IDEA FARM SENIOR MANAGEMENT AND ADVISORY BOARD
The Management Team is comprised of a group of highly experienced managers, with numerous years of global operating experience in multi-cultured environments. Fortunately, or un-fortunately, depending on one’s perspective, our management team is not comprised of a group of ‘20 somethings and 30 somethings.’
Michael L. Smolens – Founder, Chairman and CEO
Mr. Smolens has over 28 years of hands-on operating experience exclusively in emerging markets.
He began his global career in Haiti in 1978 at the age of 24, producing hand-painted wooden toys for the United States market. His companies in Latin America and the Caribbean peaked with 3,000 employees and a production line that included apparel, draperies, footwear, handicraft articles, jewelry, tennis rackets, etc. The companies were forced to close in 1990 due to the U.S. government trade embargo on Haiti. This allowed him time to explore other ventures, both in Mexico and Central Europe
In 1991, three years before the implementation of NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement), he set-up a sewing facility in Sabinas, Coahuila, Mexico, with a long term contract with the largest apparel company in the world. This facility was producing 100,000 cotton golf shirts per week, and was sold to a private investor in 1996. The Company still exists, and is one of the largest polo shirt producers in Latin America.
In 1992, he began to explore Southern Hungary to begin the task of creating a world class textile organization. Beginning with a major privatization of a large, state owned knitting mill, he created a vertical textile & apparel mill in Baja, Hungary. A total of in equity and debt was raised in the private markets to finance Danube Knitwear Ltd.
At Danube, he has been successful in developing concrete relationships with some of the largest and most well-known apparel manufacturers and retailers in the world: Russell Athletic, Nike, The GAP, Levi’s, Banana Republic, Old Navy, The Limited, and Esprit. The company is currently the largest producer of T-shirts in all of Central and Eastern Europe, and has expanded to include a sewing facility in Lugoj, Romania. As of 1998, Danube Knitwear had 2,800 employees and produced over 20 million garments with a turnover of . Mr. Smolens has not been active in the management of the business since 1996.
Over the past few years, Mr. Smolens has been a Merchant Banker, with the primary mission to identify those countries and regions of the world which are the most undervalued, and have the best long term strategic possibilities for explosive growth throughout numerous industry segments. In this process, he attempted to be among the first to enter a specific market, recognizing it is impossible to generate exponential returns without taking large, yet well calculated risks. The markets chosen were Russia, Azerbaijan, Jordan, Egypt and Pakistan.
Over the last year, Mr. Smolens has become so enthusiastic about the profound impact digital business practices have on global business operations, especially in large emerging markets, that he has created Idea Farm to combine his unique hands-on operational expertise in cross-cultural business transactions, plus his lifetime of contacts, with the implementation of a unique digital business model.
Many of the following senior management personnel are still currently working at their jobs as senior executives in various companies around the world. It is therefore not possible to reveal their identities. The descriptions below are indicative of the experience level and global scope of their careers. All these people plan to leave their current jobs according to the time schedule and terms outlined in the business plan, or merge their existing business operations into Idea Farm.
Dr. Robert Thibadeau – CTO/CIO – Director of Global Technical Research and Training Center
Bob Thibadeau is Principal Research Scientist in the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University, director of the Universal Library Project, and a founder of the Electronic Commerce Institute (a joint
program of Computer Science and the Graduate School of Industrial Engineering) and the Robotics Institute.
He received his Ph.D. in natural language understanding systems from the University of Virginia in 1976, taught at Rutgers and did a brief stint in Artificial Intelligence at Yale before coming to Carnegie Mellon in 1979. In 1980 he was one of the six founding directors of the Robotics Institute. After a dozen years of experience in building devices for U.S. industry, he formed a company for local community empowerment. The idea was to open up information and the powers of the information revolution to all people. This later became a joint partnership with the PBS Station WQED, as OnTV (www.ontv.com).
In 1996, OnTV, with the financial assistance of the American Bible Society, took its local Houses of Worship project national. Later the ABS bought it and has now turned it into www.forministry.com. Dr. Thibadeau, in his
continuing roles as Director of the Universal Library, hopes to help in bringing high quality authored content to the Internet and free to all people.
Dr. Robert Meeder – Director – Incubation Services
Dr. Meeder received his Ph.D. in Higher Education Administration from the University of Pittsburgh in1982, with his M.A. in Business from Duquesne University in 1971, and his B.A. in Social Sciences from Westminster College in 1969.
