Venture Fellows Class of 2008-2009

Anand Balasubramanian

Anand joined Venture Fellows in the Fall of 2007. In Spring 2009, he interned at G51 Capital, an Austin-based venture firm specializing in early stage funding where he helps with fund raising, and deal reviews. He currently interns with Austin Technology Incubator in the wireless group.

Prior to returning to school to get his MBA, Anand was an Assistant Research Engineer in Texas A&M University's Supply Chain Lab. He also served as a volunteer radio broadcaster at a community radio station at College Station. Anand earned a Master of Engineering degree in Industrial Engineering from Texas A&M University in May 2004 and a Bachelor of Engineering degree in Mechanical Engineering from Bangalore University in 2000. In his free time Anand enjoys listening to music, watching and playing basketball, and jogging.

  1. Place of employment pre-McCombs: Texas A&M University & KEOS 89.1 FM
  2. Venture Fellows spring 2008 internship: G-51 Capital Management, LLC
  3. Summer 2008 internship: Apple Inc.
  4. Venture Fellows fall 2008 internship: Austin Technology Incubator

Austin Harkness

Austin joined Venture Fellows in the Fall of 2007 and is concentrating in Finance and Entrepreneurship. He is currently interning at G51 Capital, an Austin-based venture firm specializing in early stage funding where he performs due diligence for new investments in addition to sourcing new growth opportunities for portfolio companies.

Austin most recently served a variety of leadership roles with the St. Bernard Project, a non-profit organization based in Chalmette, LA, rebuilding homes in the Lower 9th Ward and St. Bernard Parish devastated by Hurricane Katrina. Prior to his volunteer work in New Orleans, Austin founded New York Enterprises, Inc, a holding company for a restaurant he developed and established in College Station, TX. In discovering his interest in the challenges presented by entrepreneurship, his restaurant was voted “Best of the Brazos” 2004-2006 by the 125,000 residents of Bryan/College Station. Though he sold the restaurant in August 2006, he remains involved with the business in an advisory role today. Austin graduated from the University of Texas at Austin’s Honors Business Program with a BBA in Marketing in 2001.

Blake Anderson

Blake Anderson joined the Venture Fellows program in Fall 2007 and is interning this semester with the Central Texas Angels Network, a non-profit organization dedicated to providing quality early-stage investment opportunities for accredited Central Texas angel investors. He is a second-year MBA student at the McCombs School of Business, concentrating in Finance.

Prior to returning to school to get his MBA, Blake was an audit project manager in Sprint Nextel’s internal audit group. In this role, he focused on helping the company identify areas of risk and opportunity across various business units. Blake earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in May 2003.

At McCombs, Blake is a member of the McCombs Admissions Committee, the Graduate Finance Association, and serves as the VP of Special Events for the Graduate Consulting Group.

  1. Place of employment pre-McCombs: Sprint Nextel
  2. Venture Fellows spring 2008 internship: Central Texas Angel Network
  3. Summer 2008 internship: Deloitte Consulting
  4. Venture Fellows fall 2008 internship: Central TexasAngel Network

Brian Bahr

Brian Bahr joined the Venture Fellows in the Fall of 2007 as an MBA student concentrating in Finance. He currently interns at Focus Strategies, an Austin-based financial advisory firm specializing in raising capital for middle market enterprises. He will help perform research, due diligence, transaction modeling, and other financial analysis in the preparation of business plans and deal books.

Bahr also works as a photojournalist. As a sports photographer for Getty Images, he covers high-profile athletes for editorial and commercial clients. He has produced covers, spreads, features, ads and billboards for ESPN Magazine, Sports Illustrated, L’Equipe, Wheaties, Nike, Adidas, and major newspapers around the world. He is a veteran of nine Super Bowls, seven World Series, four Stanley Cup Finals, four NBA Finals, seven BCS Championships, three FIFA and two NHL World Cups, three Olympics, and two Final Fours.

