Advisory Board

Charlie Hipwood

Vice President, MassVentures

Charlie joined MassVentures in 2017 and is a vice president focused on early-stage and seed investment in Massachusetts high-technology companies.

Charlie is a founder and executive with 20+ years of experience in financial services and technology start-ups (founded Fluent Fintech, STAG Capital Partners and AI Exchange) and established corporations (JP Morgan and Level 3 Communications).  As an entrepreneur, Charlie has deep experience in establishing and managing operations, executing investments, developing products and markets, managing the sales pipeline, raising capital, leading teams, growing revenue, and executing strategy to achieve desired outcomes.

Charlie earned an MBA from The University of Chicago Booth Graduate School of Business and a BA from Boston College.

In his free time, Charlie enjoys coaching youth sports, community service, and cooking.

Contact Charlie at: chipwood@mass-ventures.com or 617-306-4512
https://www.linkedin.com/in/charliehipwood/

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John Joseph

President and Co-Founder, DataGravity

With over 30 years of experience applying a customer-focused approach to computer design engineering, product management and go-to-market strategy, John brings deep enterprise and mid-market expertise to DataGravity. John previously served as vice president of marketing and product management at EqualLogic, leading these functions from the company's initial launch through the successful acquisition by Dell in 2008. He subsequently served as vice president of enterprise solutions, marketing at Dell for three years after the acquisition. Before joining EqualLogic, John held product design and leadership roles at Digital Equipment Corporation and was responsible for all marketing activities for enterprise storage at Maxtor and Quantum. He is a graduate of Worcester Polytechnic Institute and Clark University. John is a frequent speaker at technology and entrepreneurship events.

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Rebecca Liebman

CEO, LearnLux

Rebecca co-founded LearnLux, a company that makes online learning tools to teach personal finance skills to millennials. Previously, she founded Take Back the Tap at Clark and raised $20,000+ for environmental water projects in New England. She has lived in Kenya while studying microfinance in an informal economy, and has completed environmental research in Germany, France, Belgium, and Luxembourg. She’s passionate about working with people to create a better world through the power of technology. In 2015, she has applied for and won one of the coveted spots at the MassChallenge accelerator program; won $50,000 and $10,000 at the 1776 Challenge Festivals; been recognized as one of the world’s most promising edtech startups; named a top 20 out of 2,500 companies in the Forbes $1M Change the World Competition; won the Student Pitch Contest at Tech Sandbox; pitched at the Piranha Pond Pitch Competition, and participated in the Clinton Global Initiative University and a graduate of Clark University.

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Kevin O'Sullivan

Kevin is the President and CEO of Massachusetts Biomedical Initiatives, a private economic development organization that promotes the growth and expansion of the Biotechnology, Medical Device and Informatics industry. MBI operates four life and health science business incubator facilities in Worcester and currently home to twenty-four companies and over 100 employees, providing cost effective science laboratories and high quality business development services. He previously served as Vice President and Director of Marketing at the Worcester Regional Chamber of Commerce and the City of Worcester. From 1986 to 1994 he was a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives. He is on the Board of Trustees of Reliant Medical Group and formerly served on the Worcester Business Development Corporation and Chaired the City of Worcester's License Commission. Kevin, who lives in Worcester is also active in many civic and community activities.

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Jess Oyer

Jess Oyer is an attorney in the Litigation Practice Group at Fletcher Tilton PC, working from their downtown Worcester office. Jess graduated from The George Washington University Law School in Washington, DC. While in law school, he worked both in the Office of the General Counsel for the U.S. Dept. of Energy and for U.S. Magistrate Judge Beshouri. Jess also was an Editor of G.W.’s Public Contract Law Journal. After graduating from law school, Jess served as a Law Clerk to the Superior Court in the U.S. Virgin Islands. He next worked for a boutique litigation firm in Washington, D.C. before joining Fletcher Tilton in 2016. Jess is admitted to the bars of Massachusetts and New York.

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Nick Pappas

Director, Philips Ventures

Nick has been working with early-stage technology companies for over 15 years, as a venture investor, board member, investment banker and advisor. Prior to Philips, Nick spent seven years as a venture investor with MassVentures, an early-stage technology venture capital firm aimed at fueling high-growth start-ups in Massachusetts. Prior to MassVentures, Nick was a senior technology investment banker with Oppenheimer & Co., SVB Alliant, and Canaccord Genuity (formerly Adams Harkness) both in Silicon Valley and Boston. He holds an MBA from MIT’s Sloan School of Management and a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from The University of Richmond.

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George Tetler

Partner, Bowditch & Dewey

George Tetler has extensive experience representing business and real estate entities in a wide range of business planning and transactional matters with emphasis on mergers, acquisitions, reorganizations and restructurings. He represents corporate, non-profit, educational, healthcare and financial institution clients in a variety of financings, including asset-based and mortgage financing, project and construction financing, bond financing, and credit enhancement.

George also represents several financial institutions with respect to general corporate and regulatory compliance issues, formation of bank holding companies, national banking associations, and bank subsidiaries, as well as acquisitions of financial institutions. He also counsels secured and unsecured creditors, creditors' committees and debtors in complex Chapter 11 bankruptcy cases.