Key Personnel
Now Hiring
Kip A. Frey, President and CEO
Kip Frey has extensive experience in all aspects of start-up ventures.
Mr. Frey's venture capital career began in 2000 when he joined Intersouth Partners as a Venture Partner; he served as a full-time partner since 2003, working with the firm's information technology portfolio. Prior to joining Intersouth, Mr. Frey ran venture-backed companies. He served as Executive Vice President and General Counsel of Ventana Communications Group, having sold the company in 1994 to the Thomson Corporation. In 1998 he became President of Accipiter, Inc. and sold the company to CMGI, Inc. Later that year, Mr. Frey became President and CEO of OpenSite Technologies, Inc., which was acquired in 2000 by Siebel Systems. OpenSite was named NCEITA Software Company of the Year in 1999 and Mr. Frey was honored by Digital South Magazine as the Southeast's top entrepreneurial CEO. He received the Council for Entrepreneurial Development's Entrepreneurial Excellence Award in 2000.
A lawyer by training, Mr. Frey practiced intellectual property law before joining Turner Broadcasting System in 1990. While at Turner he ran several business units and contributed to the acquisition of Castle Rock Entertainment, the formation of the Cartoon Network, and the construction of the MGM Grand Hotel.
Mr. Frey has been a professor at Duke University for the past fifteen years. He is currently an Adjunct Professor at Duke's Sanford School of Public Policy, where he teaches intellectual property law and policy. Prior to that, he served as Professor of the Practice in Entrepreneurial Management, holding joint appointments from Duke Law School and the Fuqua School of Business.
Mr. Frey is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of Southern California School of Cinema, and of Duke Law School, where he served on the Duke Law Journal.
John Q. Walker, Chairman and Chief Technology Officer
Dr. Walker is a co-founder of Zenph Sound Innovations, and was a co-founder of Ganymede Software. In his five years as vice president of product development, Ganymede products consistently won “Best Product” and “Product of the Year” awards. For example, only two companies won Network World magazine’s “World Class Award” twice in 1999: Dell Computers and Ganymede Software.
Walker co-authored a book on VoIP for Cisco Press. “Voice over IP” (VoIP) is the use of data networks to transfer telephone conversations which have been converted from analog to digital. He also authored a book with Zenph co-founder Peter Schwaller on portable network programming for McGraw-Hill. He has authored dozens of technical articles, and is frequently an invited speaker on networking, software engineering, and musicological topics. He led all patent efforts at Zenph and Ganymede. At Ganymede, he was involved in the preparation of a dozen patent filings; all have been granted patents.
He was influential in the creation of the IEEE 802 local-area network (LAN) and the 802.11 wireless LAN (“Wi-Fi”) standards. Walker has extensive experience in the development and management of emerging technologies in engineering development organizations. At IBM, he managed teams developing high-speed networking software. Dr. Walker holds Bachelor degrees in piano and mathematics, and a Masters of Science degree in computer science from Southern Illinois University. He also pursued Masters-level work in music performance at the University of Illinois. He received his Ph.D. in software engineering from the University of North Carolina, and was named a Distinguished Graduate Alumnus at the UNC Graduate School’s centennial. He holds five patents. Dr. Walker is a member of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (NARAS).