Bahr developed key major league relationships that led to a significant new licensing model for Getty Images. He helped pioneer the use of digital cameras and new technologies in real-time media coverage. He also covered presidential politics, international spot news and sports for Agence France-Presse in the early 1990s.

He graduated from the Medill School of Journalism with a major in Economics at Northwestern University and from Phillips Academy in Andover, Mass. He also studied for a semester at the University of Colorado in Boulder.

Brian Mooney

Brian comes to McCombs from Spansion Inc., a joint venture between Advanced Micro Devices and Fujitsu that became independent in 2004 and completed its IPO in 2005. Prior to McCombs, Brian worked in product marketing as a product manager for a portfolio of flash memory devices designed for wireless handsets. He began his career at Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) in Austin before moving to Sunnyvale, California to help develop a new flash memory technology called MirrorBit®. This technology has become the cornerstone of Spansion’s product portfolio and was a key positioning point for the IPO. Brian has a Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin.

Jeff Otto

Jeff Otto joined Venture Fellows in the fall of 2007. He is currently working with the Clean Energy Incubator (CEI) and Austin Energy on a joint project to develop an application for determining the Carbon ROI to assist the valuation of energy projects.

Jeff joined McCombs from Merrill Lynch in New York where he was a lead business analyst for a structured products group on the municipal derivatives trading desk. Prior to joining Merrill, Jeff was a co-founder of Vasor, LLC an e-business incubator and web hosting services provider. Jeff graduated from Penn State University in 2003 with a BS in Information Science and Technology.

  1. Place of employment pre-McCombs: Merrill Lynch
  2. Venture Fellows spring 2008 internship: Clean Energy Incubator
  3. Summer 2008 internship: Element Markets, LLC
  4. Venture Fellows fall 2008 internship: Element Markets, LLC

Jim Cahow

Jim Cahow joined the Venture Fellows program in Fall 2007 and has done his internship in both the Spring and Fall with Focus Strategies, an Austin-based financial advisory firm specializing in raising capital for middle market enterprises. Jim is now a second-year MBA student at the McCombs School of Business, concentrating in Finance and Entrepreneurship.

Prior to returning to school to get his MBA, Jim worked as a product marketing manager for Austin, TX based technology company National Instruments (NATI). In this role, Jim co-founded and was Director of Marketing and Operations for NTS Press, which pioneered a new business model for academic textbook publishing using web-based content delivery and print-on-demand technology. Jim earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering with a minor in Business Administration from the University of Nebraska in 2001.

Jim did his summer internship in the Institutional Clients Group of Citi, working in the Commercial Real Estate group of Global Portfolio Management. At McCombs, Jim is also a member of the McCombs Admissions Committee, the Graduate Finance Association, and the Entrepreneurial Society.

  1. Place of employment pre-McCombs: National Instruments (NATI)
  2. Venture Fellows spring 2008 internship: Focus Strategies
  3. Summer 2008 internship: Citi
  4. Venture Fellows fall 2008 internship: Focus Strategies

John Rabenhorst

John joined Venture Fellows in the fall of 2007 and is currently interning with Virtus Financial Group, a private equity firm based in Austin. At Virtus, John focuses on due diligence and financial modeling for potential acquisitions. He is concentrating in corporate finance and entrepreneurship while at business school. Ultimately, John hopes to leverage his experience in private equity to pursue a career in management consulting.

John is originally from Baton Rouge, LA and attended Centenary College for his undergraduate studies where he served as student body president, and majored in Business Administration and Theatre. Prior to beginning his MBA at McCombs, he worked for his family business, Rabenhorst Life Insurance, in a variety of roles. While working at Rabenhorst, John managed the company’s $20MM investment portfolio, created and implemented a new Life Insurance policy posting system (later adopted by other industry players), and utilized multi-relational databases to reduce processing time by 30%.

