Sensei Partners

The Sensei Team

Patrick Yam

20+ years investment career as Economist, Investment Banker and Hedge Fund Manager; significant global private capital and public investment experience with The Federal Reserve Bank, Lehman Brothers, Citicorp, and Private Capital International.

Partner Pacific Assets (a $1B private equity fund, an affiliate of Drexel Burnham Lambert) and President of Matthews International Management (a $200M hedge fund investment management firm).

Co-Founder of 4 start-ups including founding officer of two Internet companies with operating and financial responsibilities.
Co-CEO of Canadian telecommunications enterprise, Dynavar Networking.

Director of Santa Clara University Leavey School of Business advisory board, Dean's Executive Professor of Entrepreneurship and, Emeritus Executive Fellow in Residence of Santa Clara University's Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship.
Former faculty member of Venture Capital Institute in Atlanta, Georgia.
Author of various publications on venture capital, capital markets, ‘Company Building’ and, macroeconomic development.
Advisor to various global government ministries regarding early-stage innovation and entrepreneurship.

BA – San Jose State University Pre-Law.
MBA – Santa Clara University with honors in finance and marketing.

Alayne Gyetvai

CTO and Managing Director of Cargill's Venture Capital business unit, eVentures, focusing on emerging technologies, application architecture, integration, infrastructure software, enterprise software, and security investments.

Former General Manager of Globix Corp. with full operating responsibilities.

Founding member of Sun's and SGI's professional group and, previously a senior UNIX specialist at IBM for 10+ years.

BSe degrees in music performance from Oberlin College, BSe in computer science, and MSe in probability mechanics from Univ. of Colorado, Boulder, and BSe is electrical engineering computer engineering (EECE) from Univ. of New Mexico.

Lee Hamilton

CTO of YFonGlobal. Architect of the wyndstorm™ framework for creating private labeled Web communities which integrate social networking, VoIP, media content, avatars, gaming, geolocation and wireless delivery to enable next generation advertising and viral marketing business models.

Technology Director at the SRI Venture Group. CTO leadership to drive venture clients to valuation including Extant, AeroXG, and Aperto. Also key advisor to Sprint senior management to develop wireless and media strategies for beyond 2000.

Key engineering and marketing roles commercializing new Web, wireless, rich media and visualization technologies at companies including Ricochet, Hyperion, Siemens, Sandia Labs, CEMAX (Kodak) and ADAC (Phillips).

Multiple patent holder and author of an IEEE wireless standard. M.S. in Computer Science from Cal State Chico and M.S. in Biology from Humboldt State University.

Sandra Ballinghoff

Founder of Accelerating Solutions, a business consultancy dedicated to developing emerging businesses. Provided financial and business development for start-ups in the areas of software development, entertainment, eBusiness services and education.

Director of Budgeting and Business Analysis at Stanford University.
Directed the funding for $130MM operating budget and served as Co-Chair of the university-wide Electronic Commerce Initiative.

Director of Online Business Development and Product Development Operations at entertainment software developer Accolade.

Significant operational finance and analysis for high technology firms including Digital Equipment Corporation, Air & Water Technologies Corporation an several other technology firms.

MBA in Finance and Accounting from Columbia University. BS in Marketing and Finance from Boston College.
Member of Beta Gamma Sigma, the national honor society for higher education business programs.