Eric Eisenhut moved into the role of Vice President Business Development. Prendismo’s continued growth of its entrepreneurship and leadership rich media collection and the further development of knowledge management tools for industry and educational markets has driven Prendismo to expand its leadership team. In addition to his role as VP Business Development of Prendismo, Eric is engaged in the venture creation activities of KensaGroup and its portfolio companies. Eric has been a Managing Director of KensaGroup since his return to KensaGroup in July 2010. From 2007 to 2010, Eric was Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Kionix, Inc., a semiconductor company developing and supplying inertial sensors to the consumer, industrial and automotive electronics markets. Kionix’s market leadership resulted in it being acquired by Rohm Corp, Ltd., in Q4 2009. From 2002-2006, Eric was a KensaGroup Entrepreneur in Residence and served as President and Chief Executive Officer of MedHesives, a KensaGroup portfolio company, where he helped develop and expand the firm’s novel photopolymerizable resins used in coatings and adhesives technologies.
From 1998 to 2002, he was Vice President of Sales for Atmel Corporation’s Wireless and Microcontrollers Division. Prior to Atmel, Eric held sales management, business development, finance and engineering positions with TEMIC Semiconductor and IBM Corp.
Eric earned his BSEE from Manhattan College.
Kirsten Barker is a co-founder of Prendismo and currently serves as an advisor to the company. At the company’s founding, Kirsten lead the operational and tactical efforts of Prendismo as it was transformed from a ten year academic research initiative into a high growth commercial enterprise. Prior to co-founding Prendismo, Kirsten was an early member of Cornell University’s eClips project team where she was heavily involved in the design, construction, database interface and IT integration of the initial product prototype. She has been an agent of transformative change within both large multi-national organizations and leading edge startup enterprises over the past fifteen years.
Prior to Prendismo, Kirsten was Chief Information Officer for NSF International where she developed and implemented the organization’s technology vision and strategy with the CEO and Board of Directors. In that position, Kirsten was able, in the post-internet bubble era, to support the company’s revenue growth with a strategic outsourcing plan that included a reduction of 25% in the operating budget and 15% in the capital budget. During this period, Kirsten was on the forefront of the implementation of mobile device technology for enhanced field auditor productivity.
Kirsten has also served as Senior Director at the healthcare software company Solucient where she led a database integration effort which improved operational efficiency while preserving and making available historical corporate knowledge. Additionally, she held several posts as a consultant with Andersen Consulting (now Accenture) including the oversight of the development of a Client Information Database for a major investment bank.
Kirsten Barker earned her B.S. from Cornell University and M.S. from Johns Hopkins University.
Mike McCarthy joined Prendismo as the President in October 2014. Mike has more than twenty years of experience in developing information technology and web application tools. Much of that experience has been in leadership roles at small, service-oriented companies interested in taking technology services to the next level. He has a successful track record of managing teams and finding long-term, innovative solutions for clients. Mike brings to Prendismo an understanding of technologies that underlie learning management systems, education platforms and the increasing level of video integration to cloud services. Mike adapts these various technologies to the needs of the Prendismo’s product strategy and the needs of Prendismo’s customers. Mike aims to bring this eye towards innovation to Prendismo in its efforts to open new markets and expand its offerings in the areas of corporate leadership training and entrepreneurship education.
As President of Core101 for eight years, Mike managed all aspects of information technology products, marketing, and sales. At Core101, Mike was a hands-on leader involved in the daily decision-making and direction of the company.
Prior to coming to Prendismo, Mike was Vice President of Sales & Marketing for IQ Craft. At IQ Craft, Mike specialized in delivering web solutions for customer selling products and services.
Mike earned his B.S. degree from Canisius College.
Deborah Streeter is the Bruce F. Failing, Sr. Professor of Personal Enterprise and Small Business Management in the Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management at Cornell University where she has been on the faculty since 1986.
Entrepreneurship and small business management are the focus of Dr. Streeter’s teaching, research, and outreach activities. As the originator of the eClips project at Cornell, Professor Streeter specializes in teaching business planning, small business management and entrepreneurial leadership (including gender and international dimensions). Her research interests include: models of entrepreneurship education, the role of entrepreneurship and small business in economic development, issues related to gender and business and entrepreneurship in agricultural settings.
Dr. Streeter received the Olympus Innovative Educator Award in 2007, Professor of Merit Award in 2002 and 2003, and was awarded the 2001 USDA National Food and Agricultural Sciences Excellence in College and University Teaching. Dr. Streeter was named a Stephen H. Weiss Presidential Fellow in 2000, the highest teaching honor at Cornell University. She also received the SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching in 2000 and the Innovative Teaching Award in 1996.
Deborah Streeter earned her M.S. and Ph.D. in Agricultural Economics from the University of Wisconsin Madison. She is a member of Cornell’s university-wide program in entrepreneurship, The Entrepreneurship@Cornell program.
Tony co-founded KensaGroup and has served as the Managing Director since inception. Tony is currently performing his required Entrepreneur Sabbatical Immersion Leave (‘ESIL’). This leave is a unique component of KensaGroup’s guiding principles. The ESIL requires each team member to take an active management role and assume operating responsibilities in a startup once every five years. As the KensaGroup partner currently on ESIL, Tony is serving as President of Rheonix, Inc, a developer and manufacturer of microfluidic systems for the molecular diagnostics industry.
Tony has launched twelve university-based start-ups since KensaGroup’s inception. Previously, he served as the CEO of a mid-market manufacturing company as well as Vice President of a multi-billion dollar international retailer. Tony sits on the boards of NovaSterilis Inc, MedHesives Inc, Prendismo, LLC, Novomer Inc., and Rheonix Inc. Tony has served as an advisor to NextGen in conjunction with New York’s Task Force on Economic Development and Emerging Industries, and a board member to the Center for Life Science Enterprise (New York State Office of Science, Technology and Academic Research Center for Advanced Technology at Cornell) and serves on the Board of Directors of Cayuga Medical Center.
Tony earned his B.S. degree from Cornell University.