He is currently President of the Pittsburgh Gateways Corporation, whose mission, among its 31 incubated Companies, is to:
- Accelerate commercial development of intellectual property and on-going research of Universities and Private Research Labs;
- Direct the commercial development of numerous research from four major Research Universities;
- Provide short term and apprentice based training and consultation services in the process of commercial development, business incubation, and economic development;
- Develop and manage business cluster development for target communities and institutions.
From 1982 to 1998, Dr. Meeder was President of SPEDD, Inc., which developed and managed 19 different incubator locations, representing 3.2 million sq. ft. of managed real estate in Western Pennsylvania, Southwestern New York, and Northeastern Ohio. This is the largest business incubation program among the 700+ member programs of the National Business Incubation Association. Dr. Meeder was directly responsible for nurturing and developing over 320 new businesses creating over 7,500 net new jobs in eight basic industry clusters.
In addition, he has also provided consultation services on every facet of business incubation development and management to organizations, municipalities, and foundations in 31 U.S. States, France, United Kingdom, Slovenia, Croatia, Hungary, Australia, Northern Ireland, and Belarus.
Dr. Meeder has either written, or participated as contributing author, to the following books:
“Forging the Business Incubator: A Comprehensive Guide to Conducting a Feasibility Study” ,
Published by the US Small Business Administration and the National Business Incubation Association;
“Bricks and Mortar” A guide to adaptive reuse or new construction of Business Incubation Program
Facilities;
“Growing New Ventures, Creating New Jobs,” which patterns success in developing and managing business
development initiatives.
His memberships, past and present, include:
Board Member, National Business Incubation Association
Developer/Instructor, NBIA Training Institute
Board Member, Prism Fiber Optics, Inc. and Riverside Studios, Inc.
American Participant Speaker, US Information Agency
Chairman, Penn State Research Commercialization Task Force
Chairman, Purdue University Gateway Program Task Force
President, Hungarian Business Incubation Foundation
Board Member, ININ (Slovenia)
Board Member, Flax Trust Northern Ireland
David Andreas – Director of Operations
David recently left the employment of the Warnaco Group as Vice President of Worldwide Purchasing and Raw Material Quality Assurance. Warnaco is a two billion-dollar consumer goods company. In this capacity he was responsible for the global sourcing of raw materials and non-production equipment for this manufacturing and distribution company operating in over 15 countries. In addition he had responsibility for Quality Assurance, Technical Services and testing laboratories.
Prior to this company, David held various operating positions with several companies including Shell Oil Company and Sara Lee Corporation. He also worked in a management-consulting role for Deloitte and Touche Consulting Group including work in the reorganization services group. As the Vice President of Operations for a soft home furnishing company, he led the operating turnaround of the organization leading to the acquisition of the company. David holds the designation of Certified Quality Engineer, Certified Purchasing Manager, and Certified Production and Inventory Control Manager.
David holds an undergraduate degree in business from Ball State University and an MBA from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He has international experience including travel to Asia, Europe, Mexico and Central America.
Michael Leclere – Director – Strategy & Business Development
Michael is the Founder and Principal of Leclere Associates, Architects, PC, with offices in New York, Los Angeles and Warsaw, Poland. He received his Bachelors of Architecture in a
Double Major with Structural Engineering at Louisiana State University in 1979, and a GSD in Finance from Harvard in 1981.
Michael is a Registered Architect in New York, California, Florida, Louisiana, Texas, Indiana, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, as well as a Licensed Real Estate Broker in New York.
Leclere Associates, Architects, P.C. has developed a full range of building project types; including high rise commercial and residential structures, specialty entertainment projects, Global Retail Brand design and development , Thematic Restaurant design and Real Estate Analysis . His geographic practice includes the Continental United States, Mexico, England, France, Spain, Manila, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Japan, Poland, Saudia Arabia and the U.A.E. This diversity of practice has given Michael a greater insight into emerging global design and technology, better enabling him to compete in the United States markets.
Recent and current projects include: Niketown New York on 57th Street , Warner Bros. Flagship Store on 57th Street, Trump General Motors Plaza redevelopment on Fifth Avenue, Gameworks Entertainment facilities throughout the U.S. , special consultant to the Polish Government on the Winter Olympics and Urban Redevelopment, Discovery Channel Flagship in Santa Monica and Bennetton brand development in Europe.
After 20 years in the “Physical” development of environments, the creation of IDEA FARM will mark a shift of focus. The Idea Farm is essentially the design of a “Virtual environment” that will be focused of the concept of leverage and bandwidth. With the pace of internet growth and e-commerce, the static architectural approach to problem solving will be reborn , complete with new tools, products and environments. This problem solving evolution and technological makeover has convinced Michael to reformulate both business horizon and operating structure. The Idea Farm concept will utilize bandwidth that has, until now, been unavailable and will create a synergetic ring of country nodes capable of bi-directional transmission of goods and services.