  1. Place of employment pre-McCombs: Rabenhorst Life Insurance Company
  2. Venture Fellows spring 2008 internship: Sentient Ventures
  3. Summer 2008 internship: Bank of America
  4. Venture Fellows fall 2008 internship: Virtus Financial Group

Lindsay Duran

Lindsay Duran is a first-year MBA student currently interning with the Clean Energy Incubator. Prior to returning to business school, Lindsay began her career as part of the Global Corporate Affairs team at Applied Materials — after earning a degree in Public Relations from the University of Texas at Austin.

While at Applied Materials, she developed strategic messaging for the company and its executives, managed internal company publications, planned large-scale events and supported government affairs initiatives. Projects included supporting merger and acquisition integration, the SAP implementation “business transformation,” entry into the photovoltaic equipment market, the launch of the company’s sustainability initiative and an intranet redesign.

Lindsay is an officer in Venture Fellows and the Graduate Business Council as well as Copy Editor for Texas Business Weekly.

  1. Venture Fellows spring 2008 internship: Clean Energy Incubator
  2. Summer 2008 internship: Hoover's, Inc.

Marcy Copeland

Marcy is a first year MBA student concentrating in Finance with a specialization in Entrepreneurial Management. Prior to enrolling at McCombs, she worked within political fundraising and venture capital. She began working as a finance associate for Congressman Harold Ford, Jr.’s senate campaign out of college. Following this experience, she moved from Washington D.C. to Huntsville, AL to begin working with Eastside Partners, a newly founded venture capital fund. Here, Marcy began as an analyst eventually making associate where she assisted in the completion of 12 equity and debt deals. She is interning this semester at Blue Sage, a middle market private equity fund based in downtown Austin. Marcy will intern in investment banking this summer in New York City with JPMorgan.

Marcy also serves on the board of the Dusit Charern Foundation, which provides scholarships to selected Thai students whom are pursing a U.S. based education. In her free time, she enjoys running, playing golf, and watching Tennessee football.

Michael Leins

Michael Leins joined Venture Fellows in the fall of 2007 and is currently interning with the Austin Technology Incubator where he reviews business plans and works closely with entrepreneurs in portfolio companies. Prior to UT, Michael spent three years as a Field Applications Engineer at Sigrity, a small engineering software company, and three years as a server design engineer at Dell.

Michael is originally from Houston, TX and attended Duke University where he studied Electrical and Biomedical Engineering. He will graduate in May 2009 from the McCombs School of Business with a concentration in Finance and a specialization in Entrepreneurship.

  1. Place of employment pre-McCombs: Sigrity
  2. Venture Fellows spring 2008 internship: Austin Technology Incubator
  3. Summer 2008 internship: G-51 Capital Management, LLC
  4. Venture Fellows fall 2008 internship: G-51 Capital Management, LLC

Rajiv Bala

Rajiv is a second year MBA student at the McCombs School of Business, concentrating in Entrepreneurship. Prior to attending the McCombs School, he spent five years at Texas Instruments as the Marketing Manager of Automotive Infotainment and as an Applications Engineer in the Digital Radio Group. Rajiv earned a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering and a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from Rice University in 2002. He is also a vice president with both the Entrepreneur Society and the CleanTech Group.


  1. Place of employment pre-McCombs: Texas Instruments
  2. Venture Fellows spring 2008 internship: S3 Ventures
  3. Summer 2008 internship: S3 Ventures
  4. Venture Fellows fall 2008 internship: S3 Ventures

Ronald Zboril

Ron is a first year student at McCombs and is concentrating in Finance. He is currently serving as an intern with Republic Holdings, an investment firm which provides debt and equity to growing companies through the Texas CAPCO program.

