Gregory Valliere

Greg is the Chief Political Strategist at the Potomac Research Group, a non-partisan firm that advises investors on how Washington affects the markets. Greg specializes in coverage of the Federal Reserve, tax policy, and politics.

Greg has been following Washington for over 30 years; he began his career by co-founding The Washington Forum, and later served for several years as Director of Research for the Charles Schwab Washington Research Group.

Greg is widely quoted in the nation's financial press, and is a frequent guest on CNBC, where he appears on Squawk Box, The Closing Bell, and Kudlow and Company. He also appears regularly on CNN, Fox-TV, Bloomberg TV and radio, and CBS radio.

John M. Sobrato

John Michael Sobrato has been involved with the family owned Sobrato Organization for over 30 years. As CEO, he sets the strategic direction for the firm’s 7.5 million square foot commercial portfolio in the Bay Area, 7,500 unit residential portfolio in the western states and global portfolio of marketable securities. John has two grown sons and is very involved in the local community. He is concurrently serving as Co-Chair of the capital campaign for the California Province of the Jesuits and as a member of the Boards of Trustees of Santa Clara University, the Catholic Foundation of Santa Clara County and the Sobrato Family Foundation. He has previously served as the chair of the Boards of the Silicon Valley Community Foundation, KTEH Public Television, Catholic Charities of San Jose, the San Jose Repertory Theater, Charities Housing Development Corporation, Bellarmine College Preparatory and the Fellows and the Regents of Santa Clara University.

Christopher Thornberg

Christopher Thornberg is Founding Partner of Beacon Economics, LLC and widely considered to be one of the nation’s leading economists. An expert in economic forecasting, regional economics, labor markets, economic policy, and industry and real estate analysis, he was one of the earliest and most adamant predictors of the sub-prime mortgage market collapse and of the global economic recession that followed in 2008. Dr. Thornberg serves on the advisory boards of Paulson & Co. Inc., one of Wall Street’s leading hedge funds, and of the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce, Southern California’s largest not-for-profit business federation. Between 2008 and 2012 he served as a chief economic advisor to the California State Controller’s Office and was Chair of Controller John Chiang’s Council of Economic Advisors. Dr. Thornberg holds a Ph.D in Business Economics from The Anderson School at UCLA, and a B.S. degree in Business Administration from the State University of New York at Buffalo.

Jim McLean

Jim is a co-founder of Silicon Valley Data Science. He is a currently a Founder of Silicon Valley Data Capital and a Venture Partner at Crosslink Capital. Currently Jim sits on the boards of Ayla Networks, 365 Main and Silicon Valley Data Science. Prior to joining Crosslink, Jim was the head of US investing for 3i Ventures, a global venture capital fund. Jim's track record in the venture industry spans nearly two decades with experience at several of the industry's leading firms. Before 3i, he was a Partner at ComVentures. Previously, he was a founder of Bedrock Capital Partners where he led the Information Technology practice. Prior to Bedrock, he served as a Partner at Highland Capital Partners and as an Associate at Accel Partners.

Over his career, Jim has led a number of successful investments including UUNet (sold to Worldcom), Polycom (PLCM), Alantec (sold to Fore Systems), Centillion (sold to Nortel), Boston Communications Group (BCGI), NewCity (sold to Clear Channel), New Oak (sold to Nortel), Sonus (SONS), Arbinet (ARBX), Site Smith (sold to Metromedia) and V-Bits (sold to Cisco).

Jim began his career in the technology industry with positions at IBM's Thomas J. Watson Research Center, L.M. Ericsson and Network Equipment Technologies.

Kevin Scott

Kevin Scott is a managing director with SVB Capital. Scott oversees the company's relationships with many top-tier venture capital and private equity firms. In his role, Scott leverages the entire SVB platform and its member divisions.

Scott is responsible for strategic relationships with select venture capital firms on the West Coast, sourcing and advising on direct equity co-investment, limited partnership, and portfolio company banking and lending opportunities. In addition, he helps emerging companies with equity fundraising strategy. Scott has more than twenty years of consulting and investing experience with technology companies and venture capital firms.

Prior to this role, Scott was a partner with 3i Venture Capital for nine years where he invested in early stage IT companies and served on the Board of Directors of over 20 companies. Before 3i, Scott was a partner in the transaction services practice at PriceWaterhouseCoopers where he specialized in technology M&A.

Scott earned a BA in Political Economics from the University of California at Berkeley and an MBA from the Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University.

Jeff Fredericks, SIOR

Mr. Fredericks joined Colliers in 1986 and has been actively involved in commercial real estate since 1980. Jeff was named the Executive Managing Director of Colliers International's San Jose/Silicon Valley office in 1998 and is now part of the company's executive team that runs the twelve California and Nevada offices.

For the past 18 years, Jeff has been the primary contributor and editor of Colliers International's highly acclaimed Silicon Valley Market Report. The San Jose Business Journal, The San Jose Mercury News and other trade journals for the commercial real estate industry often cite Colliers' industry-leading absorption and vacancy statistics. Likewise, many institutional property owners have come to rely on this comprehensive report in assessing marketing and development strategies for their portfolios.

Jeff is a past President and current Board Member of the Association of Silicon Valley Brokers (ASVB). He also serves on the Board of Directors of the Northern California chapter of the Arthritis Foundation where he was named volunteer of the year in 2005, 2006 and was honored with the Foundations Development Award in 2010. Jeff has been an owner in Colliers International since 1994 and he has served more than 10, one-year terms on the Colliers International Board of Directors.