focused on financing and M&A transactions in Software, Digital Media, Communications Equipment, and Technology Services. Prior to Lehman, Girish was with Alkeon Capital Management, a technology focused hedge fund.  At Alkeon, Girish helped form sector and company investment theses for portfolio managers and educated investors on competitive technologies and trends in the semiconductor space.  While studying Electrical Engineering at Columbia University, Girish was a research assistant at the Columbia Institute for Tele-Information, a university-based research center focusing on strategy, management, and policy issues in telecommunications, computing, and electronic mass media.  Girish graduated with honors from Columbia with a BS in Electrical Engineering and minor in Economics.  

Girish is a strong supporter of youth entrepreneurship and socially minded enterprises, serving on the advisory board of Ashoka's Youth Venture in New York City.