Akira Hirai - Managing Director

Anaheim Hills, CA | Phoenix, AZ

With over 20 years of experience in entrepreneurship, management, business planning, financial analysis, software engineering, operations, and decision analysis, Akira has the breadth and depth of experience needed to quickly understand entrepreneurs' businesses and craft the most suitable solutions.

Before founding Cayenne Consulting in early 2001, Akira started two Internet companies in Silicon Valley. Previously, Akira held various management positions in New York at Salomon Brothers, most recently as Vice President in Fixed Income Derivatives Trading, focusing on new business development and risk management. He has also worked as a senior financial risk management consultant to the financial services industry; software engineer; advertising sales manager for the popular Let's Go travel guide series; general manager of an advertising and graphic design agency; and engineering intern at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center.

Akira is a regular guest speaker on the topics of business planning, financial forecasting, and capital formation at the Phoenix chapter of the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation's FastTrac entrepreneur training program and at various programs affiliated with Arizona State University (ASU). He also mentors companies preparing to present before the Arizona Angels and the Arizona Venture Capital Conference (AVCC). Akira has also served on the Board of Directors for ITASA (Information Technology Association of Southern Arizona). He was named Entrepreneur of the Week in October 2000 by vCapital.com.

Akira earned his BA in Engineering Sciences from Harvard University.

Tom Dykstra, MBA, CFPIM - Principal Consultant

Phoenix, AZ

Tom has over thirty years of business experience in strategy development, software design, engineering management, sales, marketing, channel creation, consulting, business modeling, decision analysis, capital acquisition, and new venture start-ups.

He is the co-founder of two ERP software companies: Effective Management Systems (ERP for discrete manufacturers) and EMS Solutions (ERP for automatic merchandising companies). Effective Management Systems appeared on the Inc 500 twice (28 and 37), acquired venture funding, and was taken public.

Before founding Effective Management Systems, he was with the Data Systems Division of AO Smith Corporation, a Fortune 500 diversified manufacturer. He was responsible for all financial and HR systems used by the corporation and the service bureau customers. He also founded the firm's small business computer line of business and the IT consulting practice.

He currently serves on the board of directors of Synergex International, a software firm.

As an adjunct faculty member at Grand Canyon University and Arizona State University, he has taught graduate and undergraduate courses in strategy, supply chain / operations management, project management, information systems, statistics, business modeling, and decision analysis.

Tom has an MBA from the University of Chicago and a BA in Mathematics from Hope College. He is also a Certified Fellow of the American Production and Inventory Control Society.

Julie Fletcher, MBA - Principal Consultant

Phoenix, AZ | Los Angeles, CA

Julie offers over 20 years of experience in business management and training. Her specialties include new business formation, business planning, business development, small business management, organizational development, operations planning, human resources, and insurance.

Prior to joining Cayenne, Julie founded Lanick Corporation, a small business consulting and coaching company. Previously, she co-founded and operated a successful small business development firm for eight years. This company expanded into the Arizona market quickly and within the first five years in business opened six offices statewide. During these years, Julie was recognized as a market leader in the construction licensing and surety bond industry, taught business law seminars, trained and led her team to reach their objectives year after year, consulted and coached hundreds of small business owners one-on-one, and assisted in setting up over 4,000 new Arizona businesses.

As an entrepreneur, Julie understands your reason for doing what you do. Her philosophy to success is simple: "you must be willing to learn and commit to follow-through! So many people dream, so few act." Through training and assistance, she guides you through a transformational process that opens doors to new opportunities and allows you to not only see your success, but actually experience it.

Julie earned her MBA with a concentration in Human Resources from the Keller Graduate School of Management, and holds a BS in business operations from DeVry University.

Richard Hasenpflug, MBA - Principal Consultant

Phoenix, AZ

Richard has been bringing Fortune 100 expertise to startups and small to mid-sized businesses since 1985. He is both a consultant and serial entrepreneur and has participated in several startup teams either as CEO or CFO. After an extensive career in Silicon Valley, he relocated to Arizona in 2008.

Richard has worked with clients spanning a variety of industries, both domestically and overseas, including healthcare, high-tech market research, international trade, multinational operations & marketing, offshoring, publishing, semiconductor equipment, supply-chain management, and telecommunications.

Richard's focus internationally has been on building strong multi-national teams and bringing the lessons learned in Silicon Valley to other industries and countries. He was active in Russia during the 1990s, working with privatized state-owned companies and supporting local startups and multinational joint ventures. He also led the creation of a worldwide trading network focused primarily in Europe.

