Team

Frank Rimalovski

Frank Rimalovski, managing director of the NYU Innovation Venture Fund, is a venture capitalist and technology industry executive with over 18 years experience in early-stage investment and management experience in the formation of new ventures and technology development and commercialization. He is responsible for evaluating investments for the Fund, structuring company formation efforts, seeking additional funding for its companies, as well as providing customer introductions, management and mentorship to the Fund’s portfolio of companies. 

Frank brings 13 years of experience in venture capital and early-stage spinouts in the US and UK.  During this time, he has led the successful investment in and spinout of multiple new ventures from Lucent/Bell Labs, British Telecom, IBM and IDEO, among others. 

He was a founding partner of New Venture Partners, the leading global venture capital firm dedicated to funding technology spinouts based on corporate innovations. New Ventures Partners manages over $800 million in investment capital, and as a team has completed in excess of 60 spinout transactions. Frank joined New Venture Partners from Lucent, where he was a director and entrepreneur-in-residence within Lucent’s New Ventures Group. For six years, he held various positions in marketing, business development and product management in Silicon Valley at Sun Microsystems, Apple and NeXT. Earlier in his career, he was an investment banker in the mergers and acquisitions groups of Bear Stearns and Rodman & Renshaw.

Frank holds a BA in Economics from Tufts University and a MBA from Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business. He currently serves on the board of directors of ShopWell Solutions, Inc., is a member of the Tufts University Entrepreneurship Advisory Board, the Duke Global Entrepreneurship Network, and has been a guest lecturer at Columbia Business School and USC’s Marshall School of Business. He has one patent granted (7143430).

Marisa Tricarico

Marisa Tricarico, an Associate with the NYU Innovation Venture Fund, focuses on the Fund's healthcare investments. Previously, Marisa was a Summer Associate at Lux Capital, interned for the New York Angels, and interned for Agoranov, one of Paris' leading startup incubators. Prior to business school, Marisa worked at Clarion Healthcare, a strategy-consulting firm where she specialized in commercial opportunity analysis, potential indication evaluation, and assessment of new therapeutic areas and companies for client expansion and acquisition. Before Clarion Healthcare, Marisa worked in neuroimaging research at Massachusetts General Hospital and at the Boston University Center for Memory and Brain. She has co-authored multiple publications in the Journal of Neuroscience and Gene and has published a first-author abstract for the American Academy of Neurology. Marisa holds a dual-MBA from NYU Stern and HEC Paris. She holds a BA with distinction in Cognitive Neuroscience from Boston University where she was a magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa graduate. Marisa is conversant in French and Spanish.

Dr. Paul Horn, Chairman

Dr. Paul M. Horn, is NYU’s Senior Vice Provost for Research, responsible for providing University-wide leadership in advancing research at NYU, coordinating and shaping research among the University’s schools and global campuses. He leads the efforts to develop industrial linkages and promote an entrepreneurial environment. Dr. Horn was named NYU Distinguished Scientist in Residence in 2007 and assumed his current title in 2009. Prior to joining NYU, he spent 28 years at IBM Corp. As senior vice president and executive director of research, he guided IBM’s research worldwide, with 3,200 technical employees in five countries.

He championed the translation of technology-based research into marketplace opportunities and under his leadership, IBM Research produced an unmatched string of technological breakthroughs, including the chess-playing supercomputer Deep Blue, the world's first copper chip, the giant magneto-resistive head (GMR), strained silicon (a discovery that allows chips to run up to 35 percent faster), and BlueGene the world’s fastest supercomputer.

Prior to joining IBM in 1979, Dr. Horn was a physics professor in the James Franck Institute and at the University of Chicago. He is a fellow of the American Physical Society, a member of the National Academy of Engineering, and has published over 85 scientific and technical papers. Awards he has received include the 1988 Bertram Eugene Warren award from the American Crystallographic Association, the 2000 Distinguished Leadership award from the New York Hall of Science, the 2002 Hutchison Medal from the University of Rochester, and the 2002 Pake Prize from the American Physical Society. In 2003, Dr. Horn was named a top computing business leader by Scientific American. He serves on the Advisory Board of the General Accountability Office, and the Board of Trustees of the Committee for Economic Development and NYU-Polytechnic Institute. Dr. Horn graduated from Clarkson College of Technology and received his doctoral degree in physics from the University of Rochester.

Carlos M. Bhola

Carlos M. Bhola is Managing Partner of Celsius Capital an investment firm focused on companies in the technology, media and telecommunications industries.  Current and previous portfolio companies include kikin (where Carlos is co-Founder and CEO); Vonage (where Carlos was co-Founder and President); EachNet/eBay China; gate5/Nokia OVI Maps; and Aircom.  Carlos was previously Global Head of Internet/Electronic Commerce Investment Banking at Credit Suisse First Boston, prior to which he led Internet/Electronic Commerce and High Technology initiatives at the Boston Consulting Group for Fortune Global 500 firms. Carlos’ most recent academic accomplishment was his pioneering post-graduate research in artificial intelligence at Carnegie Mellon University.

Shelley Harrison

Shelley is a Senior Advisor to Coller Capital, a global investor in private equity’s secondary market, where he is responsible for the origination, execution and monitoring of corporate portfolios. He was previously the co-founder, first chairman and CEO of Symbol Technologies (later acquired by Motorola) and was the chairman and CEO of Spacehab Inc. He was also the managing general partner and co-founder of PolyVentures’ venture capital funds. Shelley has invested in over forty companies including: Sohu.com; Safenet Inc.; N2K/Music Blvd (acquired by Bertelsmann); Opal (acquired by Applied Materials); Jetfax; DSP Group; DSP Communications (acquired by Intel); EIS; Globecomm; and Novell. Shelley began his career as a member of the technical staff at AT&T Bell Labs and as a professor of electrical sciences at SUNY Stony Brook. He holds a BS in electrical engineering from NYU, and MS and PhD degrees in electrophysics from Polytechnic University (now NYU-Poly).

Dr. Jay Kranzler

Dr. Kranzler is currently President and Chief Executive Officer of Karuna Pharmaceuticals, and an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Puretech Ventures. He was formerly Chairman & CEO of Cypress Biosciences, Inc., which focused on pain and central nervous system conditions. Dr. Kranzler developed a fibromyalgia syndrome drug from concept to market, including the design of clinical trials and regulatory path through Phase III trials and FDA approval. Dr. Kranzler is a recent recipient of the Award for Innovation from the International Society of CNS Drug Development. He is also an Executive in Residence at UCSD Rudy School of Management and an Adjunct Professor and Entrepreneur-in-Residence at the NYU Stern School of Business. Formerly, he was President & CEO of Cytel Corporation, a biotechnology company focused on immunology drug development, and a Management Consultant at McKinsey & Company, where he helped establish the Pharmaceutical Industry Practice. Dr. Kranzler has an M.D. with a focus in psychiatry and a Ph.D. in pharmacology from Yale University.

Mark Leslie

Mark Leslie is currently the managing director of Leslie Ventures, a private investment company. Mr. Leslie was the founding chairman and chief executive officer of Veritas Software, a Fortune 1000 company. During his tenure as CEO, the company grew from 12 employees to 6,000 and its annual revenue rose from $95,000 to $1.5 billion.

From 1980 until 1990 he served as president and chief executive officer of two Silicon Valley high-tech startup companies. Prior experience included sales management, sales executive, systems engineer, and software engineer. While employed at IBM in 1969, he designed and developed the first software hypervisor.

Mr. Leslie is also a lecturer in management at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business, teaching courses in entrepreneurship, ethics, and sales organization.  He currently serves on the boards of Network Appliance and a number of privately held high-technology corporations including Librato, Liquid Robotics, Model N Software, PureStorage, SeaMicro Systems, Skybox Imaging, Sugar CRM, Wall Street Systems and Xsigo Corporation. He is also a member of the Board of Overseers for the NYU Faculty of Arts and Sciences, and chairman of the NYU Science Advisory Board. He has degrees in physics and mathematics from NYU and completed Harvard Business School's program for management development.

Dong Hyun "Dean" Park

Dong Hyun "Dean" Park is a serial entrepreneur who has founded and served as CEO and/or president of a string of successful international companies. These include A1A Capital Korea, a financial advisory firm, Far East Investment, a merchant banking firm, itchison Corporate Access, a cross-border telecom service provider Ricco Nine, a luxury goods retailer and Dong-A Pharmtech, a drug development biotechnology firm. Before that he was vice president and director of the investment banking group at Merrill Lynch Capital Markets. He began his career as was a senior accountant with KPMG, the global accounting firm.

Mr. Park is on the board of directors of corporations including Irae Hitech, a photofinishing service provider; Dong-A Pharmaceutical, Korea’s largest integrated drug company; Anam Semiconductor, a global outsourcing firm; Mohenz, Inc., a ready-mixed concrete maker. He is vice chairman of the Yale University Club of Korea, and on the boards of the Business Forum, a Korean organization; the Wooho Foundation for Humanity Development and the present Good Society, a Korean think tank. Mr. Park is a Certified Public Accountant. He received his Bachelors in Economics from Yale University, a Masters in accounting from New York University, and an MBA from Stanford University.

Daniel Tisch

Daniel is the principal of TowerView LLC, his personal investment company, and is a member of the Board of Trustees of NYU. His wife Bonnie Tisch received her MBA from NYU in 1976. The couple has three sons, David (Law '06), Michael (Law '09), and Alan. Daniel received his BA from Brown University in 1973. Daniel's brother, Andrew Tisch, is the co-chair of the Loews Corp., a company founded by their father Larry Tisch (Stern '42) and uncle Preston Tisch.

Dr. Michael D. Zisman

Dr. Michael D. Zisman functions as a managing director, operations, at Internet Capital Group and is a member of its board of directors. Before retiring from IBM in 2004, Dr. Zisman was vice president of corporate strategy and focused on IBM's On Demand strategy. He served earlier as general manager of the IBM Storage Systems Group, and vice president of emerging business development, reporting to IBM’s vice chairman. Dr. Zisman also in the IBM Software Group and led IBM's entry into the knowledge-management and distributed-learning markets while working in the IM Software Group. Prior to that, Dr. Zisman served as CEO of Lotus Development Corp., shortly after Lotus was acquired by IBM. During his tenure at IBM, he served on its Worldwide Management Council and the IBM Corporate Technology Council.

Before joining IBM, Dr. Zisman was senior vice president of the Lotus Communications Products Group. He joined Lotus in 1994 after its acquisition of Soft-Switch, Inc., a software firm he founded in 1979. Prior to founding Soft-Switch, he was a member of the faculty at the Sloan School of Management at MIT. He is a trustee of Lehigh University, a member of the Philadelphia Orchestra Board of Directors, a member of the Main Line Health Board of Governors, an overseer of the University of Pennsylvania School of Engineering and Applied Science, and member of the Advisory Board of the P.C. Rossin College of Engineering at Lehigh. He also serves on the Boards of a number of companies. Dr. Zisman earned a Bachelor of Science in chemical engineering from Lehigh University, and a Master of Science in systems engineering and a Ph.D. in decisions sciences from the University of Pennsylvania.