San Diego – January 23, 2012 – The Chairmen’s RoundTable (CRT), a San Diego non-profit organization that provides pro-bono mentoring and strategic advice to the region’s businesses, announced today that it has elected Steven Mendell as its Chairman.

Mendell takes the reins from Jeff Campbell, who will remain on the board as Chairman Emeritus.

“Steve has been an active mentor with the CRT for several years,” saidCampbell. “We are excited to have him take the same passion and wisdom he has shared with those companies over the years and channel it to guide our organization.”


Steven Mendell has more than 25 years experience leading established and early stage organizations in the medical device and biopharmaceuticals businesses. He headed European marketing and German operations for Becton Dickinson and is the former chairman and CEO of XOMA Corporation. He served as president and CEO of LMA Medical Corporation and Prizm Pharmaceuticals. Mendell has also served as chairman for a public university foundation and was appointed to the NASDAQ corporate advisory board. Over the years he has been recognized for his achievements including being named the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year and being awarded the Gold Chief Executive Award in Biotechnology in 1989 – the highest honor — by the Wall Street Transcript.


The CRT also announced the balance of its 2012 board of directors appointments: Michael Tedesco – Chief Financial Officer; David Oates – Vice Chair, Marketing; Alan Creutz – Vice Chair, Client Evaluation & Mentor Assignments; Terrance Bruggeman – Vice Chair, Partner Relations; William A. Lofft – Vice Chair, Quality Assurance; Jeff Campbell – Chair Emeritus & Vice Chair, Mentorship; Vern Yates – Vice Chair, Program Development; and newest member Cory Grant – Vice Chair, Sponsor Development.


David Thompson and Sayed Ali depart the board after selflessly serving the organization and its mission to strengthen San Diego one company at a time.


About Chairmen’s RoundTable
The Chairmen’s RoundTable is a non-profit volunteer organization comprised of more than 40 current and former Chief Executive Officers, with extensive board experience and diverse industry backgrounds, and 20 sponsor organizations. CRT mentors provide businesses in San DiegoCountypriceless business advice and mentorship without compensation as a way of giving back to the community. CRT’s well-defined mentoring program is ideal for small to mid-sized companies at a strategic crossroad that are looking to gain an outside perspective on key business issues. To date, more than 250 local companies have benefited from CRT’s mentorship. For more information and to read about past client successes, please visit www.chairmensroundtable.com.

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Vern has been an active angel investor, consultant, advisor and mentor to start up companies since his retirement in 1996.  He also was the founder of the San Diego Band of Angels, a 160 person angel investment group.  This group combined in 2000 with the Tech Coast Angels to form a group which now covers Los Angeles, Orange, Ventura, Riverside and San Diego Counties.  Members of the Tech Coast Angels have made over $100 million in investments in Southern California start up businesses.  Vern formerly served as Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Tech Coast Angels.

Vern is currently serving as Chairman and CEO of Ameranth Wireless, and as a board member of Filmetrics, Controltec, and Virtual Metrix and has formerly served on the board of five corporations (Sandpiper Networks, MineShare, enonymous.com, Vectron and Tourmaline Networks), is currently an advisor to Transaction Wireless, and has been a former advisor to eight companies (BizRate.com, GreenPlum, CollegeClub.com, Alitum, Fetch Technologies, Path1, Teleflage, mSnack and Dtection Systems), and serves as an executive mentor to several persons seeking to start businesses.  Vern also is an active member of The Chairman’s Roundtable, an executive mentoring organization in San Diego, and an active participant in various CONNECT and UCSD von Leibig Center programs.

Vern has extensive experience with both internal and venture funded start-up companies having served as: President and CEO of Primary Access Corporation, a San Diego based venture backed telecommunications access systems company that was sold to 3Com; President of the Electronic Payments Division of Deluxe Corporation that was spun off in 2000 as a publicly traded company named Efunds, Vice President and General Manager of NCR’s Personal Computer Division, an internal startup which he formed in 1984; Vice President and General Manager of NCR’s EFT & Data Services division which he formed in 1982; and as Vice President of Sales and Marketing of COMTEN, a telecommunication startup, from 1970 through its acquisition by NCR in 1979.  In the 1960’s, he served in sales and marketing positions with Collins Radio company and was involved with the communications system for the Apollo program and its associated ground tracking systems.  He graduated from George Washington University with an Electrical Engineering Degree and is a member of the GW Engineering Hall of Fame.

We recently caught up with him on his experiences with CRT.

How long have you been involved as a mentor in CRT?

I am not exactly sure but I believe  I joined CRT in 1999.

What got you interested in the organization in the first place?

I started the local network of the TechCoast Angels in 1997 and was very involved with helping entrepreneurs start companies and raise money.  I knew most of the early CRT members and was invited to join.  There were only 10 or 12 members at that time.  I had been mentoring startup companies since I fully retired in 1996, I enjoyed the CRT members and the rest is history.  Besides the mentoring, I enjoyed getting to know my co-mentors by working with them.

Any idea how many clients you’ve helped? What kind of industries?

I do not know the exact number but I usually had two clients a year so I would guess it is over 20 companies.  It has been a diverse set of companies.  There were several software companies, a steel fabrication company, a construction company, a mobile office leasing company, a re-seller of copy machines, a maker of equipment to inspect the quality of coal at the source, a computer company serving the government market, a website developer of church websites, a hat company, a nurse sourcing company, a developer of web stores, a company that sources targeted lists for email campaigns, as well as eCopywriters.