Prior to 1985, Richard held a variety of management, development, finance and marketing positions in international and high-tech companies. Based in Singapore, he was Director of Finance and Corporate Credit for Monsanto Corporation's Asian operations for several years, establishing corporate risk levels throughout the region and actively working with and supporting customers. Richard has served as an officer and/or director of several industry associations and non-profit organizations. He was named Los Altan of the Year in 2002 for his many years of work in support of local education, worldwide AIDS education, and international understanding.

Richard earned an MBA in International Management from the Thunderbird School of Global Management, a BA in History from The Ohio State University, and graduated from the Marketing Management Executive Program at Columbia University's Graduate School of Business.

Jimmy Lewin - Principal Consultant

Phoenix, AZ | Deer Valley, UT

Jimmy's background includes over 40 years in international, commercial and investment banking, and nearly a decade as the principal shareholder and CEO of a rapidly growing manufacturing and distribution business in California. Today, Jimmy spends his time advising and consulting with entrepreneurs on matters related to business planning, as well as capital markets and funding strategies. In addition, he serves in an advisory role to the National Science Foundation where he provides recommendations on the funding of SBIR/STTR grant proposals.

Jimmy serves on a number of Advisory Boards for emerging companies that have recently raised capital or are about to raise capital. In all of his work, he expresses a strong belief in the importance of customer acquisition, customer retention, and understanding the financial consequences of each and every business activity.

During his 20 years at Security Pacific Bank, Jimmy served in a number of senior management positions in the U.S. and internationally. Applicable assignments included responsibility for the funding of all of the institution's subsidiaries and affiliates domiciled outside of the U.S., general management of two overseas affiliates and general management of the bank's California staff departments.

For two years, he served as President, Director and CEO of Guardian Bancorporation, Los Angeles, California. Jimmy has extensive senior management and Board of Director experience. He is a graduate of the University of Cincinnati where he earned a B.A. in Political Science.

Tom Miller - Principal Consultant

Phoenix, AZ

Over the past 30+ years, working independently as a serial entrepreneur as well as a serial intrapreneur within multi-national corporations, Tom has focused on recognizing outstanding new technology opportunities and successfully forming and leading new enterprises. His career has included leadership roles at both Fortune 1000 companies such as Texas Instruments, NCR, Fairchild Semiconductor, Fujitsu and DuPont, and entrepreneurial ventures such as Integrated CMOS Systems, VIA Technologies, Quantum3D, and Anadigm. Tom's extensive experience and expertise spans business development, sales and marketing, brand management, operations (general management), and manufacturing.

Tom's earliest successes were at Texas Instruments where he led business development efforts to develop electronic sound generators and controllers for integration into leading consumer electronic products for the toy and game industry. Parker Brothers, Coleco, Milton Bradley and many others introduced products incorporating the TI technology, resulting in revenue growth from zero to over $50 million annually within 3 years. Tom later led efforts to commercialize the first RISC microprocessors, initially at NCR and then at Fairchild, followed by his first entrepreneurial efforts with Integrated CMOS Systems (sold to Toshiba) and VIA Technologies (now a major international IC company in Taiwan). At Fujitsu Microelectronics from 1992 to 1996 Tom initiated efforts to restructure US semiconductor operations, reducing operating costs by more than $20 million while increasing sales from less than $190 million to over $600 million within 3 years.

Since 1998, Tom has advised or participated in the formation of more than 30 other high technology start-ups, most recently as President and general manager of DuPont Displays passive matrix polymer OLED displays business headquartered in Santa Barbara, CA, and as interim COO for Anadigm, a field programmable analog array company headquartered in Tempe, AZ. From 2007 to 2010, Tom served as Executive Director for the Society for Information Displays, a professional society dedicated to advancing the state of the art in electronic displays for every product class from televisions to cell phones. Additionally, Tom currently serves on the Board of Directors for Project InVision International and is a trusted advisor to numerous other public and private companies in the displays, semiconductor and software industries.

Tom began his career as a hardware and firmware designer for microprocessor systems and holds a B.S. in Computer Science from Stony Brook University in Stony Brook, NY.

Scott Pollov - Principal Consultant

Phoenix, AZ

Scott brings nearly two decades of experience in planning, developing, financing, marketing, and managing entrepreneurial and real estate based ventures, both as a principal and as a consultant. He has managed several hundred strategic consulting engagements for companies in nearly every industry and stage of development. Before joining Cayenne, Scott was the co-founder and managing partner of BizPlanIt, a management consulting and capital advisory firm that assisted clients through the process of creating, financing, growing, and sustaining their business. Scott focused on pre-financing transaction preparation and positioning services, including market and competitive research, business planning services, strategic and growth planning, financial analysis and projections, investor presentation materials, recommendations on value enhancement, presentation coaching, advisory board membership, and the identification and development of strategic, marketing, and technology partners.

