Neil Senturia

Neil Senturia has re-invented himself several times in his relentless pursuit of entrepreneurial success. Currently he is the CEO of Blackbird Ventures, an investor in high growth potential companies. He also serves as the chairman of the board of directors of Valore, an online marketplace for the sale and rental of used textbooks.

Neil’s diverse endeavors range from writing sitcoms to technology, with a stint as a real estate developer in the middle. He has been CEO of six technology companies, three in software, one in material science, one in media and most recently clean tech.

His companies have been sold to Cisco, Kofax and Lockheed Martin. And no bio is complete without noting that one of the six went broke.

Neil has taught new venture creation as an adjunct professor in the MBA program at San Diego State University and has served on the board of directors of SDSU’s Entrepreneurial Management Center. Currently he teaches entrepreneurship at UC San Diego’s Jacobs School of Engineering von Liebig Center for Entrepreneurism and Technology Advancement (http://www.vonliebig.ucsd.edu). He is a member of the San Diego Venture Group (http:/www.sdvg.org) and the MIT Enterprise Forum.

His numerous honors include winning the Microsoft Retail Application Developer Award twice, the Arnie Karush award from the San Diego Software Industry Council, CONNECT’s Most Innovative New Product Award in software, and CONNECT’s Lifetime Contribution Award in Technology.

Neil graduated from Tufts University with a B.A. degree in English and received a masters’ degree in cinema from New York University. He was a Fellow at the American Film Institute in Los Angeles and served in the U.S. Army from which he received an honorable discharge.

He is married to Barbara Bry, and their blended family includes four children between the ages of 25 and 29, and Momo, a Himalayan cat.