About Encore Career Institute

A unique combination of passionate leaders and experts have come together to merge Silicon Valley’s best-in-class technology, Hollywood’s marketing assets and the world renowned academic curriculum of UCLA Extension. The result is a brand new concept and company called the Encore Career Institute.

Backed by $15 million in Series A venture capital funds, Encore is poised to revolutionize the higher-education world, not just by harnessing the best technology into higher-education but by truly elevating the experience to a not-seen-before level.

Encore Career Institute will offer students professional certificates and career counseling designed specifically for those transitioning to new careers or seeking to remain viable in today’s job market.  With a focus on practical work related knowledge, the fully online courses will allow students to complete certificate programs in just one year with far more robust interaction than many modern day classrooms.

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Academic Partner

UCLA Extension

UCLA Extension is the continuing and professional education division of the University of California at Los Angeles. UCLA Extension offers a broad spectrum of courses and certificates for professionals in business, management, engineering, information systems, entertainment studies, public policy, public health, the humanities and many other fields. UCLA Extension is a completely self-supporting enterprise, receiving no state or campus funds. Excelling in its quality, innovation, and impact, UCLA Extension is considered one of the top programs of its type in the U.S. As one of the early adopters of online learning for continuing education, nearly one-fourth of the 90,000 annual enrolled students are receiving their education online through UCLA Extension programs and conferences.

Board of Directors

Steve Poizner, Founding Partner and CEO

Steve Poizner is a highly successful high tech entrepreneur with over two decades of starting and running technology companies in Silicon Valley. Poizner founded and served as CEO of Strategic Mapping Inc., a software company that developed a program to display geographic data on digital maps.  He then founded SnapTrack, Inc., which pioneered technology that put GPS receivers into cell phones.

Poizner turned his focus to education and public service, co-founding EdVoice, an educational non-profit organization dedicated to improving public schools and serving the interests of K-12 children in California.  He also served as a volunteer teacher in San Jose’s Mount Pleasant High School teaching 12th grade American Government. In 2003, Poizner co-founded the California Charter Schools Association.  Poizner was later elected statewide and served as California’s Insurance Commissioner from January of 2007 through January of 2011.

The Sherry Lansing Foundation, Founding Partner

The Sherry Lansing Foundation (SLF) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to cancer research, health, and public education.  Among the foundation’s initiatives is the EnCorps Teachers Program, founded by Lansing to retrain retirees from the technology sector to serve as California public middle and high school science and math teachers.  Another SLF initiative is PrimeTime LAUSD, a partnership with the Los Angeles Unified School District, designed to engage retirees in improving the state of public education through targeted volunteerism.  Lansing is also a founder of Stand Up To Cancer, an initiative which funds “dream teams” of multi-institutional groups of scientists who work collaboratively to develop new treatments quickly in order to save lives.

Creative Artists Agency, Founding Partner

Creative Artists Agency (CAA) is the world’s leading entertainment and sports agency, representing many of the most successful professionals working in film, television, music, video games, theatre, and the Internet, and provides a range of strategic marketing and consulting services to corporate clients.  CAA is also a leader in sports, representing more than 650 of the world’s top athletes in football, baseball, basketball, hockey, soccer, tennis, and golf, and works in the areas of broadcast rights, corporate marketing initiatives, licensing, and sports properties for sales/sponsorship opportunities.  In addition, The Intelligence Group, a market research and trend forecasting company, is a division of CAA.

Granite Ventures, Board of Directors

Granite Ventures has been helping early-stage technology companies build solid foundations for success since 1992. Granite has managed over $1 billion in venture capital and has invested in more than 100 private companies. They partner with promising and successful entrepreneurs to create businesses that have a competitive edge, and help those businesses achieve category leadership. More information can be found at http://www.granitevc.com

Eric Zimits – Granite Ventures, Board of Directors

After spending a long career in finance and investments with a focus on the communications sector, Eric Zimits joined Granite Ventures in 2000 to focus on investing in early-stage communications and components companies.

Prior to Granite, Eric was Managing Director and head of the Communications Research Group at Hambrecht & Quist (later Chase H&Q), where he sponsored several venture capital investments, including: Amber Networks, acquired by Nokia; InterNAP (NASDAQ: INAP); Paragon Software, acquired by Openwave; WavTrace, acquired by Harris Corporation; and VocalData, acquired by Tekelec.

Prior to H&Q, Eric launched a research effort in the telecommunications and wireless industries as a General Partner at Volpe, Welty & Company. He also held analyst positions at Rauscher Pierce Refsnes and Morgan Keegan & Company.

InterWest Partners, Board of Directors

For more than 30 years, InterWest has partnered with exceptional entrepreneurs to build winning technology and life sciences companies. With more than 200 years of combined operating and investing experience, the firm’s investing team has raised $2.8B, completed more than 70 IPOs, and participated in nearly 60 upside acquisitions. As the firm invests InterWest X, a $650M fund, the InterWest team continues to believe that providing capital is just the beginning of a long-term collaboration with entrepreneurs to turn their vision into a thriving company. More information can be found at http://www.interwest.com

Tom Rosch – InterWest Partners, Board of Directors

Tom Rosch joined InterWest’s IT team at the end of 1999. He focuses on wireless and mobility, digital media and Internet, datacenter infrastructure and semiconductor opportunities. He is currently a board member of Avaak, OmniPV, Pelican Imaging, and Quantance. He is a board observer of AMEC and Brite Semiconductor.

