David Graham - CEO & Chief Technical Officer 
David is a veteran entrepreneur and technologist who excels at leveraging advances in optical and laser technology and applying them to high-volume consumer applications. David conducted the initial research for PowerBeam in 2005 and launched the company in December 2006. 

Prior to starting PowerBeam, David founded and was CEO of Poa Sana, an optical touch sensor company. He created Poa Sana’s underlying technology, raised $3.5 million and managed 17 employees through the development phase of the technology. Poa Sana was acquired by National Semiconductor in 2003. 

David has developed a broad set of technical skills that range from software development to hardware and optics engineering in a career that has spanned almost 20 years in Silicon Valley. He has worked for Microsoft, DIVA Systems (a spin-out of SRI International) and National Semiconductor in addition to a series of other technology and start-up companies. He holds a dozen patents in the field of electronic and optical systems. David is a self taught engineer. He received his BA in Government from Harvard University.

Christopher Surdi - Marketing Specialist

Chris is a serial entrepreneur with a specialty in Marketing and Business Development.  His interest in life changing, disruptive technologies is what attracted him to PowerBeam Inc.  Chris firmly believes that PowerBeam has figured out what scientists have been trying to discover since the discovery of the light bulb and feels that wireless electricity will not only improve our current electrical needs but will spawn a wave of new inventions and technologies useful on this earth and beyond.  

Chris has extensive knowledge in the start up environment, has many entrepreneurial achievements and a great deal of experience in leadership. In 2002, Chris launched an internet company called Phastcash.com which returned its investment in nine months.  In 2006, he co-founded a company called Global Educational Program which is currently the premier firm providing Business Development for foreign executives and students in the Silicon Valley.  He has also won a number of awards in entrepreneurship at both the local and national level.

Aakash Sahai - Research Scientist

Aakash Sahai brings with him to Powerbeam, valuable R&D experience in successfully commercialized communications technologies. While at Qualcomm’s MediaFLO technologies he was intricately involved with the development of mobile-TV Physical layer based on wideband-OFDM receive & transmit systems. He has also worked on multi-carrier DSL systems, developing algorithms for Network capacity optimization in real-world A/VDSL deployments. He holds an MS in EE from Stanford University.

Grier Graham - Member

Grier is serial entrepreneur who excels at building technology companies from the ground floor up.  Prior to joining PowerBeam, Grier was the founding VP of Business Development and Sales and a board member of Floor64 which operates the Insight Community and Techdirt. In that capacity he headed the company’s sales, marketing, business development and customer retention activities which were focused on large enterprise customers. 

Prior to joining Techdirt, Grier was VP of Business Development, Finance and Administration for Poa Sana, Inc., where he was responsible for fundraising and establishing partner and customer relationships. Before Poa Sana, Grier was a management consultant and analyst for GKMG Consulting where his roles included sales, client management and financial and strategic analysis. He started his career in journalism with the Aviation Week and Space Technology group as a senior editor covering airline finance. He earned an MBA at Cornell University and his BA from Boston University.

Board of Directors:

David Graham - Chairman
David is a veteran entrepreneur and technologist who excels at leveraging advances in optical and laser technology and applying them to high-volume consumer applications. David conducted the initial research for PowerBeam in 2005 and launched the company in December 2006. 

Prior to starting PowerBeam, David founded and was CEO of Poa Sana, an optical touch sensor company. He created Poa Sana’s underlying technology, raised $3.5 million and managed 17 employees through the development phase of the technology. Poa Sana was acquired by National Semiconductor in 2003. 

David has developed a broad set of technical skills that range from software development to hardware and optics engineering in a career that has spanned almost 20 years in Silicon Valley. He has worked for Microsoft, DIVA Systems (a spin-out of SRI International) and National Semiconductor in addition to a series of other technology and start-up companies. He holds a dozen patents in the field of electronic and optical systems. David is a self taught engineer. He received his BA in Government from Harvard University.

Grier Graham - VP of Corporate Development

Grier is serial entrepreneur who excels at building technology companies from the ground floor up.  Prior to joining PowerBeam, Grier was the founding VP of Business Development and Sales and a board member of Floor64 which operates the Insight Community and Techdirt. In that capacity he headed the company’s sales, marketing, business development and customer retention activities which were focused on large enterprise customers. 

Prior to joining Techdirt, Grier was VP of Business Development, Finance and Administration for Poa Sana, Inc., where he was responsible for fundraising and establishing partner and customer relationships. Before Poa Sana, Grier was a management consultant and analyst for GKMG Consulting where his roles included sales, client management and financial and strategic analysis. He started his career in journalism with the Aviation Week and Space Technology group as a senior editor covering airline finance. He earned an MBA at Cornell University and his BA from Boston University.

Tom Stuart - Member

Tom Stuart is a seasoned Silicon Valley executive and entrepreneur. He has been Director of Marketing at Qualix Group (bought by Legato/EMC), VP Marketing at Digidesign (bought by Avid (AVID)) VP Sales and Marketing at Virage (bought by Autonomy (LSE: AU), VP of Sales and Marketing at Addamark Technologies (now Sensage). He brings a wealth of startup and executive experience to Powerbeam.

Ilya Golubovich - Member

Ilya Golubovich is a managing partner of I2BF Venture Capital, a $70 million venture capital fund focused on renewable energy and clean technology investments. He is also a member of the Board of Directors of JSC Russian Investors, a Moscow-based private equity group with $200 million under management, and Linxlogic, a business software corporation in Los Angeles. Ilya formerly worked in the Energy Department of the London office of Louis Dreyfus in commodity trading and as a project manager at the Siberian Internet Company (Sibintek) at both their Novosibirsk and Moscow offices. Mr. Golubovich has an industrial engineering degree from Stanford University.

Ron Goodall - Member

Ron Goodall is VP of Manufacturing for SilverSpring Networks, a VC-backed company that serves the Intelligent Utility Networking market. Prior to joining SilverSpring, Ron was a co-founder and VP of Operations for SpeedInfo, a traffic information data-services company. Ron has worked in various positions over the past 25 years at both start-up and established technology companies. He held executive and managerial manufacturing and operations positions at Hewlett-Packard, Sun Microsystems and DIVA Systems. Most notably he spent five years as vice president of operations at CellNet, where he built a domestic manufacturing operation of 350 people to support production volumes of over one million units per year. Ron holds a BS in Business Administration with an emphasis in Production and Operations Management from Arizona State University.