Board of Advisors Bios
The Board of Advisors to IDEA Fund Partners consists of several individuals with significant experience in angel investing, venture capital and private equity investing, investment banking, as well as technology company formation and management. Our advisory board will assist with aspects of due diligence and may represent us on the respective Boards of Directors of the portfolio companies.
William M. Moore, Jr.
Partner, Franklin Street Partners
Bill Moore is a partner in Franklin Street Partners, a Chapel Hill-based investment management company and a Professor of the Practice of Finance at the Kenan-Flagler Business School of the University of North Carolina. In 1975, he founded Trident Financial Corp., a boutique investment bank that specialized in financial institution public offerings and M&A transactions, and served as its CEO until its sale in 1999 to KeyCorp.
Bill serves on the boards of the National Humanities Center, RTI International, NC IDEA and the Kenan-Flagler Business School. He also serves on the investment committees of the Weaver Foundation (Chairman) and the United States Naval Academy Foundation and is a former President of the Kenan-Flagler Business School Foundation.
Bill is a 1961 graduate of the U. S. Naval Academy and received his MBA degree in 1967 from UNC-Chapel Hill.
Patricia R. Morton
Partner, Franklin Street Partners
Previously, Patty was Managing Director at Deutsche Bank in the equity division. In 1994, she joined Alex Brown in London as the producing office manager, responsible for covering large London-based institutional clients. Prior to that, Patty spent 16 years with JP Morgan, where she worked in various capacities in New York, Singapore, Hong Kong and London. Her responsibilities at JP Morgan ranged from managing the Treasury Department in Hong Kong to running the firm’s European venture capital activities.
Patty is an undergraduate of Duke University and received her MBA from the University of Pittsburgh.
Tom Skelton
Founder, Skelton and Associates
Founder of Skelton and Associates, Tom invests in and consults with startup high-technology organizations. As the former chief operating officer of Manugistics, he is credited with transforming the Rockville, Maryland-based company from its computer time-sharing roots to a high-performing public software company with more than $60 million in revenues. Tom also recently served as interim CEO for Chorus Systems.
Currently, Tom serves as a member of the boards of directors of several public and private high-technology organizations, including Manugistics. He is the chairman of the board of directors of Calian Technology, a technology services company based in Arlington, Virginia, and Eonstreams, Inc., a private video-streaming company based in Knoxville, Tennessee. He serves on the board of governors of Opportunity International, a nonprofit organization that provides micro-enterprise lending to entrepreneurs in third-world countries throughout the world.
Tom is the past chairman of the Tri-State Investment Group, an angel investing group located in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina.
William N. Starling
CEO, Synecor LLC
Bill Starling is Chief Executive Officer of Synecor, LLC, a business generator of new Life Science companies based in Research Triangle Park (RTP), North Carolina, Santa Rosa, California, and Portola Valley, California. Synecor has significant academic, scientific, physician, venture capital, corporate, and investment banking partnerships and is focusing its efforts on the identification and development of proprietary, disruptive technologies with extraordinary market potential in the life sciences field.
As CEO of Synecor, Mr. Starling is a cofounder of BaroSense, Inc., Bioerodible Vascular Solutions, Inc., (acquired by Guidant Corporation in April 2004), and Interventional Rhythm Management, Inc. (IRM), the initial three companies founded and incubated by Synecor. Mr. Starling currently serves as Chairman of the Board for BaroSense, Inc. and IRM, a RTP, North Carolina - based cardiac rhythm management company.
William N. Starling received his BS degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and his MBA degree from the University of Southern California.