April 2011, Guest of Honor
- Franklin Pitcher ('Pitch') Johnson“Economic freedom, political freedom and personal freedom are all facets of the same diamond. Entrepreneurs are the revolutionaries of our time" - Pitch Johnson - 2004.
Franklin "Pitch" Johnson is one of the founding fathers of the venture capital community in Silicon Valley. In 1962, along with his friend, Bill Draper, he co-founded Draper and Johnson Investment Company, an early-stage Small Business Investment Company, whose assets became a part of early Sutter Hill Ventures. Pitch founded Asset Management Company, a venture capital firm, in 1965, where he continues to play an active role. He has funded over 200 startups or young ventures that have grown into successful companies such as Amgen, Tandem Computers, Teradyne, Applied Micro Circuits, Applied Bio Systems, IDEC, Remedy and many more.
He is a past director of the National Venture Capital Association and has received many honors for his contributions, the most notable being the Lifetime Achievement Award by the National Venture Capital Association, and membership in the Hall of Fame of the Dow Jones Private Equity and Venture Capital Conference and election to the Hoover Institute Board of Overseers. Pitch developed and taught a course in venture capital at Stanford Business School from 1979 to 1990. He served as chairman of the board of San Francisco Opera from 1999 to 2008. Pitch received a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford in 1950 and an M.B.A. from Harvard in 1952. He is a flyer, a fisherman and an opera devotee, plays golf and is a close follower of sports, especially track and field.
R2EL
Speakers
R2EL is an empowering monthly seminar platform with the sole purpose of inspiring and enabling tomorrow's technology entrepreneurs and leaders.
The R2EL speaker and guest of honor will speak to a global audience via a live web stream over the Internet in Zurich before students and budding entrepreneurs to inspire, mentor and lead them into realizing their dreams of creating world-changing startups that will hopefully add tremendous technological and economic value to humanity.
Through R2EL, the speaker will
- Serve as an inspiration for tomorrow’s future entrepreneurial leaders
- Continue successful legacy of entrepreneurship and innovation
- Help to make the world a better place
R2EL seeks out speakers that meet one of the following:
- Successful entrepreneurs and business leaders
- Successful start-up founders and executives
- Successful venture capitalists & investors
R2EL schedule
- 3:30pm - 4:00pm - Doors Open
- 4:00pm - 5:00pm - Speech
- 5:00pm - 6:00pm - Q&A
- 6:00pm - Networking & Reception
If you want to be an R2EL speaker, please contact the R2EL team here.