What keeps you involved in CRT?

I still enjoy mentoring entrepreneurs and helping them reach their goals, enjoy learning about the products, markets, and technologies that our clients are involved with, and the people that I get to associate with.

Ake Persson brings more than three decades of management experience from the international telecommunications industry. When retiring from Ericsson in 2004, he was a member of the Group Executive Management Team, the head of business unit CDMA Systems and President of Ericsson Wireless Communications, Inc. Prior to that, Ake was the VP of Marketing and Sales with global responsibility for Ericsson’s portfolio of wireless systems products.

Ake has been the General Manager of several of Ericsson’s business units including Cellular Systems, Mobile Radio, Mobile Voice & Data Systems and CDMA systems. As the Executive VP at Ram Mobile Data Inc from 1991 to 1992, he helped deploy and operate the world’s first wireless data network supporting Blackberry devices. Ake has served on the boards of several Ericsson companies around the world, holds a B.Sc. in Theoretical Physics and Mathematics from the University of Uppsala, Sweden and has received Management and Business Administrative training at Centre European d’Education Permanente atInsead,France.

Residing inSan Diego, he is today active in the industry as an advisor, corporate board member and management coach.

A member of the Chairmen’s Roundtable since 2006, Ake has provided pro bono mentorship to CEOs and management teams of eight companies in a wide range of industries; many of them outside of the technology space. He is also a member of the Advisory Board of the Jacob’sSchoolofEngineeringat theUniversityofCalifornia San Diegoand is an active board member of several local organizations including CommNexus, EvoNexus, the Swedish American Chamber of Commerce San Diego and The House of Sweden.

We recently caught up with him on his experiences with CRT.

What keeps you involved in CRT?

I get the opportunity to meet with companies and business owners from all sorts of industries. I’ve had the pleasure of working with high-tech companies but also with glass and glazing manufacturers, sport bike and security services companies. I find it exciting and refreshing to look at different industries.

What role do you play for each of the companies that you mentor?

We hone in on strategic issues; helping the business owners outline a path toward profitability and growth. At times, we recommend bringing in experts to help with operational and financial management issues in order to lay the foundation by which we can look at the bigger picture.

How do you relate with owners of companies in industries in which you have no prior experience?

It’s never as much about the particular nuances of a market as it is the leadership and management qualities that must be present in order to succeed. That’s where we as CRT mentors spend our time. We see that time and time again how our experiences are directly translatable to any business.

What elements must exist for a CRT-client relationship to be successful?

The biggest thing is for the business owners and management team to be “coachable.” Defense barriers must be lowered and two-way communication must be present in order for progress to be made. These are traits I still try to uphold in my own day-to-day activities, but they are critical for a company to move ahead.

How did you get introduced to CRT?

A member of CRT, Scott Fox, brought me in to the group, and I’m glad he did. It’s been a rewarding experience these past five years.

We at Stalwart Communications have been getting a great deal of interest of late, and we’re extremely appreciative of the referrals by people who think highly enough of us to do so. Some of them have been true start ups, literally one step beyond the concept stage, but far enough ahead of a full-fledged launch and customers.

Marketing dollars are in short supply for these organizations, so they naturally want to generate as much free publicity as they can. Hence our introduction. Often times, though, I find myself giving them a dose of bad-tasting medicine; that PR cannot – and should not – be their first line of offense.

Here’s why; reporters and editors of media outlets – particularly those that cater to the general public – are less apt than ever before to write about a novel concept at its launch without having the market validation. This is a significant change from slightly more than a decade ago, where all one needed was a website and a mission to “disrupt the brick and mortar side of their industry.” Hype was all that was required to garner press. The problem came just a few months later when the dot-com boom busted, and entrepreneurs, patrons and investors all came back down to reality. Those stories in the media that touted the “next great thing” turned out to be wrong. The legacy from that is in how reporters now look at new companies; with a far more skeptical eye.

That’s not to say that all startups are resigned to not see their names on the home page of TechCrunch or the Wall Street Journal when they launch. There are several exceptions, but many center around how well their founder is known by consumers and stockbrokers. If Netscape’s founder Marc Andreessen, Microsoft’s Bill Gates or Berkshire Hathaway’s Warren Buffet even think about a new idea for a company, someone will most certainly pick it up. For the rest of us, good positive coverage will only come after achieving significant customer traction – to the tune of tens of thousands — and exponential projections for more.

But know this – the lack of press doesn’t signal a referendum on the company’s prospects. It’s more of a sign of how news organizations look at events. Their number one criteria to determine what makes news is how many in their audience is interested. A start up with no clientele will be seen as potentially interesting, but a bit too early for worthy coverage. However, when market traction is gained, the company founders better be ready for the landslide effect of press and customer that ensue. And we’ll be ready to help when the time comes.

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David Oates, APR, is the President of Stalwart Communications, (www.stalwartcom.com) a San Diego-based Pay-on-Performance marketing and public relations firm that charges its full fees only when its clients get press, awards and other marketing deliverables. He also launched the social media site, Pay-on-Performance (http://payonperformance.com), to engage business leaders in discussion on this revenue model.  David can be reached at david@stalwartcom.com.  He is an active sponsor of The Chairmen’s Roundtable, a nonprofit organization providing pro bono strategic advice to companies in San Diego.