Prior to InterWest, Rosch was a partner at AT&T Ventures, where he focused on networking, software infrastructure and semiconductors. Prior to that, Rosch was senior manager of the Media Convergence Practice at The Boston Consulting Group and an analyst at Morgan Stanley.

Encore Executive Team

Dave Wilson, VP of Engineering

Dave recently served as the Chief Technology Officer for Western Governors University, where he created and led game-changing initiatives that leveraged cloud and SaaS based technologies, in combination with service oriented architecture (SOA), to solve some of the most complex problems facing online education. Prior to joining WGU, Dave was CTO/CIO for an advanced medical laboratory, and VP of Engineering for a very early social networking startup. Known for innovation and a passion for applying state-of-the-art technology and methods in a practical way, and equipped with over twenty years of experience in application design, software engineering, and senior leadership in technology, Dave is now building a bleeding-edge technology program at Encore. Dave holds a BS in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Clarkson University.

Rick Gessner, Chief Architect

Rick Gessner was formerly Chief Technology Officer at Bridgepoint Education from its inception in 2004. Bridgepoint is an accredited, for-profit education provider. Prior to Bridgepoint, Rick served as entrepreneur-in-residence for Maveron, a venture capital firm formed by Starbucks founder, Howard Schultz. Rick served as interim CEO for LizardTech, where he engineered a corporate turn-around at the troubled software company. As a nationally known architect of client/server publishing technologies, Rick served as Engineering Director and Chief Engineer at Netscape/AOL, where he lead the architecture and development of the Gecko browsing engine. Rick holds several patents related to the “Gecko” engine.

Prior to Netscape, Rick co-founded his fourth startup, DigitalStyle, where he served as VP of Engineering. Before forming DigitalStyle, Rick was layout architect for the Pages desktop publishing application. Rick holds a BS from Arizona State University, as well as an MBA he earned while working for DigitalStyle.

Scott Eagle, Chief Marketing Officer

Scott has extensive experience managing major Fortune 500 brands and building successful new companies. Scott Eagle recently served as Chief Marketing Officer of eHarmony Inc., managing an $85 million budget and overseeing the company’s advertising/brand development and customer acquisition activities.  Prior to joining eHarmony, Scott was at Claria Corporation, a behavioral ad network, where he was Chief Marketing Officer and grew revenue from zero to $120 million in the company’s first four years of operation. Scott also had served on the executive team at Concentric Network Corporation where as Vice President Marketing he helped drive their successful IPO.  Scott has also held senior management positions at MFS Communications (helping grow revenue from $2 million to over $300 million over 3 years) and at Procter & Gamble. Scott holds a B.S.in Economics from the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.

James Desrosier, Senior VP Academic Affairs

Jim is the former Executive Director at the University of California Santa Cruz Extension and logged his first experience in continuing professional education 20 years ago. At UCSC Extension in Silicon Valley, he led the resurgence of its largest academic division and the expansion of its online certificate portfolio. He then turned around enrollment for the entire institution, winning award recognition from the University Professional & Continuing Education Association in 2010. He developed long-running national industry training programs for MasterCard University, during which time he also held executive positions at MasterCard, including Senior Vice President of Global Brand Marketing. Later, he delivered custom programs to the British Broadcasting Corporation’s News, World Service and Online divisions in London. Previously, as Executive Vice President at Excite, Inc., and Vice President at Infoseek Corporation, he served as a corporate officer for these public internet companies. Jim has spoken and published widely, including scholarship in two academic disciplines, which includes major recent articles in the Continuing Higher Education Review and Journal of Continuing Higher Education. He has earned two terminal degrees, a MFA in Writing & Critical Theory, and a PhD (abd) in Media & Communication at the European Graduate School in Switzerland.

Erez Yereslove, VP Consumer Marketing

Erez brings a unique combination of creative thought-leading perspective and data-driven high-success marketing performance approach. He has extensive experience of strategic management and performance marketing expertise of top-brand companies in both the online and offline space. Most recently, Erez brought this approach to his work as the Sr. Director of Lifecycle Marketing at eHarmony Inc., to effectively manage the conversion, loyalty and retention efforts of eHarmony subscribers around the globe. Prior to that, in 2007 Erez served as the Director of Relationship Marketing at Fox Interactive Media, managing the research and retention efforts for MySpace, IGN, Rotten Tomatoes, Fox.com and other key online entities. Erez also held other management positions at The Walt Disney Company, working within the Corporate Brand Management, as a Consumer Insights Manager at NBC-Universal, as well a Research Associate at Brandeis University. Erez started his career at the Israeli Intelligence unit.

Erez holds an MBA in Marketing, Strategic Management, and Media and Entertainment from the Marshall School of Business at USC, and a B.A. in Psychology and Communications from the University of Haifa. Erez now resides in the Bay area with his wife and two children, who make all the above worth it.

Donna Terman, VP for Course Development

Donna Terman is a policy analyst with over 20 years experience administering and advising private and public foundations, including the Poizner Family Foundation, the David & Lucile Packard Foundation, the Walter S. Johnson Foundation, the Ellison Medical Foundation, and the Silicon Valley Community Foundation. Donna has worked with numerous donors, board members and senior staff to develop and implement grantmaking and public policy programs designed to further public school improvement and improve outcomes for families in at-risk communities.

In addition, Donna has been the Trust Administrator of the William R. Hewlett Revocable Trust, the Senior Assistant Dean for Administration at Santa Clara Law School, an Editor at The Future of Children, a policy publication of the Packard Foundation, and a Program Manager at the Silicon Valley Children’s Fund. Donna received her law degree from Stanford and her Bachelor’s in Sociology from Purdue.