NEXT Upstate Announces Mark Templeton as Keynote Speaker for 2018 Venture Pitch Conference
Newly appointed CEO of DigitalOcean and former CEO of Citrix to share insights on building companies capable of sustainable growth
Mark will be joined on stage by Michael Cristinziano, former Citrix head of Corporate Development
GREENVILLE, S.C., July 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- NEXT Upstate announced today that Mark Templeton will deliver the closing keynote for their 3rd annual conference on October 4th 2018.
Mark Templeton recently joined DigitalOcean, a leading cloud computing platform serving over 3.5M developers and development teams. Previously, Mark was president and CEO of Citrix in 2015 for over 20 years. Under his leadership, Citrix transformed from a $15 million organization with one product, one customer segment and one go-to-market path, to a global, diversified leader in software, with annual revenues of $3 billion and over 100 million users worldwide.
Michael Cristinziano is an independent board member and advisor to growth stage software companies. Previously, Michael was Corporate VP, Strategic Development at Citrix Systems, where he was responsible for merger and acquisition (M&A) strategy and execution, technology licensing, corporate venture capital investments and investor relations.
Mark and Michael will share lessons learned during the rapid growth stage at Citrix and share anecdotes and insights regarding corporate culture, acquiring startups, corporate VC and partnering with industry leaders. The keynote address will close the NEXT Venture Pitch conference on Thursday afternoon, October 4th, 2018. The 3rd annual NEXT Venture Pitch will be hosted at the Greenville One Conference center, in the heart of Greenville's highly acclaimed downtown.
This year, the NEXT Venture Pitch conference will also include an advanced deep dive session in the morning for the benefit of the region's top entrepreneurs. Along with the morning workshops, eight innovative South-based startups will pitch to an audience of approximately 300 business leaders and venture capitalists, and highly accomplished founders will discuss entrepreneurship in the region. Finally, a panel of leading venture capitalists will assess investment trends in the Southeast.
This year, NEXT Venture Pitch is produced in partnership with Clemson University and presented by SCRA – two strategic allies in the Greenville/Upstate S.C. entrepreneur ecosystem. The event is expected to sell out as it did in 2017. Registration for NEXT Venture Pitch will open to NEXT Companies on Wednesday, July 25th, 2018, with sales to the general public available on July 30th.
About NEXT
NEXT attracts and grows high-impact, knowledge-based companies by developing an entrepreneurial ecosystem and connecting entrepreneurs to it. NEXT is a production of the Greenville Chamber and currently supports over 100 knowledge-based companies in Upstate South Carolina.
For more information, visit www.nextsc.org.
SOURCE NEXT Upstate, LLC
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