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WASHINGTON, Sept. 16, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Former Governor of Pennsylvania and first Secretary of U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Thomas J. Ridge, and financier R. Brad Lane expand the team at RIDGE-LANE Limited Partners.

  • Girish VarmaManaging Partner, Information Technology: former President of Global IT/Managed Services and New Market Development at CenturyLink, the second largest enterprise telecom and internet provider in the world, where he also served as Executive Vice President & Chief Information Officer.  Dr. Varma is the founding LP investor and member of the Investment Committee at The CXO Fund, which invests in early stage companies, focused on artificial intelligence/machine learning, security, and internet of things.

  • Ziggy LiaqatManaging Partner, Education: former Global Chief Operations Officer at Pearson, and previously COO of North America at Pearson, where he took a fragmented global team and created one with world class operational capability, led a transformation program delivering multi-hundred million dollar cost savings across portfolio companies, while simultaneously navigating through the market disruption of a legacy education publishing business to a modern digital learning sciences company. 

  • Jetta WongPartner, Sustainability: former Director of the Technology Transitions at the United States Department of Energy, where she established the Office and advised the Secretary of Energy on Department-wide policies and programs to commercialize new technologies.  She co-chaired the White House's National Science and Technology Council's Lab-to-Market initiative focused on creating economic impact from Federally funded R&D.

  • Stuart MacmillanPartner, Sustainability: former Chief Scientist at National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), the U.S. Department of Energy lab dedicated to research, development, commercialization, and deployment of renewable energy and energy efficiency technologies. He held executive management positions at Sun Microsystems, where he oversaw engineering, research, acquisitions, investments and strategy initiatives. Dr. Macmillan is Precourt Energy Scholar and Adjunct Professor at Stanford University. 

  • John MacWilliamsVenture Partner, Capital Markets: former Associate Deputy Secretary of the U.S. Department of Energy, serving as Chief Risk Officer to advance Secretarial priorities of enterprise-wide approaches to innovative finance, risk management, project management, nuclear and cyber security.  He was Vice Chairman, Investment Banking at JP Morgan Chase, a Partner of JP Morgan Partners, and head of the structured finance group at Goldman Sachs & Co.

  • Charles MyersVenture Partner, Capital Markets: former Vice Chairman of Evercore Partners and member of the Executive Committee and Investment Committee.  He was the founding partner of Evercore's Institutional Equities business.  Prior to, he was a Global Head of Equities at Fox-Pitt Kelton, where he was a Board member and responsible for research, sales and trading of all equities products across the United States, Europe and Asia. 

  • Kim StevensonVenture Partner, Information Technology: former Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer (CIO) at Lenovo where she led the $5B data center group business.  Ms. Stevenson served as Chief Operating Officer (COO) for Intel Corporation's Internet of Things Businesses, as well as the Systems Architecture (CISA) Group.  She also served as Chief Information Officer (CIO) of Intel, and earlier as Vice President and General Manager of Global IT Operations and Services.

  • Jim DuBoisVenture Partner, Information Technology: former Corporate Vice President and Chief Information Officer (CIO) at Microsoft Corporation, where he was responsible for the company's global security, infrastructure, IT messaging, and business applications. Prior to this role, Mr. DuBois spent 20 years with Microsoft and has held several key positions, including; General Manager of IT and Vice President of Microsoft Products and Services IT.

  • Aamir HussainVenture Partner, Information Technology: former Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer for CenturyLink, one of the largest global enterprise communications, hosting, cloud, and IT services company in the world, where he was responsible for overseeing worldwide network, technology transformation, architecture and innovation roadmap, including Product Development, IT Operations, Cyber Engineering, Physical/Network Security and Global Cloud and Managed Services Development functions.

  • Donna MoreaVenture Partner, Information Technology: former President of CGI Technologies and Solutions, where she led 15,000 professionals, and served on the Board of Directors. She currently serves as the Chair of the Board of Directors of SAIC, the Board of Directors of SunTrust Banks, Inc. and as Operating Advisor to The Carlyle Group where she is a Member of the Board of Directors for three portfolio companies: NetHealth, KLDiscovery and Accelerated Learning. 

  • Armando OliveraVenture Partner, Sustainability: former Chief Executive Officer of Florida Power & Light Company, and President of NextEra Energy Capital Holdings Inc.  He serves as a Member of the Board of Directors of Lennar Corporation, First Industrial Realty Trust Inc., Harris Bank N.A, Harris Financial, Flour Corporation, and Consolidated Edison Company (ConEd).

  • Reuben SarkarVenture Partner, Sustainability: former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Transportation for the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), where he oversaw the $600 million annual applied R&D program, with a portfolio included advanced batteries, electric vehicles, smart mobility, light-weighting, fuels & advanced combustion, hydrogen, fuel cells, and biofuel programs across all vehicle markets.

  • Victor MendezVenture Partner, Sustainability: former United States Deputy Secretary of Transportation, where he was the Chief Operating Officer, responsible for day-to-day operations of the 10 modal administrations and the work of more than 55,000 USDOT employees nationwide and overseas.  Prior to, he was the Administrator of the U.S. Federal Highway Administration.

