Team

Management Team

Mark A. Lester

Managing Director, Forge Partners, LLC

Managing General Partner, Provenance Venture Partners, LLC

Mark has over 25 years of leadership, management, strategic business development and operations experience, including 17 years experience in entrepreneurial services and technology development and delivery in the technology and life sciences industries. Over the past 9 years, his venture investment-related responsibilities have evolved from that of senior executive for venture-backed start-ups to his current role as Managing General Partner of Provenance Venture Partners, a pre-seed to mezzanine stage venture investment firm. He currently serves on the board of SiGNa Chemistry, Passport Systems and Trophos Energy.

Mark received a B.S.E. in Naval architecture and Marine Engineering from the University of Michigan, a Masters in Management from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sloan School of Management, and was certified Chief Engineer of Navy Nuclear Propulsion Plants while serving as a U.S. Navy Nuclear Submarine Officer.

Robert A. Balke

Director, Industrial Technologies

Bob has nearly 26 years of experience in leading global businesses that grow via Product and process innovation, acquisition, venturing, and marketing. Thus far he has been associated with launching 50+ new businesses, and 100’s of new products and services which produced over $1B in revenue.

During the 1980’s and 1990’s he worked for an early stage venture firm, Kewit Investors Corporation, Dow Chemical Company and The General Electric Company. During his 12-year tenure with General Electric, he was a General Manager of businesses with annual sales revenue ranging from $10MM to $2B and served at an executive level in a variety of functional areas including manufacturing, finance, technology, sales and marketing. From 2000 to 2005 he was an Executive Vice President at Smurfit-Stone and Eastman Chemical Co. in charge of corporate strategy, commercialization of new technology, venturing and marketing activities. Bob has also served as a Director on a variety of boards from the 16th largest credit union in the U.S. to a variety of early-stage companies including current portfolio companies, SiGNa Chemistry and Trophos Energy.

Bob earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Wisconsin in Madison and a Master of Business Administration degree with an emphasis on international high-tech management from Northeastern University in Boston.

Talent Network

To fulfill the “human capital” requirements for Forge engagements, we supplement our internal staff with our growing network of experienced, team-oriented individuals with one or more demonstrated core competences covering a range of relevant scientific, technical and commercial disciplines. Depending on the blend and level of talent required, the financial capacity of the engagement sponsor and individual risk profiles, the requisite consulting “talent” will be retained on a fee-for-service, partially “at-risk”, or fully “at-risk” basis. Advantages to this approach include:

  • Known and proven pool of talented resources
  • Extended virtual staff affording greater breadth and depth of technical, operational, managerial and tactical/strategic business development expertise
  • Ability to quickly respond to growing yet dynamic project demands
  • Ability to engage senior level talent and/or academics that may not otherwise be accessible or affordable
  • Provides network members the opportunity to benefit from active participation in a diverse array of engagements, without first having to commit to a full-time obligation
  • For engagements involving established corporate entities, the company has the opportunity to engage the services of experienced executive level talent in an acting capacity until or unless a full-time commitment is justified

The Forge Executive Talent Network is an attractive opportunity for qualified individuals to participate in the commercialization process for promising innovations, while being free and encouraged to entertain full-time opportunities within the corresponding entities should they be made available.

Advisors

Mark Modzelewski

Mark is Vice President of Strategic Business Development for NanoDynamics, Inc., a privately-funded nanotechnology materials, intermediates and products company based in Buffalo, New York, and co-founder of The NanoBusiness Alliance, the first industry association founded to advance the emerging trillion dollar business of nanotechnology. He is also a member of the Nanotechnology Technical Advisory Group to President Bush's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST). Mark is among the most well known figures in the nanotech field and was recently recognized by Forbes Magazine as one of nanotech's top 10 "powerbrokers" and received a Small Times Best of Small Tech Awards. He has lectured before numerous global technology and investor conferences, leading think tanks, as well as briefing the White House, US Dept. of Commerce, NSF, Congress, the Federal Reserve's Financial Markets retreat, global Fortune 500 companies, and numerous foreign government agencies. Mark is a graduate of the University of Denver College of Law and Boston University.

B. Nicholas Harvey

Mr. Harvey is currently Chief Financial Officer for Radius Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Prior to joining Radius, he served as Managing Director of Shiprock Capital LLC, a venture capital firm managing investments for the Shipley family. He continues to serve on the Boards for a number of the fund’s portfolio companies. As Senior Vice President, Corporate Development and CFO of Transfusion Technologies, a medical device company, Nick was instrumental in the execution of strategic initiatives culminating in its strategic acquisition by Haemonetics (NYSE: HAE) in 2000. From December 1992 until its merger with Keravision in June 1999, Mr. Harvey served as CFO and later President of Transcend Therapeutics, a pharmaceutical development company. During his tenure at Transcend, he raised $25MM of venture capital and corporate financing, closed a $46MM worldwide licensing and development agreement with Boehringer Ingelheim, and managed a successful initial public offering on NASDAQ in 1997. Mr. