Technology M&A Conference

Brian Decker is Co-Chief Investment Officer at Francisco Partners and serves on the boards of multiple portfolio companies, including BeyondTrust, Boomi, Forcepoint, New Relic, and SmartBear. Since joining the firm in 2008, he has established and leads the firm’s Infrastructure Software practice, guiding investments across cybersecurity, data, and cloud systems, and is also deeply involved in Francisco Partners’ AI initiatives, working with both the firm and its portfolio companies to integrate and scale artificial intelligence capabilities.

A seasoned deal lawyer, Matthew guides global technology companies and their financial sponsors through transformational domestic and cross-border transactions. These deals range from private company buyouts and public takeovers in the United States and around the world, to complex, multi-jurisdictional spinoffs and business carveouts. Matthew has been recognized as a leading lawyer by numerous publications, including Legal 500 and he was selected by the San Francisco and Los Angeles Daily Journal as one of the top 10 Innovative Corporate Lawyers in California.

Col. Nicole Malachowski, USAF (Ret.) defies stereotypes. Yes, she was a jet fighter pilot, but if you think you know her based on that, you’d be wrong. A leader, a combat veteran, the first woman pilot on the Thunderbirds Air Demonstration Squadron, a White House Fellow, and an inductee into both the National Women’s Hall of Fame and the Women in Aviation International Pioneer Hall of Fame–she even has a Star Trek Federation starship named after her, the USS Malachowski (NCC-1619). Nicole’s distinguished 21-year Air Force career exceeded her wildest dreams. But the dream came to an end when a devastating tick-borne illness left her struggling greatly to speak or walk for almost nine months. An indomitable spirit, Nicole fought back against overwhelming odds and prevailed. Drawing on stories from her career and personal life, Nicole inspires audiences to rethink the challenges they face every day. She urges them to go beyond resilience and become resurgent. Nicole’s empowers people with three key beliefs: failure and risk is the price of entry for achieving something great; sometimes you need to yield to overcome; and her personal mantra –“Nobody wants to lead a scripted life.”

Nicole brings her experience to the stage and holds audiences spellbound with an easygoing authenticity of someone who’s achieved greatness. She’s been a member and leader of exceptional teams. She has faced overwhelming challenges and adversity and has come out on top.

While other high school students were practicing for their driver’s license, Nicole was accumulating flight time. She was sixteen years old when she took her first solo flight and from that point on there was no stopping her. While in high school, she joined the Civil Air Patrol and participated in Air Force Junior ROTC. Nicole’s professional story began when she earned her commission from the United States Air Force Academy in 1996. Following graduation, she attended Undergraduate Pilot Training (UPT) at Columbus AFB, MS and began her career as a pilot. Competitively selected to fly combat aircraft, she was among the first group of women to fly modern fighter aircraft. As a career pilot, she served in combat as an F-15E Flight Commander, Evaluator, Instructor Pilot and Flight Lead. Over her 21-year career, Nicole achieved the rating of Command Pilot with over 2,300 flight hours in six different Air Force aircraft. She was also selected to fly as Thunderbird #3 with the USAF Air Demonstration Squadron –the first woman to fly on any Department of Defense military jet demonstration squadron. Colonel Malachowski has served as a mission ready fighter pilot in three operational F-15E fighter squadrons and has flown over 188 combat hours, including her proudest moment as a fighter pilot: leading the first fighter formation to provide security for Iraq’s historic democratic elections in 2005.

On the ground, Nicole was a White House Fellow, class of 2008-2009, where she served on the Presidential Transition Support Team (PTST) while assigned to the U.S. General Services Administration. The White House Fellows Foundation and Association awarded Nicole the 2019 IMPACT Award for demonstrating both remarkable achievement and transformational contributions in her field, as well as a sustained commitment to the White House Fellows program. Nicole also served two high-level staff assignments at the Pentagon –one in the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD P&R) as well as the Secretary of the Air Force Office of International Affairs (SAF/IA). She also served as the Executive Director of the White House’s national ‘Joining Forces’ initiative where she directly advised former First Lady Michelle Obama and Dr. Jill Biden on all topics relating to service members, veterans, and military families to include employment, education, mental health, veterans’ homelessness and more.

Nicole’s operational F-15E assignments include two tours of duty at RAF Lakenheath, United Kingdom as well as one operational assignment to Seymour Johnson AFB, NC. She has also served alongside the United States Army 2nd Infantry Division, Camp Red Cloud, Republic of Korea, as an Air Liaison Officer. During her second assignment to Seymour Johnson AFB, NC, she had the honor of commanding the 333rd Fighter Squadron, leading an elite cadre of F-15E Instructors in the training of the next generation of combat aviators. Further, she was responsible for resources totaling over $1.1B and the execution of a $119M annual flying hour program.

Nicole earned a Master of Arts, with honors, in National Security Policy from American Military University and a second Master of Arts, with highest distinction, in National Security and Strategic Studies from the U.S. Naval War College. While there, she earned the Admiral Stephen B. Luce Award as the class honor graduate, the first Air Force officer in the history of the Naval War College to do so. Nicole has been recognized with several honors for her consistent contributions to community service. As Nicole continues to recover from her neurological tick-borne illness, she embraces any opportunity to educate others about her medical journey and gains energy from educating others about this growing epidemic. She is on the Board of Directors at the LivLyme Foundation and is a Patient Advisory Board Member of The Dean Center for Tick Borne Illness. In November 2020, Nicole was announced as one of 2020’s “Mighty 25” by We Are The Mighty for her passionate advocacy on behalf of veterans’ health. The Mighty 25 is a recognition bestowed each year to change makers in the veteran, active duty, and military family space.

Colonel Nicole Malachowski, USAF (Ret.) was born in Santa Maria, CA and graduated high school in Las Vegas, NV. She and her husband Paul have twin children; son Garrick and daughter Norah. Paul is a retired Air Force Lieutenant Colonel and former F-15E Evaluator Weapons Systems Officer.

Lerrel Pinto is the co-founder of Assured Robot Intelligence (ARI) and an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at NYU. His research is aimed at getting robots to generalize and adapt in the messy world we live in. To this end his work focuses broadly on robot learning and decision making, with an emphasis on large-scale learning (both data and models), representation learning for sensory data, developing algorithms to model actions and behavior, reinforcement learning for adapting to new scenarios, and building open-sourced affordable robots. This work has received best paper awards at ICRA 2016, RSS 2023, and ICRA 2024. Lerrel has received the Sloan Fellowship, Packard Fellowship, CIFAR Fellowship, TR35 innovator under 35, RAS Early Career and NSF CAREER awards. Several of his works have been featured in popular media such as The Wall Street Journal, TechCrunch, MIT Tech Review, Wired, and BuzzFeed among others. His recent work can be found on www.lerrelpinto.com.

Dominic Vote is a partner in WilmerHale’s Antitrust and Competition Practice Group. Mr. Vote has deep experience with merger and acquisition review, as well as related investigations and litigation. He brings senior leadership credentials from the Bureau of Competition at the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), where he most recently served as Assistant Director, leading the FTC’s review of mergers in sectors that included semiconductors, computer hardware and software, chemicals, and other industrial and technology-related areas. 

While at the FTC, Mr. Vote served as lead trial counsel in both administrative and federal court trials, and he managed and supervised all aspects of hundreds of merger investigations and several litigations. He also served as Counsel to the Director and held a staff attorney role in the FTC’s Health Care Division, where he investigated and litigated matters related to the pharmaceutical and medical device industries.

Ted Shelton serves a number of companies as an advisor and fractional chief AI officer. He is also the author of Infinite Future, a newsletter tracking developments in the AI market.

Most recently, Ted served as Chief Operating Officer for Reid Hoffman backed Inflection AI, a leading frontier model development company. Prior to this role, he was a partner with the global strategy consulting firm Bain and Company. Over the course of 25 years Ted has served as an advisor, consultant and an officer of a publicly traded company (Borland Software).

Ted holds two patents and is the author of the 2013 Wiley & Sons book "Business Models for the Social Mobile Cloud. Ted earned a BA in Philosophy from the University of Chicago.

Keith Webster is President of Global Business Intelligence (GBI) at J.D. Power. He is responsible for setting the strategic direction and managing the growth and profitability of the division. GBI serves high growth verticals, including banking, wealth, insurance, utilities, technology, telecommunications, healthcare and travel.

Prior to joining J.D. Power in 2015, Mr. Webster was president and CEO of Sector Group, Inc., a management consulting firm serving the software and information industry. Previously, Mr. Webster held a variety of positions in the financial software and information industry, including managing director at Interactive Data Corp., managing director at Dun & Bradstreet; managing director at Thomson Financial; vice president of strategy and business development at ADP Financial Information Services Corp., and director of product management at Data Broadcasting Corp.

Mr. Webster earned a bachelor’s degree in physics from The University of Chicago. He is alumnus of The Harvard Business School where he completed the Advanced Management Program.

Sharon Bottome is the digital technology head of the Mergers, Acquisitions, Divestiture and Outsourcing team at HP, Inc.  Collaborating closely with Corporate Development Integration Management Office and the Digital Technology Organization to ensure that technology is effectively applied to fully realize the intended benefits of every strategic investment.

Sharon has 25 years of experience in a wide range of industries, including defense, engineering, government, transportation, and technology - with the past 20 years concentrated in IT and Digital Technologies leadership.

Sharon earned a Bachelor of Science in nuclear physics from Arizona State University. She is also a loving wife and proud mother of four children.

Tom is a Director of Corporate Development at Verizon, where he leads the execution of acquisitions, divestitures, joint ventures, and early stage investments. He also serves as board observer for many of Verizon's venture-stage portfolio companies. Prior to Verizon, Tom was an investment banker focused on executing M&A transactions for public and private clients. He holds an MBA from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and a Bachelor's degree from Georgetown University.

Henry has led Uber's M&A integration efforts since 2018. Prior to that Henry was an Operations and Strategy leader in Uber's Mobility and Vehicle Financing businesses. Before Uber, Henry was in management consulting focusing on buy/sell-side due diligence for mid-cap industrials.

Stephen Gillespie advises public and private companies on a wide range of strategic partnerships and technology transactions. He focuses his practice on structuring, drafting and negotiating a variety of complex agreements, including procurement and licensing; distribution, sales and marketing; and strategic alliances. Mr. Gillespie regularly counsels clients on the development and commercialization of technology and products and arrangements involving software, data and services.

Mr. Gillespie represents clients across the full spectrum of technologies, including blockchain, FinTech, software-as-a-service (SaaS), security, open source and hardware. He also has experience representing financial institutions and international corporations. Mr. Gillespie’s clients span the full corporate life cycle, from emerging companies and startups to established entities and large commercial enterprises. His clients have included many of the leading domestic and international corporations.

Hemant Hebbar is Vice President of Corporate Development at Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE). He is a seasoned executive responsible for accelerating growth and innovation via acquisitions, carve-outs, joint ventures, partnerships and strategic investments. Hemant has led over 50 transactions with an aggregate transaction value in excess of $30B. Having managed both Corporate Development and Integration teams at HPE, Hemant brings unique experience in managing transformative transactions through the deal life cycle from strategic alignment and planning to diligence and execution. Prior to HPE, Hemant was an Investment Banker with a focus on the technology M&A, debt and equity transactions. Hemant holds an MBA with a specialization in finance and strategy from U.C. Berkeley, and a Bachelor’s degree in computer science and engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Bombay.

Jeff is currently Vice President of Corporate Development at AMD, overseeing M&A and AMD Ventures activities.  Jeff joined AMD from Xilinx in 2022, which was acquired by AMD, where he worked in both Corporate Development and Finance. Previously Jeff was a vice president in Bank of America’s technology investment banking group where he advised public and private clients on numerous corporate transactions. He started his career as an engineer at Intel Corporation. 

Alarisse Lam is a Vice President at Francisco Partners (“FP”), where she is responsible for evaluating and executing on investments made by FP’s latest funds, which total nearly $17 billion. Prior to joining FP in 2020, Alarisse worked at Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

Todd Manley joined Intel as Vice President, Corporate Development Integration in September 2022. He is an expert in M&A, strategy, and business operations with over 18 years of experience in corporate development delivering deals with a total value of approximately $60B and cost synergies of $6B. Todd has also been instrumental divestitures and post-merger Integration, from creating integration/separation management office playbooks and aligning deliverables, to building an employee experiences and driving top-line growth and capturing cost synergies. His business operations and transformation experiences span accelerating time-to-market for new products and pricing, leading privacy readiness for GDPR, and delivering operational efficiencies and process streamlining.

On top of his corporate experience, Todd has also served as an adjunct lecturer at Santa Clara University and holds a BA from Stanford University and an MBA from Santa Clara University.

