K. Gozie Ifesinachukwu – CEO

Gozie is the CEO and a co-founder of Tempo Semiconductor, Inc. Gozie is a veteran of three start-ups with over 25 years of experience in general management, marketing, engineering management, analog design, digital and analog signal processing, software development and system architecture in the semiconductor industry.

Prior to co-founding Tempo Semiconductor, Gozie was with Ambiq Micro as the first VP of engineering where he hired the engineering and development staff and successfully completed and put into production Ambiq’s first set of products in 18months. Prior to Ambiq Micro, was Operation/Product manager of the Integrated Components Group (ICG) in the Freescale Strategic and Incubation Business Unit.

Prior to joining Freescale via acquisition, Gozie was the Director and General Manager of the Integrated Component Group at SigmaTel, Inc. responsible for the P&L, inventory management and product road map among other responsibilities. Gozie successfully revived a dying organization and grew sales while acquiring such important strategic customers as Samsung and keeping them happy. Before joining SigmaTel, Gozie was with Tensleep Design where he was the software system architect and the manager of the software team and helped grow the team from 2 to 47 employees before it was acquired by Zilog. Gozie understands the rigors, demands and complexity of start-up and the start-up culture. These experiences shaped his appreciation for all facets of running a start-up and the absolute need for assembling a cohesive team that knows how to work together.

Gozie holds a B.S and M.S in Electrical Engineering from Texas A&M University College Station and a Masters in Business Administration (MBA) McCombs School of Business, University of Texas—Austin.

 

Ross Goolsby – Financial Advisor and Board Member

An industry veteran with over 20 years of diverse experience in finance, accounting, information technology, and human resources.  Mr. Goolsby was most recently the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) at Calxeda, Inc., leading worldwide financial operations for the privately held low power server semiconductor company. Prior to joining Calxeda, he served as the CFO for publicly traded Valence, Inc. from 2009 to 2011. Goolsby was also the CFO at publicly traded Healthtronics Inc. from 2007 to 2009 and publicly traded SigmaTel, Inc. from 2001 to 2007.  He was a key member of the management team that turned SigmaTel from losing $20 million annually to profitability.  During his tenure at SigmaTel, the company’s revenues increased from $20 million annually to over $300 million annually.  He led SigmaTel’s Initial Public Offering in 2003 and subsequent follow-on offering in 2004.  During 2005, SigmaTel reached its peak market value in excess of $1.4 billion.

Prior to SigmaTel, Mr. Goolsby held the position of CFO with Utiliserve, Inc. from 1999 to 2001.  He began his career working in the Houston and Dallas offices of Ernst & Young. Mr. Goolsby earned a Bachelor of Business Administration in Accounting from the University of Houston.

John J. Paulos, Ph.D – Technical Advisor and Board Member

Now an independent consultant and Angel investor, John J. Paulos serves as a Director for six start-up companies in Austin, Texas.  Dr. Paulos left Cirrus Logic in August of 2008 after serving as Vice President and General Manager of the Industrial Products Division after  rejoining the company in 2004. There, he was responsible for application specific and general purpose precision ADC’s, ARM-based microcontrollers, and legacy communications products.  Also, during his tenure as VP/GM, Dr. Paulos championed the acquisition of Apex Microtechnology, a provider of precision power solutions, and took principle responsibility for integration of Apex into the Industrial Products Division, bringing annual revenue to over $100M.

Prior to rejoining Cirrus Logic, Dr. Paulos served as Vice President of Engineering for Cicada Semiconductor, where he was responsible for the development of GigaBit Ethernet and T3 transceivers. Introduced in 2002, the Cicada line of single and quad GigaBit Ethernet Phys set industry standards for system performance and power dissipation, leading to the acquisition of Cicada by Vitesse in early 2004.

Dr. Paulos first joined Cirrus Logic through its Crystal Semiconductor subsidiary in 1993 as Design Manager for professional and consumer audio converter products.  In 1996, he became Vice President and Business Unit Director for Consumer Audio.  In 1998, he became Vice President and co-General Manager of the Audio business unit, which combined PC and consumer audio products into a single business unit with revenue in excess of $200M.

Paulos holds B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1980, 1980, and 1984, respectively.  He joined the faculty of North Carolina State University in 1984 as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and was promoted to Associate Professor in 1990.  His research program focused on analog integrated circuits, neural networks and MOS device modeling.

Ron Edgerton – Board Member

Ron Edgerton has over four decades of leadership experience in high tech industries. This experience includes marketing, financial, human resource management, legal and contract management, operations, and general management expertise. Mr. Edgerton has turned struggling companies into success stories with a focus on customer driven strategies and highly effective management of superior R&D teams, worldwide sales and operational organizations.

He was the Chief Executive Officer and President of iWatt Inc. where he successfully executed an IPO-value sale of iWatts to Dialog Semiconductor.

Before that, he served as Chairman of the Board and CEO of SigmaTel Inc. where he successfully turned around a failing company to a very successful IPO.

Prior to serving as CEO of SigmaTel, he founded and served as President of his consulting firm, Edgerton Consulting, Inc.

Previously, Mr. Edgerton worked for Eastman Kodak, initially as Chief Financial Officer and then later also as GM of the Kodak Digital Medical Imaging Business Unit.

Prior to that, Mr. Edgerton served as Chief Financial Officer of Cyrix Corporation and was responsible for its worldwide accounting, management information systems, and human resources functions.

Mr. Edgerton has also held various financial and marketing positions at Ford Motor Company, May Department Stores and Northern Telecom.

Mr. Edgerton holds a Bachelor of Business Administration (Summa Cum Laude) and a Masters of Business Administration in Finance and Accounting (with perfect 4.0 GPA) from Western Michigan University.

Henry Huang – Board Member

Mr. Huang served in Gemtek for more than 2 decades in several functions from sales and marketing to investor relationship. Currently, Mr. Huang is Sr. Director of Business Development in Gemtek. He sits on the board of several companies in US, Asia and Europe where he draws on his extensive network and experience in helping these companies to maximize their potential.

With more than 20 years of international experience in technology in general and wireless communications in particular and extensive involvement in WLAN, Wimax, LTE and most recently in LPWAN networks and devices, Mr. Huang is well recognized as a technology leader especially in the Communications industry.

In addition to the background in sales and marketing, Mr. Huang is also well connected with the QFIIs in his previous position as the Spokesman for Gemtek Technology, where he speaks to the investment sectors regularly. This is the position where Henry actually translates the dynamic of Wireless Communication into the financial value that is well received by the financial sector.

An alumnus of University of Baltimore where Mr. Huang holds an MBA degree, he also has a degree in Electrical Engineering and Business Administration from National Kaohsiung Institute of Technology, Taiwan and University of Dubuque, IA, USA respectively.