Who We Are
Our Advisors
Roberta Achtenberg
Roberta Achtenberg is an economic and workforce development consultant who served in senior policy-making roles with the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce and the San Francisco Center for Economic Development from 1998-2004. Roberta served in the Clinton Administration, first as Assistant Secretary of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity at the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), and later as Senior Advisor to then HUD Secretary Henry G. Cisneros. A former member of the Board of Supervisors for the City and County of San Francisco from 1990-1993, she also represented San Francisco as a Director for the Bay Area Air Quality Management District. She was a teaching fellow at the Stanford Law School, the Dean of the New College of California’s School of Law, and served on the Board of Directors of the Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco. Most recently, she co-led the HUD Agency Review Team for the Obama-Biden transition. Roberta earned her BA in history from the University of California at Berkeley and her JD from the University of Utah, College of Law.
David Coleman
David Coleman is the Founder and Managing Director of The Summit Point Group, a strategic management and technology consulting firm for financial services companies. David has more than 20 years of demonstrated success developing and executing strategies for major business and technology initiatives, turn-around transitions, and operational start-ups. Prior to founding The Summit Point Group, David served as Vice President of Technology Strategy and Planning at Fannie Mae, where he led strategic business and technology planning and program management, oversaw governance programs, and managed other shared services. During his tenure at the company, he held several other executive positions and managed both technology and business divisions as the mortgage industry underwent significant transformation and was forced to cope with multiple crises. His accomplishments while at Fannie Mae included development and roll-out of Desktop Underwriter, implementation of a redundant high-availability service-based application architecture, and re-engineering of core systems and business processes.
Chris Fry
Chris Fry is VP of Software Development at Salesforce.com where he is responsible for applications, core infrastructure and the force.com platform. He specializes in Software as a Service and creating and leading agile teams. He is the author of JSR-173 (Streaming API for XML) and has led the implementation and deployment of massively scalable Web Services at Salesforce.com and BEA. He received his PhD in Cognitive Science from the University of California at San Diego and was a post-doctoral fellow at the University of California at Berkeley.
Paul Grantham
Paul Grantham is a systems executive with a 20-year history of leading software and systems for international firms in finance, telecommunications, and transportation industries, including CashEdge, Charles Schab & Company, DHL, Sprint, Covad Communications, Xerox PARC, and BankAmerica. Paul has been meditating since he was in college and is on the board of directors of the San Francisco Zen Center. He has an MS in mathematics and computer science/operations research.
Hall Kesmodel
Hall Kesmodel is a senior manager at Ernst & Young, Employer Financial Services. Hall has 13 years of financial services experience and is currently responsibile for selling and managing consulting engagements and developing strategic marketing initiatives. He is also a Certified Financial Planner and has extensive experience working with attorneys, CPAs, investment managers and benefits executives to deliver large-scale services to Fortune 500 corporate sponsors.
Slawek Lieger
Slawek Ligier is VP of Authentication and Identity Services Engineering at VeriSign. His previous experience includes Senior Director, Open Business Infrastructure at AOL; Vice President and Chief Technology Officer at Intuit Insurance Services; and Director of Tax Technology at Ernst & Young.
W. Carter McClelland
Carter McClelland is the Chairman of and a Partner in Union Square Advisors. Prior to joining Union Square, Carter served as President of Bank of America New York Market and Chairman of Banc of America Securities. Previously, he was President and Chief Executive Officer and member of the board of directors of Deutsche Bank North America. Carter’s Wall Street career spans more than 30 years, including 21 years at Morgan Stanley, where he was Chief Administrative Officer and a member of the firm’s operating committee. Carter was formerly Chairman of the Board of the United Way of New York City and is a member of Mayor Bloomberg’s Commission on Poverty. He holds a B.S. in Aeronautical Engineering and an MBA from Stanford University.