Shrey joined Meta in 2014 shortly after the Oculus acquisition to help stand up the Reality Labs Finance function. After a few years, he moved over to work on M&A Integration and has been instrumental in leading some of Meta’s most complex integrations and divestitures. Most recently, he worked on the Meta’s acquisition and subsequent divestiture of Kustomer. He holds a BA from the University of Southern California.

Erik Moreno is the EVP of Growth and New Initiatives at Sony Pictures Entertainment (SPE), shaping strategies across Sony Group Companies. He focuses on emerging markets, sports, location-based entertainment, and emerging technologies like AI and the Metaverse.
Erik is a veteran M&A practitioner having held Corporate Development leadership roles at Sony Pictures Entertainment, Time Inc., News Corp/21st Century Fox, eBay and Level 3 Communications. He began his career at Gleacher & Co, a boutique M&A advisory firm.
Beyond his corporate role, Erik supports philanthropy and education as a Trustee of Strada Education Foundation, a Board Overseer at UPenn’s School of Social Policy and Practice, and a Board member of CityYear Los Angeles. He is a graduate of the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

Victoria is the Head of M&A Acceleration at Intuit. She is a results-oriented executive with 20+ years of diverse experience in Strategy & Business Operations, Mergers & Acquisitions, and Chief of Staff leadership positions in high tech organizations. She has a unique blend of experience in leading cross-functional teams through numerous complex projects/integrations, overseeing business operations for several large-scale businesses, and spearheading corporate strategic initiatives.

Peter Sizgoric has closed over $55 billion in transaction value across 30+ deals and a wide range of types / structures. Currently Mr. Sizgoric is responsible for Mergers and Acquisitions at Okta with previous experience at Salesforce, RPX, and Morgan Stanley. Mr. Sizgoric has a Master of Business Administration from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and multiple Bachelor of Science degrees from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Donald currently serves as the Head of Corporate Development and Ventures at Dropbox. In this role he oversees M&A activities and has also spearheaded the launch of Dropbox Ventures, a $50 million fund focusing on early-stage AI investments. Prior to joining Dropbox, Donald held senior roles within the Corporate Development functions at DocuSign and Cisco Systems, where he led over 20 acquisitions and divestitures totaling over $5 billion in value. Donald's career also includes experiences as an equity research analyst at Jefferies, as well as a private equity analyst for Liberty Mutual Investments. In addition to his roles within these companies, he has served as a board member and observer for several early-stage startups. Donald holds an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from California Polytechnic University, San Luis Obispo.

Brita Turner is a digital executive with over 20 years of experience at firms including IBM, Amazon, and eBay. She has an MBA from the University of North Carolina Kenan-Flagler with a concentration in corporate strategy and luxury goods, and a bachelor’s degree in finance from Lehigh University. She is currently the Global Head of M&A Integration at eBay, and sits on the Advisory Board for Omni Bioceutical Innovations, a female-led medical-grade skincare company, ComC, a sports trading card marketplace, and Lehigh University’s Advisory Council. Brita previously served as the Global Head of Digital for Godiva, the President and SVP of Proflowers, an FTD company, and Chief Marketing Officer for Leesa Sleep.

Brian leads Microsoft’s M&A Diligence & Integration Management, with deals ranging in value from $15M to $70B and spanning across the company’s Cloud & AI, Security, Experiences & Devices and Gaming businesses.  He and his team of Integration Leads drive cross-functional Due Diligence, Close/Day 1 Planning, Integration/Separation Execution and Post-close Governance.  Brian’s remit also includes a Strategy & Operations team, responsible for M&A practice engagement and capability advancement.  Prior to Microsoft, Brian held a similar role leading M&A at Arm and spent much of his career in Strategy & M&A at Deloitte Consulting, focused in the Tech, Media and Telco sectors.  His depth is in Global and Cross-border Transactions, Integration Strategy and Planning, Business Unit Stand-up and New Operating Model Design.  A strong people developer and team builder, Brian enjoys working closely with his team of leaders in advancing M&A capabilities and delivering successful deal outcomes.

JP is a Managing Director for KPMG CF LLC’s Technology Group, and is based in the Santa Clara office.

He has more than 20 years of experience serving clients in the Technology sector with a focus on mergers and acquisitions and private capital raises including divestitures, recapitalizations, and follow-on offerings.

JP received his MBA from the Columbia Business School and his JD from Santa Clara University.