Robert J. Sherwood
Robert J.
Sherwood is president of SmartText Corporation. SmartText provides individuals, institutions
and businesses with specialized management
consulting services, litigation support
activities and legal form software. In this capacity, Mr. Sherwood
has conceived and developed many successful software products including
a business law dictionary which was licensed to Intuit Corporation and
eventually sold more than 1 million copies. He also directed the
development of several integrated
video software products titled Kiplinger Small Business Attorney and
Kiplinger Home Legal Advisor, which together sold more than 2 million
copies.
After
graduate school, Mr. Sherwood was recruited by a small company in
California where he conceived and directed the development of an
innovative enterprise-wide expert system with worldwide remote computer
access using acoustical couplers. The system ultimately integrated the
experiential knowledge of more than 100 experts into a single design
program which enabled this small California company to grow from 20
employees to 5,000 employees with more than $500 million in sales in five years.
Morgan Stanley underwrote the company’s initial public offering. Mr.
Sherwood also directed the technology commercialization activities of
the company which included managing a portfolio of more than 200 patents
and patent applications and directing the commercialization of
multi-million dollar product development programs.
In recognition of his early success, he was appointed a director of the company’s European
operations including more than 1,000 employees and manufacturing
operations in England, Italy and South Africa. He lived in Paris, France
and managed businesses and technology commercialization projects
throughout Europe, South Africa, Iran and Beirut. He successfully mixed a technology transfer project combining patented technology from New York University and Windhoek South Africa research to
install a unique water purification system in Lake Tahoe Nevada that was eventually a
feature article in National Geographic. He also was awarded a patent on
a material separation process that was commercialized and licensed to
numerous public organizations.
Later in his career, Mr. Sherwood approached Kleiner Perkins, a leading California
venture capital firm, with a business plan to license unique technology
from foreign countries, integrate it with Silicon Valley computer
know-how and market the combined products worldwide. Kleiner Perkins
invested $1.5 million in Mr. Sherwood’s concept and he subsequently
identified, licensed and successfully commercialized unique technologies
developed in England, France, and Switzerland. Mr.
Sherwood was chosen by Fortune for creating one of the ten most
innovative companies in California, while a Business Week writer
identified Mr. Sherwood as an expert in identifying unique technology.
The company grew to include more than 125 employees with worldwide
distribution and was eventually purchased by the Duren, Germany
headquartered Hoesch Corporation, which has annual revenues of more than
a billion dollars.
Mr. Sherwood
was vice-president and founder of RasterOps Corporation, a computer
hardware and software company; and after raising $3 million in venture
capital, the company reached sales of $50 million in three years and
made a successful initial public offering with an initial market
capitalization of more than $150 million. He directed the worldwide commercialization of
RasterOp’s 24-bit color software technology for the Apple Macintosh
computer and was elected vice president of the Apple Computer Developers
Association with more than 500 member companies. Mr. Sherwood was
recruited to be a team member of 12 Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and
technologists who were provided $2 million by the Australian government
to develop businesses indigenous to the strengths of Australia that
would allow Australia to commercialize regional technologies and enter
the computer industry.
Mr. Sherwood
was also elected to the board of directors and chairman of the
compensation and audit committees of Infinite Machines Corporation.
Infinite was founded to purchase the patents and know-how of the
original rotary engine technology patents and commercialize the
technology for new applications such as snow mobiles and watercraft.
While a board member, Mr. Sherwood provided oversight in the development
of the initial public offering and directed the evaluation of several
acquisitions including the successful acquisition of a medical products
manufacturing company using unique laser technologies to make surgical
orthopedic instruments.
Mr. Sherwood
has consulted for numerous public and private corporations and
government organizations. He was a principle consultant to the State of
Florida in the allocation of $16 million for the creation of statewide
organizations for the commercialization of technology from University
research and the implementation of entrepreneurship programs for the
development of new businesses. He was appointed by the Governor of
Kansas to a 4-member executive task force to examine the status of
technology commercialization of more than $100 million of federally
sponsored research at four major Kansas Universities. Mr. Sherwood was
chairman of the task force and the principle author of the final report,
and he presented the task force’s findings to the Governor’s
representatives and the Kansas Senate. He was the principle consultant
to California and the Federal Department of Commerce for the creation of
a state sponsored multi-million dollar venture capital program and the
development and five year funding of organizations to create new
businesses through the commercialization of innovative technologies. He
was also engaged by a Cyprus based venture capital firm to provide
business plan analysis and to provide recommendations on the firm’s
investments in high technology Israeli companies.
Mr. Sherwood has been
engaged as an expert witness and testified in many high profile cases for major law firms. He provided expert
reports which examined the circumstances surrounding disputes on matters
relating to search engine technology, patents, licensing and technology
commercial valuations. His $36 million commercial valuation of a video
compression technology was instrumental in concluding litigation between
a prominent venture capital firm and the inventor. He was engaged as an
expert and testified for a Fortune 100 company in a landmark patent and
anti-trust dispute that was litigated over a 5-year period and
eventually was adjudicated by the Supreme Court. In another significant
matter, he was engaged to opine on the reasonableness of a $126 million
patent license fee paid by a major search engine company to a major portal website company. He
was also engaged by a prominent law firm in a $5 billion software
ownership and licensing dispute between two major computer companies.
He was president of The Center for
Business Innovation and president and founder of Capital for
Entrepreneurs, a venture capital firm that invested in early stage
technology based companies. He authorized debt or equity investments in
more than 100 businesses and reviewed more than 200 business plans. Mr.
Sherwood received The Entrepreneur of the Year award sponsored by Ernst
& Young, Inc Magazine, NASDAQ and the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation.
Mr. Sherwood was also an Adjunct Professor at the University of
Missouri-Kansas City and the University of Kansas and taught graduate
courses in venture capital, strategic management of technology and
innovation and business plan development. He has given seminars for the American Management Association to more than 200
businesses on subjects including the Internet, organization
development, competitive intelligence, leadership and managerial
finance.
Mr. Sherwood has been a board member,
investor or senior consultant to more than 50 early stage companies
engaged in commercializing technology from public or private research. He is a contributing author, Environmental Engineering College Handbook, contributing author, Growing New Ventures, Creating New Jobs, Entrepreneurship: Principles
and Practices, Quorum Books, Westport Connecticut-London 1995 and Editor of Entrepreneurs: You Can’t Afford The School Of Hard Knocks. He has a
Bachelors and a Masters Degree in Engineering from the University of Kansas and a Master of Business
Administration from California State University Hayward in 1972. He is
a graduate of The Center for Creative Leadership, the Babson College
Symposium for Entrepreneurship Educators, and the Berlitz French
Immersion School.
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