Ossama Hassanein

Ossama has co-managed over $1 billion of international technology funds in diverse leadership roles including EVP of Berkeley International in San Francisco, Chairman of Technocom Ventures in Paris, President of Newbridge Networks Holding in Canada, Senior Managing Director of Newbury Ventures, and Chairman of the Rising Tide Fund in Silicon Valley. In the eighties, Ossama had the opportunity to co-lead the mezzanine financing of 80+ Silicon Valley based IT companies that became spectacular successes, including: Adaptec, Cirrus Logic, Atmel, PMC-Sierra, LSI Logic, Linear Technologies, and Oracle. Their combined market value today exceeds $200 billion. In the last 25 years, Ossama was chairman or co-founder of seven cutting-edge startups in the U.S., UK, France and Switzerland including ACC in Santa Barbara (routers, acquired by Ericsson), Algety in Lannion (soliton transmission, acquired by Corvis), HighDeal in Caen (rating engines, acquired by SAP), HighWave in Bretagne (fiber optic amplifiers, Listed on Euronext), NetCentrex in Paris (VoIP, acquired by Comverse), nCipher in Cambridge (encryption, listed on LSE), and Zong in Menlo Park (acquired by eBay). Currently, Ossama serves as a member of the Board of Directors of Bank of the West in San Francisco. On the social entrepreneurship side, he is a charter member of the C100, a Silicon-Valley based association dedicated to mentoring and angel financing Canadian entrepreneurs. Ossama also served on the Board of Directors of the nonprofit Relief International, a nonprofit, focusing his efforts on social entrepreneurship and development of women in the Middle East. He was chairman of the board of TechWadi and the Egyptian American Society in Silicon Valley and vice-chairman of the Board of PSD, an NGO focused on providing one laptop per child for up to 130,000 Palestinian children in need of education. On the academic side, Ossama served on the Board of Advisors of Harvard University Center for Middle Eastern Studies and of UCSF Department of Ophthalmology, School of Medicine in San Francisco. He was appointed as the Willard Brown Distinguished Professor at the American University in Cairo School of Business, where he remains a member of the Board of Advisors. Ossama lectured on Management Science and Engineering at Stanford University and the University of San Diego, and on international business at UC Berkeley and Santa Clara University. He was also a guest speaker on entrepreneurship in diverse venues including the White House, the State Department, MIT, Harvard University, and the Commonwealth Club.