Board of Directors
- Dave Sikora
- Founder and CEO
- Pierre Donaldson
- Member
- Michael J. Maples
- Member
- Susan Sheskey
- Member
- Brian R. Smith
- Member
Dave Sikora
Founder and CEO
David Sikora founded Digby in 2006, with a goal to accelerate the convergence of mobility and electronic commerce.. He is a veteran of the software industry, having been CEO of several successful public and venture backed private companies during his 25 year business career. He has served as the CEO of Pervasive Software (NASDAQ: PVSW), Question Technologies, Ventix Systems, and Forefront Group (NASDAQ: FFGI, acquired by NASDAQ: SKIL). In addition, he has served on the boards of several public and private companies, including TippingPoint Technologies, Motive, AG Tech, ClearOrbit, Troux Technologies, and Powered, Inc. He is also active in various Austin technology and community organizations.
Sikora has an MBA from Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration.
Pierre Donaldson
Managing Director, BlackBerry Partners Fund
As a member of the BlackBerry Partners Fund™ investment management team Pierre oversees direct investments in a broad range of mobile application and services companies.
Mr. Donaldson has previously held the positionof president and CEO of Bioscrypt Inc. Under his leadership, the company, then Mytec, acquired a major competitor, Biometric Identification Inc., and the two companies merged to become Bioscrypt Inc., a leading North American biometric software firm. During the past 22 years, Mr. Donaldson has acquired extensive experience in the software and high technology industries. From 1998 – 2000 he was executive vice-president, worldwide field operations, for the Descartes Systems Group Inc., a provider of business-to-business Internet logistics solutions. Prior to this Mr. Donaldson was vice-president, sales and marketing for Treasury Services Co. (acquired in 1997 by Oracle Corporation), a supplier of information management software. He has also served as president and CEO of Virtual Prototypes Inc., and held several senior management positions with Dun & Bradstreet Software Corporation. Mr. Donaldson received his Bachelor of Commerce from Hautes Etudes Commerciales at University of Montreal.
He is a director of Nstein Technologies Inc., Espial Inc. and Tungle Inc.
Michael J. Maples, Sr.
Former Executive Vice President, Worldwide Products Group and Member of the Office of the President, Microsoft Corporation
Mr. Maples held various management positions at Microsoft Corporation from April 1988 to July 1995, including Executive Vice President of the Worldwide Products Group. As a member of the Office of the President at Microsoft, Mr. Maples reported directly to the Chairman. Previously, he served as Director of Software Strategy for International Business Machines Corp. Mr. Maples also currently serves on the boards of Motive, Inc., a service management software company, Lexmark International, Inc., a laser and inkjet printer company, and Sonic Corp., an operator and franchiser of drive-in restaurants.
He is currently a member of the Board of Visitors of the Engineering School at the University of Oklahoma and the College of Engineering Foundation Advisory Council at the University of Texas at Austin.
Mr. Maples received a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Oklahoma and a Master of Business Administration from Oklahoma City University.
Susan Sheskey
Former Chief Information Officer, Dell, Inc.
Susan E. Sheskey served as Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer for Dell Inc. from August 2005 until her retirement from the company in August 2007. In this role she was responsible for the whole of Dell's global information systems and technology infrastructure.
Prior to becoming Dell's CIO, Ms. Sheskey held the position of Vice President of Information Technology for the the company's Americas Region, where she oversaw the development, deployment, and support of Dell’s global sales, services, manufacturing and fulfillment systems.
A noted authority on supply-chain and eCommerce technology, Ms. Sheskey joined Dell in 1993. She performed various IT management and leadership functions across a wide variety of business areas, including sales, manufacturing, fulfillment, services, procurement, data warehouse, finance, and human resources. Her efforts were paramount in establishing Dell as a leader in ecommerce and supply chain management, and she received CIO Magazine’s CIO Enterprise Value Award in 2004 for her success in providing Dell’s sales agents with an integrated view of customer data. Ms. Sheskey was also awarded the CIO 100 award from CIO Magazine in 2006 in recognition of Dell's innovative work on its European order-management systems; an award she won again in 2007 for innovations in mobile application delivery.
Before joining Dell, Ms. Sheskey worked for for both Ameritech and [Ohio Bell], gaining key planning, development and operational experience.
Ms. Sheskey graduated from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio.
Brian R. Smith
Managing Director, S3 Ventures
Brian serves as a managing director of S3 Ventures. He leads the team's efforts in technology, infrastructure and software. At 35, he co-founded the Convergent Investors Fund, a $70M early-stage venture capital firm in Texas. Brian served as managing director of Convergent Investors, where he oversaw investments in 10 companies. At age 29, he founded and served as chairman and CEO of Crossroads Systems (Nasdaq:CRDS). He led Crossroads through five rounds of venture, strategic and mezzanine financing and to a successful IPO in 1999. Brian ran Crossroads as a public company for nearly four years. In this role, Brian was an early pioneer in Storage Area Networks ("SANs"), which are industry standard solutions today. For his efforts, he was awarded the prestigious Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award in 2000. He spent the first seven years of his career in electrical engineering positions holding product development roles within the Technology Group of the IBM Corporation.
Brian earned a BSEE with honors from the University of Cincinnati and an MSEE from Purdue University. He served on the board of Conformative Systems (acquired by Intel), Chicory Systems (acquired by CEVA) and Crossroads Systems (Nasdaq: CRDS). He currently serves on the boards of Digby, Invodo, OrthoAccel, Phurnace and StoredIQ.
Brian leads the team's efforts in technology, infrastructure and software.