  • Ian MonroeVenture Partner, Sustainability: founder of Etho Capital, a market-leading index fund that has shown how sustainability metrics can substantially improve financial performance for all types of investors, which was named one of the world's "Most Innovative Companies" by Fast Company.  Ian is a Lecturer at Stanford University, where he teaches courses on climate change solutions and smarter sustainability analysis.

  • John Moavenzadeh – Venture Partner, Sustainability: former Head of Mobility and Member of the Management Committee at World Economic Forum, where he led global public-private initiatives to transform systems of modality, including autonomous vehicles, drones, airspace, integrated transport, and the future of manufacturing.  He is the Executive Director of Urban Mobility Program at Massachusetts Institute of technology (MIT).

  • Peter TseronisVenture Partner, Sustainability: former Chief Technology Officer (CTO) for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), where he held key leadership roles, including Federal IPv6 Task Force chair, the Energy.Data.Gov co-chair, and the Cloud First Task Force chair.  He made critical improvements to the acquisition process resulting in changes to policy, mandates, and new challenges.  Prior to, Mr. Tseronis served as the CTO for the U.S. Department of Education.

  • Daniel HamburgerVenture Partner, Education: former CEO of Renaissance Learning, the foremost education analytics company, leading the successful acquisition to Francisco Partners.  Prior to, he served as President and CEO of Adtalem Global Education, a $2B provider of educational services with 18,000 employees and 140 locations in 36 countries.  He served as Chairman and CEO of Indeliq, an education software company backed by Accenture Technology Ventures. 

  • Judah Karkowsky Venture Partner, Education: current SVP, Corporate Development and Global Head of M&A at Cengage. He held leadership positions in notable education companies, including: President of Americas at Learnosity, Senior Vice President at Amplify, Executive Director at Wireless Generation, and Director at Tutor.com, where he ran operations, business development, strategy, and corporate development. 

  • Stephen GuttentagVenture Partner, Education: former President of Pearson Online & Blended Learning K–12, where he navigated the organization through an evolving marketplace, spearheaded diversification of business lines, and implemented new processes and functions to support growth.  Dr. Guttentag was part of the founding team of Connections Academy, where he crafted the company's initial business strategy, product design, and built the business to a global leader in virtual learning.

  • Terry GrierVenture Partner, Education: former Superintendent of Houston Independent School District, and San Diego Unified School District, as well as Guilford County Schools, where he oversaw multi-billion dollar budgets, leading improvements in organizational structure for maximum efficiency and effectiveness in supporting schools with high-quality instructional teams and programs focused on student academic growth, to achieve bold and measurable goals.

  • Pam Moran Venture Partner, Education: former Superintendent of Albemarle County Public Schools, recognized nationally as a leader for contemporary education options that expand access and equity of opportunity to all learners.  Dr. Moran serves as Executive Director of the Virginia School Consortium for Learning (VaSCL), an organization representing more than 70 school divisions.  She was a gubernatorial appointee to the State Higher Education Council for Virginia and is a past president of the Virginia Association of School Superintendents.

  • Tom KambourasVenture Partner, Education: former Chief Technology Officer of New York City Department of Education, the largest school system in the country, leading a group of over 400 senior IT leaders, supporting the learning environments for 1.1 million children and 140,000 educators and administrative staff, where he was responsible for strategic planning, budgeting, and purchasing of all enterprise infrastructure and education technologies utilized in the classroom.

  • Deborah Karcher – Venture Partner, Education: former Chief Information Officer of Miami-Dade County Public Schools (M-DCPS), the fourth-largest school district in the US.  During her 15-year tenure with M-DCPS, she managed information technology operations and procurement 37,000 employees and 340,000 students, including leading the District's IT strategic vision and long-range planning.

  • Lenny SchadVenture Partner, Education: former Chief Information Officer of Houston Independent School District (HISD), the seventh-largest school district in the US, where he managed information technology operations and a network infrastructure for 283 schools, more than 40,000 employees and 215,000 students. Mr. Schad advises Superintendent and Chief Academic Officers across the country through the American Association of School Administrators.

"The collective knowledge and networks of these distinguished leaders is uniquely valuable," said R. Brad Lane, CEO of RIDGE-LANE LP "especially as the fourth industrial revolution accelerates, where the speed and scale of innovation is having profound effects on how our society evolves.  We have the privilege of leading a private sector effort, focused on improving quality of life for humans, communities, and governments, globally."

RIDGE-LANE Limited Partners is a venture development firm – focused on root-cause solutions to grand challenges in Education, Sustainability, and Information Technology – with a team of General Partners, Venture Partners, and Senior Advisors who have served at the highest levels of finance, government, and the military. 

We create value for our clients and society by bridging the gaps between private-sector innovation, investment capital, policy and procurement – across the Federal, State, and Local levels: an innovation ecosystem, providing corporate development to commercialize and scale novel technology companies.

Innovators tackling grand societal challenges:  Contact.Us@Ridge-Lane.com

For more information visit:  www.RIDGE-LANE.com

SOURCE RIDGE-LANE Limited Partners

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