Dr. Rao Mulpuri

Chief Executive Officer

Dr. Mulpuri is the Chief Executive Officer of Soladigm. He is responsible for the strategic direction and the financial and operational performance of the company.

Prior to Soladigm, Dr. Mulpuri held several executive positions at Novellus Systems, most recently as President of Novellus Systems Japan and Vice President and General Manager of the Integrated Metals Business Unit.

He holds a BE in Mechanical Engineering from Manipal Institute of Technology, India, MS in Manufacturing Engineering and Ph.D. in Materials Engineering from Boston University, and completed the Advanced Management Program at Harvard Business School.

Gary Dillabough

Managing Partner

The Westly Group

Mr. Dillabough runs the Smart Building Practice at the Westly Group. Prior to joining the Westly Group, Mr. Dillabough was the General Manager of Corporate Environmental Affairs at eBay. In this capacity he led all of eBay’s environmental efforts and helped design and set specifications for a 200,000 sq ft Gold LEED certified building. In addition he installed San Jose’s largest commercial solar deployment (650 kW) and a 500 kW fuel cell. During these projects, Mr. Dillabough met with and built relationships with numerous green building material suppliers and vendors.

Prior to that Mr. Dillabough was the Vice President of Strategic Partnerships at eBay. This team generated $575 million in revenue through revenue sharing agreements and ad sales over a five year period. Mr. Dillabough negotiated and put in place a number of large partnerships with the US Postal Service, UPS, General Electric, Sun, and Fidelity. He also oversaw the acquisition and integration of FairMarket which at one time was one of eBay’s largest competitors.

Mr. Dillabough spent four years in corporate real estate and developed his own portfolio of close to 100 apartment units. Mr. Dillabough is one of the few people in this industry with a combination of clean tech and hands on real estate development experience.

Mr. Dillabough has a BS in Civil Engineering from California Polytechnic University. He serves on the Board of Directors for the Lucile Packard Hospital Foundation and OneMillionLights, and formerly served as a director of the Internet Advertising Board (IAB) and the One Laptop Per Child Association (OLPC).

Mr. Dillabough recently installed a 5 kW fuel cell at his home. This is one of the first residential installations in the state.

Fahri Diner

Managing Director

Sigma Partners

During his 15-year entrepreneurial career in the high-tech industry, Fahri repeatedly demonstrated his savvy in conceiving compelling value propositions and building high-tech organizations to successfully execute aggressive business plans. Having joined Sigma Partners in late 2006, Fahri applies his expertise by identifying strong entrepreneurs with good ideas to help build disruptive, market-leading companies.

Fahri was the Founder, President, and CEO of Qtera Corporation, which he led to become the leading provider of ultra-long-haul photonic networking solutions. Nortel Networks acquired the company for $3.25 billion, and Fahri continued to lead Qtera as President of the wholly-owned subsidiary until 2001. Before founding Qtera, Fahri was a member of the executive team at Siemens where he helped establish and manage the company’s Optical Networks business unit in North America, which was later spun-off as Optisphere Networks. Prior to joining Siemens, Fahri led Pirelli’s pioneering activities in the optical amplifier and Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM) markets. The optical systems division of Pirelli was later acquired by Cisco Systems for $2.15 billion. Just prior to joining Sigma, Fahri founded Concept Ventures in 2005 by acquiring a portion of the assets of Applied Materials Ventures in which he served as Managing Director

Chip Hambro

Chip Hambro joined First Solar in 2001, and as Chief Operating Officer, led the turnaround, startup, and growth efforts that culminated in First Solar becoming the preeminent company in the solar industry.  After co-leading one of the most successful IPO’s of 2006, Mr. Hambro retired from First Solar in 2009.

Mr. Hambro has extensive experience leading R&D, engineering, manufacturing, and general business aspects of Fortune 500 technology corporations, with particular emphasis on compound semiconductor based photonic devices.  Prior to joining First Solar, he held positions of vice president of engineering & business development for Goodrich Aerospace, vice president of operations at ITT, and various technical management positions at Varian Associates. Mr. Hambro graduated from the University of California at Berkeley with a bachelor’s degree in Physical Science (Applied Physics).

Pierre Lamond

General Partner

Khosla Ventures

Pierre Lamond is a pioneer of the semiconductor industry. He started his career in 1957 as an engineer at Transitron Electronics before joining Dr. Gordon E. Moore's R&D team at Fairchild Semiconductor. While at Fairchild, Pierre oversaw the development of advanced high-frequency transistors and the first generation of digital integrated circuits.

Pierre left Fairchild in 1967 to cofound the National Semiconductor Corporation, where he was Vice President and General Manager, Integrated Circuits. Following CEO roles at Coherent Radiation and Advent, Pierre returned to National Semiconductor in 1977 to assume the role of Chief Technology Officer and VP, General Manager of Advanced Products.

In 1981, Pierre joined Sequoia Capital as a general partner, where he played a pivotal role in the expansion of the semiconductor, systems, and software portfolios. While at Sequoia, Pierre was chairman of the board at Cypress Semiconductor, Microchip Semiconductor, Vitesse Semiconductor, Open-Silicon Inc., Redback Networks, Verisity, and Plumtree. He was also a director at Mellanox Technologies and Xoom. Pierre ran, on a temporary basis, engineering departments at Cisco Systems and C-Cube.

For the past year Pierre has been a general partner at Khosla Ventures, and he serves on the boards of Skybox Imaging, Point Source Power, Cogenra, SEEO, and Soladigm. He also acts as an observer on the boards of Nordic Windpower, SeaMicro, Danotek Motion Technologies, Touchstone Semiconductor, and Rayspan Corp.

Pierre is a native of France. He graduated with a BSEE and MS in physics from Toulouse University. He and his wife are long-term residents of the San Francisco Peninsula and supporters of several Bay Area nonprofits.

Cynthia Ringo

Managing Partner

DBL Investors

Cynthia Ringo is a Managing Partner of DBL Investors, which she joined in April of 2008. Ms. Ringo was formerly a Managing Director of VantagePoint Venture Partners from 2002 to 2008 where she was Group Leader of the Communications, Systems, Internet and Media Practice. Ms. Ringo served as a Board Member of the following VantagePoint portfolio companies: Entrisphere, Klipsh, Tymphany, Widevine, LiveScribe, Provina and Meriton.

Prior to VantagePoint Venture Partners, Ms. Ringo served as the CEO of Coppercom, a next-generation network switching company, from 1998 to 2001 and was the Chairman of the Board from 2001 to 2002. While at Coppercom Ms. Ringo took the company from pre-revenue and five employees to an industry leader in two new communications markets. Coppercom was acquired by Heico Corporation in 2003. Prior to Coppercom Ms. Ringo was the SVP of Corporate Development and Business Units at networking company Madge Networks from 1993 to 1997. While at Madge Networks Ms. Ringo had P&L responsibility for 3 business units with $400 million revenue and 500 staff, and identified and negotiated acquisitions worth over $500 million. Ms. Ringo was the VP Marketing and Sales at data warehousing software company Red Brick Systems from 1990 to 1993. From 1980 to 1990 Ms. Ringo held various legal, sales, marketing, business development, and consulting roles.

Ms. Ringo served on the board of the Forum for Women Entrepreneurs from 2000 to 2004, and as Chair of the Board for 2001 through 2003. Ms. Ringo received a BS in Legal Systems from Georgia State University and a JD from Emory University School of Law.