Dingman Center Entrepreneurs in Residence

John LaPides, Entrepreneur in Residence

John LaPides is the CEO and founder of Shadow Point Advisors, a Maryland-based consulting and investment firm specializing in early stage to mid-size companies. The firm provides advice to both privately held and publicly traded companies in the areas of venture and public finance, logistics, manufacturing and strategic planning. Mr. LaPides is currently the senior entrepreneur-in-residence at the Dingman Center for Entrepreneurship at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business. He also serves as Chairman of the center’s Board of Advisors.

Prior to founding Shadow Point, Mr. LaPides spent nearly 30 years as CEO of Snow Valley, a leading regional bottled water company. He served for more than 20 years in the leadership of the International Bottled Water association and was the founder and president of QBC, Inc., the largest bottled water purchasing cooperative in the United States. He started, ran and sold several other businesses during this time before helping to found InPhonic, Inc., which soared to $450 million in sales and $1 billion in market value in less than five years. He sits on several boards, both public and private.

He lives in his home town of Annapolis, Md., and is an avid boater, musician and golfer and holds his private airplane pilots license.

Kären Olson, Entrepreneur in Residence

In 2008, Kären was named CEO of BioMarker Strategies LLC, a cancer diagnostics and biomedical device company based at the Johns Hopkins Biotech Park in Baltimore. The company is developing a novel SnapPath™ tumor cell processing and testing system to improve the diagnosis and treatment of cancer and personalized medicine.

The depth and variety of her experience serving on corporate boards impart a unique perspective to corporate governance and strategy. Kären currently sits on several corporate boards including Main Tape, Inc., a private equity backed organization, and Atlas Container, Inc.

Olson holds an Executive MBA from Loyola College, a BS in Chemistry and a BS in Medical Technology from California Lutheran University. She is currently working towards her MS in Biotechnology at Johns Hopkins University and is an instructor of the national, award-winning ACTiVATE program at University of Maryland-Baltimore County (UMBC) educating budding entrepreneurs in bioscience and technology.

Kären is active in industry: Governor’s Bioscience Board-Entrepreneurial Subcommittee, Healthcare Businesswomen Association and Women in Bio. She serves on several non-profit boards including the Board of Sponsors for Loyola College Sellinger School of Business and the Young Presidents Organization (YPO). She resides with her husband, in Baltimore City. 

Steven Roth, Entrepreneur in Residence

Most recently, Mr. Roth is COO and Founder of Onyx Government Services, Inc. (OGS) which is a provider of technical consulting and information technology services to the commercial and public sector marketplaces. OGS is focused on providing System Integration Services to these markets in the areas of Information Management, Logistical Support Systems, Network Services and Program Management.

Prior to Onyx, Mr. Roth held several key senior management positions in the high technology and government services industry. Mr. Roth was President of WFI Government Services, Inc. (WGS) and Senior Vice President of Sales & Marketing for both Plateau Systems and Riverbed Technologies (now Aether Systems). He was also Vice President & General Manager of 3Com Corporation (now part of Extreme Networks) and Vice President of Federal Systems for Octel Communications Corporation (now part of Lucent Technologies). Mr. Roth spent considerable time in the computer workstation market where he launched Silicon Graphics Inc. He also served as a member of the original management team of Sun Microsystems, Inc. Earlier in his career, Mr. Roth also helped form a strong base for systems engineering, technical consulting and information technology services in the sales and marketing area to key customers during his tenure at M/A-COM and DATATEL.

Mr. Roth is a graduate of the University of Maryland. He is a member of the Northern Virginia Technology Council, Advisory Board of the University of Maryland’s Technology Advancement Program and AFCEA Board of Directors. Mr. Roth currently holds a Top Secret Clearance.  

Neil Selvin, Entrepreneur in Residence

For over 25 years, Neil Selvin has created unique, differentiated product brands, and built successful product lines and companies that leverage these brands.
Neil has built and executed marketing strategies for a broad array of high technology products, including sophisticated chemical instrumentation, professional television equipment, personal computers and enterprise software. In the early 1990's, Neil worked at Apple, where he was the Director of Marketing for portable computers and drove the launch of the original PowerBooks. By creating unique positioning for the PowerBook, Neil was able to permanently change the laptop playing field, resulting in first year revenues of a billion dollars, and the most successful new brand at Apple in seven years.