Janos XXXXXX– Director of Human Resources & In Country Services
Janos has had a diversified career over 25 years working in many different countries and cultures as a national of Hungary. He has degrees in biomedical engineering from the University of Ilmenau (Germany) and an MBA from the Budapest University of Economy. While speaking four languages fluently English, German, Spanish, and Hungarian, during the 1980’s, he worked for seven years in Mexico representing Hungary for all commercial transactions as the Regional Director of the then State Owned Trading Company METRIMPEX.
At that time, he negotiated the first commercial transaction between Mexico and Hungary of more than , by selling Hungarian educational equipment to the Mexican Government. .
From 1985 – 1992, Janos was working for the Hungarian Trade Office in New York, responsible for all commercial transactions flowing originating in, or going to, New York based companies. Thereafter, he became the US based representative of a large, multi-national trading company, one of the early post Communist entrants into the capitalist business arena. Since 1993, he has lived in Hungary, and has been a principal in numerous privatizations and financings for start-ups of a multi-national manufacturing company, in addition to handling all the human resource/personnel and training issues for a company with nearly 3,000 employees in two countries. He has worked ‘within the system’, to negotiate grants of various types totaling over the last 6 years, and hence is expert at knowing what is possible, and legal, within a foreign environment.
Janos is founder and majority owner of a Hungarian based company which is exclusively distributing training products(videos, CD-ROMs) of a major US manufacturer, (American Media), in virtually all Eastern European countries for different management and personal skills.
Ronnie XXXXXXX – Director of In-Country Operations
Ronnie is a Dutch Citizen, who has lived and run businesses for over 25 years in countries as diverse as Iran, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, Azerbaijan, as well as Holland and the UK. His primary education and training is as an agronomist, and in animal husbandry.
In such capacity, he ran the largest poultry farm in Nigeria for seven years, as well as setting up cotton growing and ginning operations in Central Asia, in addition to negotiating and purchasing the largest poultry farm in the former Soviet Union. Ronnie is highly technically oriented, introducing the first genetically engineered cotton seed trials in Central Asia, as well as being the first to use GPS technology in Central Asia to map farms and soil conditions as a management tool.
Ronnie, in addition, has been operating his own trading company for the past 10 years, based in Holland, buying and selling various supplies and materials related primarily to the poultry industry. Over the last few years, this business has become primarily electronic and web based. With Idea Farm, Ronnie is anxious to make a major career shift, and use his extensive in country knowledge to apply to digital business models.
Chuck Nall – Co-Director of International Sales & Vision Implementation & David Blake – Co-Director of International Sales & Vision Implementation
Chuck and David have been selling machinery, equipment and supplies in foreign countries for over 20 years. They are currently co-owners of Rhino Services, a sales agency specifically established by them in 1999 to bring US manufacturers in the textile printing inks, chemicals, machinery, equipment and supplies industries, with aggregate sales of less than $50 million, to international markets via the development and management of an international dealer network. They have taken 6 companies with less than $600,000 in total international sales to over $3 million in sales in the first 10 months of their efforts, while establishing 30 full line distributors in 28 countries. In this industry, they plan to add an additional 10 US manufacturers in 2000, generating in excess of in totally new sales, through what will develop to be about 50 distributors in 40 countries.
It is important to note that both Chuck and David spend about 200 days per year traveling outside the United States, both establishing new distribution outlets, as well as servicing and training existing customers and distributors. We plan to duplicate this global sales technique in numerous other industries, using the same techniques, by locating the best sales people in each of our new industry clusters. We hope to add two to three new industries during 2000.
Chuck was a founder of Clinton Machinery in Miami in 1986, an OEM equipment dealer in the textile printing industry. With David handling the Far East, their company grew to in sales in 1998, culminating with 70 distributors in 50 countries. The company was sold in 1998, to allow them to develop this new sales technique on a global basis. Chuck and David plan to merge their existing sales network and staff with Idea Farm, to take advantage of the global network of technology driven goods and services in which Idea Farm will focus, in addition to the traditional product mix.
Leon Jacobson – Director Legal Services
Leon has nearly 30 years experience negotiating and structuring primarily complicated international business transactions. Since Idea Farm will be working simultaneously in many different countries, each with its own legal structure, Leon, senior partner in his own law firm, Jacobson, Mermelstein & Squire, has agreed to provide ‘in-house’ legal counsel to Idea Farm, for equity, in addition to managing a full time lawyer who will be working under Leon’s guidance drawing up all the various legal documents necessary to implement our business.