Scott has focused extensively on serving companies in the real estate development and finance industries, including master planned community, residential, and commercial developers; multifamily and commercial property investment companies; real estate private equity funds; and commercial and residential mortgage brokers/lenders. Scott has been active as a principal in a real estate investment firm, as well as in the funding of private money and commercial mortgage transactions.

Earlier, Scott worked at at McGladrey & Pullen, a national public accounting firm, where he specialized in financial statement audits for middle market manufacturing, distribution, and medical services companies. Scott holds a B.S. in Accounting and Entrepreneurship from the University of Arizona, and is an inductee in the University's Berger Entrepreneurship Program Hall of Fame for his role in developing BizPlanIt.

Jan Knight, MA - Market Research Specialist

Tucson, AZ

Jan delivers both marketing and advertising experience to her role as our market research specialist. Her focus is on providing customized business intelligence and secondary market research. Her work has helped to shape business plans, marketing strategies, and new business development for a diverse set of clients. She has research experience in fields such as medical devices, software, IT, healthcare, publishing, beverages, and many others. Jan has access to professional subscriber-only databases that provide authoritative data, nationally and internationally and help her to far beyond what the Internet alone can offer.

Previously, Jan has spent over 15 years working as a client liaison for two successful Advertising/Marketing Agencies and as a Purchasing/Manufacturing Manager for an international educational publisher. She regularly speaks to business groups on the topic of advanced online search strategies and market research related topics. Most recently Jan has begun working with a number of start-up companies researching both government grant funding as well as research for the companies’ SBIR/STTR proposals.

Currently Jan is an active member of the Association of Independent Information Professionals and has been active in both committees and conferences for over 9 years. She has previously served as a Board Member for the Greater Tucson Chapter of National Association of Women Business Owners (NAWBO) and on committees for the American Marketing Association.

Jan earned her M.A. in Information Resources & Library Science from the University of Arizona, and her B.A. from the University of California, Berkeley.

Hal Siegel, Ph.D. - Senior Advisor

Phoenix, AZ

Dr Siegel has over 20 years experience across R&D and regulatory affairs, and supported multiple VC and public fundraising rounds, founding Siegel Consultancy LLC in 2001. For the past 8 years, Siegel served ImmuneRegen (as Senior VP, Product Development and Regulatory Affairs, and then VP and CSO), then Zila, Inc. (as VP, responsible for the company’s Phase 3 oncology program and device activities, as FDA liaison and establishing multiple research collaborations).

From 2000-2003, Siegel served in the FDA-regulated information technology space, in Sun Microsystems Life Sciences Group, and BioQ, integrating regulatory and scientific content into a SaaS product (a collaboration with IBM, Accenture and Autonomy).

Siegel spent 1993-1998 at Advanced Bioresearch Associates, a boutique CRO, providing regulatory, clinical and scientific support, including to a botanical drug startup acquired by Wyeth-Ayerst. He joined ABA following positions at Hybritech Inc. (an Eli Lilly company) and Iatric Corporation, where he was responsible for regulatory and compliance activities for biological products and a monoclonal antibody/drug product.

He obtained his B.S. Biology from RPI, his PhD in Biochemical Pharmacology from SUNY Buffalo and performed post-doctoral research at Los Alamos National Laboratory and at the Barrow Neurological Institute. He serves on the Phoenix Leadership group of AZBio, the Arizona life science industry trade group.

Marty Zwilling - Chief Knowledge Officer

Phoenix, AZ

Marty Zwilling's passion is nurturing the development of entrepreneurs by providing first-hand mentoring, funding assistance, and business plan development.

He writes a daily blog for entrepreneurs, and dispenses advice on the subject of startups to a large online audience of over 235,000 Twitter followers. He is also a regular contributor to Forbes, Harvard Business Review, Business Insider, and the Huffington Post. He recently released his first book titled "Do You Have What It Takes To Be An Entrepreneur?"

He has a 30-year track record of demonstrated results as an executive in general management, computer software development, product management, and marketing, as well as in leading technical business transformations, conducting due diligence for investors, mentoring new technical executives, and overseeing business development, customer service, and outsourcing both onshore and offshore.

Marty began his career with IBM, holding an array of positions including executive roles in software development and professional services. Prior to launching on his professional path, Marty's education included the attainment of Bachelor of Science Degrees in Accounting and Computer Science from the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana.

A resident of Fountain Hills, Arizona, Marty is a Board Member at Callaman Ventures, on the startup selection committee of the Arizona Angels Venture Group Inc., an advisor to the Arizona State University Technopolis program, Executive in Residence at the Thunderbird School of Global Management, and member of the Advisory Boards for several startups in the area.