Board of Advisors

During a twenty-three year career in the energy industry, Mike led a transformation of a small regional integrated utility into the country’s second largest energy delivery company and the growth engine for a multi-national energy company. During his career, he has been a champion of competitive energy markets and of increasing the ability of customers to manage energy efficiently. In addition to his business career, Mike has been active in higher education, as a past chair of the Board of Trustees of Becker College where he was awarded an honorary doctorate and currently as a Trustee of Clarkson University.

Keith served as CEO for North America for Alstom Grid, where he was responsible for an annual $1 billion electrical transmission grid business, including 15 sales, service and manufacturing sites with 2000 employees. Previously he held several high level positions with Alstom’s Transportation and Siemens Energy and Automation group. Keith led a mid-market NASDAQ software company through a successful turnaround within two years and eventual sale. Keith’s focus with Newport includes industries that are involved in transportation, energy and other infrastructure development and maintenance, via the public sector and public/private partnerships.

Keith graduated from Cape Town South Africa with a degree in Electrical Engineering.

Alan is a well respected serial entrepreneur having founded over a dozen companies such as Rapid7, Percussion Software, Axceler,Alan is a serial entrepreneur having started over a dozen successful startups such as Ascendify, AppNeta, Percussion Software, Axceler and others. He founded his first company Rapid7 with John Devine, with whom he eventually launched many other successful start-ups. Rapid7 solves the network security problem in small and large companies. Prior to his business partnerships with Devine, he was a consultant to the investment banking group at Merrill Lynch, developed mortgage-backed securities software at First Boston, coordinated and operated computer graphics lab at HBO/Time Warner. In the late 1970s served as a programmer and designer for the VM operating system at IBM.

Tsuyoshi Taira is the CEO of Tazan International Inc., a Venture Capital and Management Consultancy Firm. Mr. Taira has been involved with a number of Silicon Valley startup companies as founding investor/director including Atmel Semiconductor (NASDAQ: ATML), Pico Power Technology Inc.(acquired by Cirrus Logic), Junglee Corporation (acquired by Amazon.com), Armedia (acquired by Broadcom), Apptivity (acquired by Progress Software), and many others. He has been instrumental in providing seed stage financing, management and marketing advice. Mr. Taira was Chairman of Sanyo Semiconductor directing Sanyo’s US marketing strategy.

Mr. Taira graduated from Tokyo Metropolitan University with a BSEE. He also received an Honorary Doctor of Humanities from Newport Asia Pacific University.

Mr. Mark P. Carthy is a Senior Partner at Orion Healthcare Equity Partners. Mr. Carthy is a Founder and Managing Partner at Orion Equity Partners, LLC. He co-founded Orion Equity Partners, LLC in 2008. He is employed at Walnut Venture Associates. He served as a General Partner at Oxford Bioscience Partners IV, L.P. and Oxford Bioscience Partners V, L.P. He served as Biotechnology Portfolio Manager at Morningside Group (Holdings) Limited. He served as a General Partner at Oxford Bioscience Partners since 2001. He joined Oxford Bioscience Partners in October 2000. From 1998 to 2000, he was an Advisor to Kummell Investments Limited. He was the Chief Business Officer of Cubist Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Mr. Carthy served as a Senior Director of Business Development at Vertex Pharmaceuticals Incorporated. He serves as Chairman of Artesian Therapeutics, Inc. Mr. Carthy serves as Chairman of Cyberkinetics Neurotechnology Systems Inc., and has been its Director since August 2002. He has been a Director of Rexahn Pharmaceuticals, Inc., since March 3, 2014.

Mr. Carthy serves as Non Executive Director of PowderMed Ltd. He serves as Director of Scion Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Xanathus Life Sciences, Ensemble Discovery Corp., Lynx Therapeutics Inc., Ensemble Therapeutics Corporation and Cyberkinetics. He serves as Member of the Board of Directors of Slater Center for Biomedical Technology. Mr. Carthy served as a Director of Astex Therapeutics Limited. He served as a Director of Solexa Inc., since March 4, 2005. He served as a Director of Variagenics, Inc., Edusa Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Xanthus Pharmaceuticals, Inc., ImpactRx, Inc. and Dendreon Corp. He served as a Director of Affinium Pharmaceuticals, Ltd. since 2007. He is an elected Town Meeting Member and Library Trustee. He was listed on the Forbes 2009 Midas List as one of the leading venture capitalists. He holds an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School in 1987, an M.S. in Chemical Engineering from University of Missouri, and a B.E. in Chemical Engineering from University College Dublin, Ireland.