Neil then became CEO of Global Village Communication, a Macintosh modem and communications software company. He grew Global Village from $20M to $140M in three years, and went public in 1994. By “making communications easy,” Neil built Global Village into the leading Macintosh communications company, with over 70% market share.

Since then, Neil has run a number of small companies, including OneWorld Systems, which produced integrated communications servers for small business, and Pivia, which developed web acceleration software for large enterprises. He has also served on a number of boards of directors. After 25 years in Silicon Valley, Neil and his family recently moved to Northern Virginia, where he became the Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer for Approva, a compliance software company.

Now, Neil is using his brand and marketing expertise to assist small companies with strategic positioning and rapid execution of marketing programs. His independent consulting practice focuses on formulating strategic positioning to customers, creating strong brand clarity for small companies, and then implementing comprehensive marketing programs that consistently reinforce the brand. Neil possesses a rare skill in being able to create brands that establish an “emotional hook” with the end customer, and then developing compelling sales and marketing strategies that leverage this bond.

Neil lives with his family in Great Falls, Virginia. In his spare time, Neil collects wine, is an avid though terminally mediocre golfer, and enjoys travel.

Mark Grovic, Venture Capitalist in Residence

Mark Grovic is the founder and Managing Director of the New Markets Growth Fund (NMGF), a $20 million venture capital fund focused on high-growth technology companies and housed at the University of Maryland, College Park (UMCP). Grovic is a member of the Board of Directors of Lightningcast, an NMGF portfolio company. He serves as Venture Capitalist in Residence for the Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland, where he is also a Professor of Practice of Venture Capital and Entrepreneurship. In 2004, he received the US Association of Small Business and Entrepreneurship National Outstanding Course Award for Excellence in Entrepreneurship in Education. Grovic is also a Senior Fellow in the Executive Education Department and teaches in Smith's Executive MBA program.

From 2001 to 2004, Grovic served as the Deputy Director of the Dingman Center for Entrepreneurship at the Smith School of Business, where he created and managed a successful University wide program in Technology Commercialization, launched a Capital Access Angel Network, and oversaw a 10 times increase in service revenues to the Center.

Grovic was a Professor of International Business at Howard University from 2000-2002, and was voted "Professor of the Year" for the 2001-2002 school year. In 2000, Grovic was a Teacher for the National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE), where he received NFTE's New Teacher of the Year Award. From 1997-1999, Grovic was a top-rated Professor of International Business at the Estonian Business School in Tallinn.

Prior to joining the New Markets Growth Fund, Grovic was Portfolio Manager of Small Enterprise Assistance Funds (SEAF). SEAF manages $150 million in small business equity investment funds operating in a total of 10 countries, with over 150 portfolio companies. From 1997 to 1999, Grovic was based in Tallinn, Estonia as Director of the Baltic Small Equity Fund, managed by SEAF, where he sat on the Board of Directors of ten of his portfolio companies in industries such as software, biotechnology, medical equipment, distribution, and light manufacturing.

Grovic is Co-Founder of the Templeton Emerging Europe Fund, a $60 million Central European private equity fund, and a Principal of the Fund Manager, Templeton Direct Advisors, a wholly owned direct investment subsidiary of the $150 billion Franklin Templeton Group. From 1993 to 1995, Grovic was the Associate Portfolio Manager of Private Equities at the Calvert Group, a $5 billion socially responsible mutual fund. During this time, Grovic worked with Booz Allen in Romania, helping develop a mutual fund industry. Prior to Calvert, Grovic worked for the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, in both their finance and general counsel's office. In 1992, Grovic lived and worked in South America as a Ford Foundation Fellow, where he provided financing to small businesses and helped set up Profund, a $20 million fund investing in South American banks. Grovic continues to serve on Profund's Board.