Miyowa's Board

Pascal Lorne
CEO, Chairman & Co-Founder

Having worked in the Internet and Wireless industries for 12 years, Pascal Lorne is a true pioneer and visionary entrepreneur. His career has spanned various companies in Germany, France, UK and Brazil. Pascal joined Ismap, an Internet map based search engine, as VP sales and was then promoted to CEO, driving revenues, strategic alliances and series B fund raising. In 2002, he sold it to Benefon (BNF, Helsinki Stock Exchange), where he held the position of board member and vice president, leading the sales and the mobile software strategy. Pascal then took a 6-months break to backpack across 20 countries. It was on these travels that he questioned and listened to the experiences of end-users with their mobiles. Armed with this in-depth end-user knowledge, Pascal co-launched Miyowa in 2003. As CEO of the company, Pascal is responsible for the strategy and works closely with global key partners and customers around the world. As an active speaker at the mobile messaging conferences, he is passionate about sharing his end-user driven vision. Pascal holds a Diplom-Ingenior Degree from the University of Konstanz, Germany, and is an MBA graduate from EM Lyon, France.

Mike Kaul
CMO

Mike Kaul has 30 years of software industry experience.  His background includes large and small companies, internet and enterprise applications, software as a service, and jobs ranging from engineering to marketing, general manager, and eventually CEO of several venture-backed startups.
Most recently, he was President and CEO of diCarta, the leader in Contract Management software.  He recapped this company and re-started it by raising new funding, re-engineering the product, building a new team, and rapidly growing revenues.  He led a merger to position the product within a suite strategy and to accelerate progress towards an IPO. Prior to diCarta, Mike was Chairman of BuildPoint, CEO of HotDispatch and Vice president and General Manager of Attachmate Corporation's Business Solutions Group. Mike spent four years at Oracle Corporation, first as Vice President of U.S. marketing, then as Vice President of Advanced Technologies, and finally as Vice President and General Manager of Oracle's New Technologies division.
Earlier in his career, Mike was a U.S. Air Force a pilot. He holds a bachelor's degree in aerospace engineering from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and a master's degree in systems management from the University of Southern California.
 


Kurt Keilhacker
Managing Partner TechFund Europe

Mr. Keilhacker is Managing Partner at TechFund Europe. Prior to the co-founding of TechFund and its technology incubator, Kurt was the Director of International Development for CHIPS and Technologies, Inc. (acquired by Intel), and CEO of its Summit Systems subsidiary focused on emerging markets. Previously, Kurt was an investment banker in European mergers & acquisitions at Translink, a Swiss corporate finance firm, working successively in its New York, London, Paris, and Frankfurt offices. Mr. Keilhacker has been involved with the founding of a number of TechFund's portfolio companies and has often served as Chairman or CEO at such Silicon Valley companies as Cobalt Networks, NetMind, Embrace Networks, and Verano. In Europe, he currently serves on the Boards of 6WIND and Miyowa. Kurt is a graduate of Wheaton College and holds an MBA from the University of Chicago, an MLA from Stanford University, and an MTS from Harvard University.





Michel de Lempdes
Investment Director & Partner Crédit Agricole Private Equity

Michel de Lempdes started his career at Crédit Lyonnais Americas (now Calyon Americas), where he was involved in the structuring of LBO operations and the creation of a private equity fund of funds at Crédit Lyonnais' Leverage Finance Sponsor Group in New York. He then joined the Crédit Lyonnais Private Equity (now Crédit Agricole Private Equity) venture department in January 2001, where he is responsible for investments in Hardware. Michel serves as a director on the boards of EVE, Avertec, Novaled, Tronic's, Dibcom, Splendia and Miyowa. Michel de Lempdes is a graduate of the Reims business school.


Jos De Kruijf
COO & President

Jos, an expert in entrepreneurial leadership, infrastructure development, and organizational change, will utilize his more than 20 years of international executive leadership to lead the development and growth of Miyowa. Jos de Kruijf brings Miyowa over 20 years of International software experience gained at leading firms including Openwave Systems (NASDAQ: OPWV), where he successfully established the European operations and grew business to 250 million Euros in just three years. He also led organizations in similar capacities at Seven Networks, Nortel Networks (NYSE:NT) and Adobe Systems (NASDAQ100: ADBE). More recently, he was Managing Director European Operations of Desktop Standard. Previously, he was President and Chief Executive Officer of Contarra Systems. Prior to joining Miyowa, Jos held the position of Senior Vice President and General Manager at Seven Networks International, a specialist in mobile email.


Francois Colon
CTO & Co-Founder

François has some of the most in-depth knowledge of the convergent web and mobile phone industries coupled with a true sense of entrepreneurship. He started his career in 1996 founding two dotcom companies in the very early ages of the Internet, Ctrouve.com and Photomania. In 2001, François became the CTO of Outdoor Attitude, a leading outdoor products website. Following this he joined Ismap where as the CTO, he managed the development of the mobile geolocalization platform and supervised the marketing and pre-sales operations of the company. Post the sale to Benefon, François became the Managing Director of the newly created French business unit. He co-founded Miyowa in 2003 with Pascal Lorne where as CTO, he leads the product vision and drives innovation and delivery. François holds a Masters Degree in Algorithmic and DNA Sequencing.