The Bloggers
Ray Leach, CEO
Ray Leach brings his energy and leadership experiences from founding five high-growth entrepreneurial and intrapreneurial endeavors in the last 20 years. Since 2003, Ray’s time has been focused on creating and leading JumpStart, one of the most active and innovative venture development organizations in the United States. Ray’s career began at IBM and has been principally focused on information technology companies previous to JumpStart. Ray is a Sloan Fellow and earned an MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management. He also earned a BA in Finance from the University of Akron. Ray also serves on the boards of the Council of Competitiveness in Washington DC, the Red Cross Blood Services of Northern Ohio, and is the Chairman of the Invent Now Kids board of the National Inventors Hall of Fame and Museum.
Cathy Belk, Chief Marketing Officer
Cathy brings a wealth of experience in consumer and business marketing and business management to the JumpStart team. She joins JumpStart after four years at American Greetings, where she had a series of brand and business management roles, including Director of the American Greetings brand (within the $1.5 billion greeting card business) and Director of Innovation. As Director of Innovation, Cathy led a team in developing and launching a new product, eventually taking over management of the product as it developed into an $80 million annual business. Prior to American Greetings, Cathy worked extensively in branding, marketing and communications management at The Coca-Cola Company and Procter and Gamble, where she focused on brand development for both mature businesses, such as Coca-Cola classic, Barq’s, and Crest, and start-up companies, including Full Throttle. Prior to her consumer marketing experiences, Cathy dedicated six years to the commercial banking industry, holding a series of positions at Bank of America. Her most recent experience was serving the dynamic Northern Virginia middle market business community, providing financial support to enterprises with up to $250 million in annual revenues. Cathy was a Keller Scholar and received an MBA with a focus in Marketing from Duke University in 1998. She earned an undergraduate degree in Economics from Davidson College in 1990.
Rebecca Braun, President, JumpStart Ventures
Becca Braun joined JumpStart with a wealth of knowledge and experience from a variety of entrepreneurial companies. She was co-founder and initial CEO of Supplier Insight, a company that offers supplier management services and software to corporations and government agencies and that was ultimately acquired by Ariba (Nasdaq: ARBA). Becca was formerly a Vice President at Kirtland Capital Partners (KCP), a $300 million private equity firm located in Willoughby Hills, Ohio. Prior to KCP, Becca was a principal at The Parthenon Group, a strategic advisory and principle investing firm in Boston, Massachusetts. Becca graduated from Harvard Business School in 1997 and has a Linguistics degree Magna Cum Laude from Harvard University. She is a co-founder of the Boston-based Harbus Foundation, and maintains involvement in The Braun Group, an executive communications firm. She serves on the boards/advisory boards of Embrace Pet Insurance, Red Cross Blood Services and Cleveland Skating Club, and is an alumna trustee of Springboard Enterprises.
John Dearborn, Chief Development Officer
John brings 25 years experience in software, Internet and mobile technologies, along with senior management experience leading entrepreneurial companies to JumpStart. Most recently, John was the CEO and a board member of 3Guppies, Inc., a mobile social networking company in Seattle, Washington. Since returning to Cleveland, John has been acting as board adviser to several startups in the areas of strategy development, fundraising and product development. Prior to 3Guppies, John was the Senior Vice President and General Manager for New Ventures in the Interactive Division for American Greetings, where he was an Entrepreneur-in-Residence. In that role, he led new product and business development activities, partnering with leading companies, including MSN, to develop content offerings aimed specifically at the mobile and instant messaging audiences. John also started a self-funded company that developed the first image editor for the PC, which was later sold to a NASDAQ-traded company, Micrografx. In addition, John has held senior management positions for a variety of venture-backed, public and privately-held companies, leading marketing, operations, business development, and sales organizations. John holds a BA in Administration from the University of New Hampshire, Durham.
Lynn-Ann Gries, Chief Investment Officer, JumpStart Ventures
Lynn-Ann Gries joined the team at JumpStart Inc. after working as the Fund Manager for JumpStart, LLC, a venture capital fund dedicated to making investments in start-up companies in Northeast Ohio. Prior to joining JumpStart in August 2001, Lynn-Ann worked in the Investment Banking division of McDonald Investments. At McDonald, she had extensive experience with public equity issuance and worked on stock offerings for many McDonald clients. Prior to joining McDonald, Lynn-Ann worked for Morgan Stanley in institutional equity sales and, prior to that, for Smith Barney in Project Finance. She graduated from Smith College in 1984 with a BA in Economics and received her MBA from New York University’s Stern School of Business in 1990. She currently serves on the board of the Fund of the Future of Shaker Heights, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to making pro-integrative home loans, and the Great Lakes Science Center. She is also a partner in Cleveland Social Venture Partners (CSVP), a venture philanthropy organization.
Chris Mather, President, JumpStart TechLift Advisors
Chris joins the JumpStart team having served most recently as the driver behind NorTech’s successful proposal to the State of Ohio’s Third Frontier Program to create TechLift and has led the program since its inception in 2007. Chris now leads the TechLift team with its transition to JumpStart management and under its new name JumpStart TechLift Advisors. In addition, Chris continues to be a Venture Partner, coaching multiple technology companies through the JumpStart funding process. He joined NorTech in 2004 and was responsible for multiple initiatives to drive Northeast Ohio’s success in the Electronics, Nanotechnology and Engineering Education areas. Before joining NorTech, Chris was President/CEO of Ion Optics, Inc., a Waltham, MA based maker of MEMS based infrared devices. While there, he raised $6.4 million in venture capital to fund the company’s growth toward a successful sale. Chris was President/CEO of APSCO Inc., Ohio’s largest electronic contract manufacturer, based in Perry, OH. He came to Northeast Ohio in 1996, as President of Gould Instrument Systems. Prior to coming to Ohio, Chris was General Manager of the SmartWare Division of American Power Conversion in West Kingston, RI. Earlier in his career, Chris spent 14 years in sales and marketing and management in the computer and test and measurement industries with Hewlett Packard Company (Agilent Technologies), Denmark based Bruel and Kjaer Instruments, and Analogic. He serves on the boards of the Cleveland Engineering Society, Case’s Institute for Management and Engineering (TiME) and a number of technology companies. Chris holds a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, MA.
Darrin Redus, Chief Economic Inclusion Officer and President, JumpStart Inclusion Advisors
Darrin joins the JumpStart team having served most recently as Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Redus Small Business Advisors, LLC, a strategic planning and management assistance firm Darrin established in 2003. Prior to establishing his own consulting group, Darrin dedicated 16 years to the commercial banking and finance industry holding a series of senior level management positions with National City Corporation and KeyCorp. At National City, Darrin served the small and middle market business community, providing leadership and support to enterprises ranging from start-ups to international firms with up to $100 million in annual revenues. At KeyCorp, Darrin held the position of Senior Vice President in charge of the companys business banking operations for Ohio, Michigan and Indiana. Darrin holds an MBA from Baldwin Wallace College and an undergraduate degree from Mount Union College. In 1999 he was selected by National City Bank and Baldwin Wallace College as an Emerging Leader in the Cleveland community, and over the past 15 years has led a series of workshops and seminars on matters of economic development and diversity.