Prior to coming to business school, Ron worked in Austin for Sage Advisory Services, Ltd. Co. as a fixed income trader and associate portfolio manager. While there he was involved in the management of institutional client portfolios and played an active role in the trading of various types of debt securities. He is also enrolled in the CFA Program and will sit for the Level II CFA Exam this spring. Ron holds three degrees, in Finance, Entrepreneurship and Management, from Baylor University. He was also a captain and four year letter-winner on Baylor University’s baseball team. In his free time Ron enjoys fly-fishing, building fly rods, homebrewing, and traveling. Ron will spend this summer as an intern with JPMorgan’s Investment Banking Group in Houston.

  1. Place of employment pre-McCombs: Trader and Assistant Portfolio Manager, Sage Advisory Services, Ltd. Co. – Austin, TX
  2. Venture Fellows spring 2008 internship: Republic Holdings
  3. Summer 2008 internship: Investment Banking, JPMorgan
  4. Venture Fellows fall 2008 internship: Blue Sage Capital

Ryan Sanders

Ryan joined Venture Fellows in the fall of 2007 and is currently interning with Silverton Partners, a venture capital firm based in downtown Austin, where he works on due diligence for new investments and business plan assessments. He is concentrating in finance and entrepreneurship work while at business school and plans to leverage his classroom knowledge with real world work experiences, both past and current, to ultimately end up working in venture capital.

Ryan is originally from Salt Lake City, UT and attended Brigham Young University for his undergraduate studies where he majored in Finance. Prior to starting his MBA at McCombs, he helped found the University of Texas Golf Club in 2003, which has won many prestigious awards including being designated as host of 2009 NCAA DI Men’s Regional Golf Championship. Prior to joining the University of Texas Golf Club, in 2000 Ryan founded Calixus Networks, a software company specializing in online media community development. Under Ryan’s direction, Calixus was able to successfully raise capital financing, and eventually helped direct the sale of the company’s patented software technology.

  1. Place of employment pre-McCombs: UT Golf Club
  2. Venture Fellows spring 2008 internship: Silverton Partners
  3. Summer 2008 internship: Comcast Interactive Capital
  4. Venture Fellows fall 2008 internship: Silverton Partners

Scott Chiou

Scott is a first year MBA student at the McCombs School of Business, concentrating in Finance and Entrepreneurship. He is currently interning at Triton Ventures. Prior to attending McCombs, Scott spent over six years with Avatier Corporation, a startup software company focusing on identity management in San Ramon, CA. At Avatier, Scott’s responsibilities focused on designing new technologies, managing IT security, and directing customer service.

Scott graduated from Pomona College with a BS in Economics. He is also Vice President of the Entrepreneurship Society and Vice President Communications of the Clean Technology Group.

  1. Place of employment pre-McCombs: Avatier Corporation
  2. Venture Fellows spring 2008 internship: Vignette Corporation via Triton Ventures
  3. Summer 2008 internship: Cisco Systems, Inc
  4. Venture Fellows fall 2008 internship: Access Venture Partners

Shalou Dhamija

Shalou is an MBA 2009 candidate at McCombs School of Business, concentrating in Marketing and Entrepreneurship. During her Spring 2008 Venture Fellows internship, she worked at the Clean Energy Incubator in Austin which focuses on the development of viable clean energy businesses and is the first incubator of its kind in the U.S. While at CEI, Shalou authored a primer on the green building opportunity in Texas and organized a panel of 6 green building experts from across the country for a sold-out CleanTX Forum held at City Hall. She spent the summer as an Analyst with 3M’s Strategic Business Development Group, identifying and prioritizing new opportunities and markets for the Medical and Aerospace divisions as well as developing a strategic plan for the company’s sustainability initiatives.

Prior to joining the McCombs MBA program, Shalou spent over 5 years in the Bay Area in a variety of marketing and business development roles. In 2003, she and two business partners started a small commercial real estate investment brokerage, focusing on multi-family and triple-net properties. Most recently, she was the Marketing Director of a 70-person sustainable architecture firm in San Francisco where she secured $350MM in new project work in 2006, including entry into a new market. Shalou graduated from the University of Texas at Austin’s Honors Business Program with a BBA in Marketing and a Minor in Spanish in 2001.