As a General Partner, John Hamm brings a powerful combination of experience, investment acumen and leadership expertise to the VSP team. John's diverse background as an operating executive, a start-up CEO, a venture capital investor, a leadership coach and an advisor/board member to dozens of technology companies gives him a unique and informed perspective on early stage investing.

John currently serves on the board of VSP portfolio companies Centive and IconoCulture. He also served on the boards of Truveo (acquired by AOL Time-Warner), IronPort Systems (acquired by Cisco), Brocade (NASDAQ:BRCD), SiliconStor (acquired by LSI Logic), Documentum (acquired by EMC), Ingrian Systems, and Sylantro Systems. Most recently, John was a managing director at TCG Advisors, a division of The Chasm Group, founded by Geoff Moore, where he advised CEOs and executive teams in the areas of leadership coaching and management systems. Independently, John designed and led a quarterly CEO Boot Camp program on behalf of and sponsored by Deloitte & Touche that reached over 600 entrepreneurs nationwide. Prior to TCG, John was a venture partner at Redpoint Ventures and a Managing Director at Internet Capital Group (ICG), where he evaluated Investment opportunities and provided management and leadership coaching to portfolio companies.

As a private investor, John has a strong track record of successful technology start-ups, including Brocade (IPO, June, 1999), Military Advantage (acquired by Monster), Truveo (acquired by AOL), Webify (acquired by IBM) and IronPort Systems (acquired by Cisco, 2007). In addition to individual investing, John has provided CEO coaching expertise to the leaders of these companies and many other notable technology and consumer products companies, including TaylorMade-adidas Golf.

John has excelled in leadership/operating roles at several high-growth companies, including Whistle Communications, where he served four years as president and CEO. Backed by Institutional Venture Partners (IVP) and The Mayfield Fund, Whistle became the leader in small office Internet appliance products and was acquired by IBM in June 1999. Prior roles included EVP and general manager of advanced storage products, a $450M business division at Adaptec (NASDAQ:ADPT) and executive positions at Western Digital both in the U.S. and Europe. John started his professional career at Hewlett-Packard.

John has been published in The Harvard Business Review, Fast Company, Business 2.0, Business Week, Fortune, USA Today, and The Wall Street Journal. His latest published work, Five Messages Leaders Must Manage, was the lead article in the May, 2006 issue of The Harvard Business Review. Prior, Hamm wrote Why Entrepreneurs Don't Scale, which appeared in The Harvard Business Review in December 2002.

John holds B.S. degrees in Engineering Physics and Engineering Management from Purdue University, and completed the UC-Irvine Executive MBA program.

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