SELmedia Advisory Board
Business Advisory Board
- John Draper, President, First Flight Venture Center
- David Neal, CEO, Crispin Corporation
- Donna Peek, Alliance Manager, SAS
John C. Draper is the President and Director of the First Flight Venture Center (FFVC). Mr. Draper is an attorney with over 25 years of experience as an entrepreneur and private equity investor. Prior to being named President and Director of FFVC, Mr. Draper served as Chief Financial Officer and Director of Operations for the North Carolina Technological Development Authority. Inc. He has also worked as a venture capital consultant for Kestrel Venture Management and was founder and CEO of Runtal North America, Inc., a startup company supplying cosmetically attractive architecturally engineered radiators to the construction industry. Over an eight-year period, as CEO and President of Runtal, Mr. Draper installed financial controls and database systems, raised three rounds of financing and negotiated the sale of the business, bringing a significant return to company investors. Mr. Draper’s experience also includes work at the Division of Sponsored Research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he reviewed technology for patentable innovations. Mr. Draper holds a JD from the University of Cincinnati and a BA from Ohio Wesleyan University.
Dave Neal has over 22 years of senior level management experience in the technology, software and the financing sector. Mr. Mr. Neal began his career in capital equipment leasing and financing, financing in excess of $275 million in assets. He has since accelerated the growth of a number of companies by serving in executive level financial, legal and strategic operations roles. He has co-founded several companies, including a tactical management-consulting firm. Mr. Neal is currently CEO of Crispin Corporation, a leading worldwide provider of broadcast automation software, equipment, services and support. Mr. Neal has served on the board of directors and advisory boards for several start-up companies in the Research Triangle area. Mr. Neal holds a BS in business from the University of North Carolina, an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business and a JD from the University of North Carolina School of Law. Mr. Neal is an adjunct faculty member at the Kenan-Flagler Business School and has served as an Adjunct Associate Professor of Law at the UNC School of Law. He was the founding Faculty Advisor for the Carolina Venture Fellows Program at KFBS and has addressed the needs of start-up entrepreneurs as a FastTrac Tech instructor for the Council for Entrepreneurial Development.
Donna Peek has more than twenty-three years of channel and market development experience in the high tech industry. She began her career at IBM, serving there for twelve years in a variety of sales and marketing management roles. After IBM, she served as vice president of channel development at Seer Technologies and vice president of business development for Plurimus, an Internet startup, before starting her own business development consulting business. Ms. Peek is currently Business Manager, OEM Sales and Business Development at SAS Institute, Inc. She is a frequent speaker at Council for Entrepreneurial Development's FastTrac TechVenture program and has also been a guest lecturer on alliances at UNC Law School’s entrepreneurial finance course and North Carolina Central University’s entrepreneurship course. Ms. Peek holds a BS degree in industrial engineering from Lehigh University.
Scientific Advisory Board
- Steve Asher, Ph.D.
Duke University -
Marvin W. Berkowitz, Ph.D.
University of Missouri-St. Louis -
Susanne Denham, Ph.D
George Mason University -
Frank Gresham, Ph.D.
University of California Riverside -
James Lester, Ph.D
NC State University - Lee Marcus, Ph.D
Chapel Hill TEACCH Center -
Angela Neal-Barnett, Ph.D.
Kent State University -
Stephen Quintana, Ph.D.
University of Wisconsin-Madison -
Peter Salovey, Ph.D
Yale University -
George Sugai, Ph.D
University of Connecticut