Ivan Ciment – In house counsel
Ivan Ciment, 33, is an attorney with the law firm of Jacobson, Mermelstein & Squire, LLP in New York City focusing on corporate, tax and international law. Previously, he brokered the creation of and served as corporate counsel of Global Access, Ltd., a telecommunications company, which was a subsidiary of a
NASDAQ-listed company.
Ciment is also publisher and site manager of www.globalthoughts.com and his opinion columns on international affairs and risk analysis are published in various media. He maintains strong relationships with associates in over 50 countries and monitors investments and political/economic developments abroad.
IDEA FARM ADVISORY BOARD
Dr. Raj Reddy – Vice Chairman, PITAC, Founder & former Dean, Robotics Department – CMU, former Dean- Computer Science Department-CMU.
Dr. Reddy’s most recent honor was to be appointed by President Clinton as the Vice Chariman of PITAC, the President’s Information Technology Advisory Committee, with over a $1 billion budget. In this capacity, Raj is basically the “Alan Greenspan” of IT. In addition, PITAC is responsible for the overall implementation of the INTERNET II Initiative, which will bring broad band width to the internet. As the senior advisor to the President of the United States on how the US should proceed with all matters relating to Internet II, Idea Farm will be at the forefront on all new technologies and developments.
Through Idea Farm’s relationship with the World Economic Forum, Dr. Reddy has been invited to be a speaker at Davos 2000 on three major IT areas.
Raj Reddy is the Herbert A. Simon University Professor of Computer Science and Robotics at Carnegie Mellon University. He is internationally renowned for his research in the field of artificial intelligence (AI), notably in speech recognition. He received the ACM Turing Award in 1995, in recognition of his work. He has been a member of PITAC since 1997.
Dr. Reddy’s research interests include the study of human-computer interaction and artificial intelligence. He is working on projects in speech recognition and understanding systems, gigabit networks, universal digital libraries, learning on demand and collaboration on the Web.
Reddy received a bachelors degree in civil engineering from the Guindy Engineering College (currently named Anna University) of the University of Madras, India, in 1958. He earned a masters degree from the University of New South Wales, Australia, in 1960. From 1960-63, he worked as an applied science representative for IBM Corp., in Australia. He then decided to
continue his education and earned a doctors degree in computer science from Stanford University in 1966.
Later that year, he began his academic career as an assistant professor at Stanford. He joined the Carnegie Mellon faculty as an associate professor of computer science in 1969. There, he was able to expand his interest in AI by working with two of the fields founders, professors Herbert A. Simon and Allen Newell.
Reddy became a full professor at Carnegie Mellon in 1973, a University Professor in 1984 and Simon University professor in 1992. He served as the founding director of the university’s Robotics Institute from 1979 until he was named dean of the School of Computer Science in 1991. He served as dean until July, 1999.
Reddy is a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, the Acoustical Society of America and the American Association for Artificial Intelligence. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 1984, he was awarded the Legion of Honor by (then) French president Francois Mitterand
for bringing computer technology to developing countries. Most recently, he was awarded Doctor Honoris Causa from SV University in India and Universite Henri-Poincare in France. He also serves on the board of trustees of the Peres Institute for Peace in Israel.
Lance Knobel – World Economic Forum, Programme Director-Davos 2000, World Link Magazine, Editor-in-Chief & Managing Director
Lance Knobel has been Editor-in-Chief and Managing Director of World Link, the magazine of the World Economic Forum, since 1992. He writes extensively about the information economy, particularly its interface with globalisation. He has served from its inception on the World Economic Forum’s Davos Global Issues Group, a worldwide gathering that provides the
intellectual framework for the Forum’s famous Annual Meeting in Davos, Switzerland. Knobel will be responsible for the programme of the year 2000 Annual Meeting in Davos, which will be the first significant business and political gathering of the new millennium.
Lance personally knows most of the CEO’s of the world’s largest 1000 companies, who are the members of the World Economic Forum, and can be very helpful in the process of in-Country Sponsor selection. Lance currently lives in London, and holds degrees from Princeton University and Oxford University.
Tom McAuliffe – Motorola –Director of Strategy & Business Development
Tom is Director of Strategy and Business Development for the Integrated Electronic Systems Sector at Motorola, a $2 billion high growth business division of Motorola.
He has been at Motorola for 10 years, including operations responsibility. Prior to Motorola, he was at ATT in product planning and management responsibilities for data communication products. In addition, he spent several years as a software engineer for BellLabs.
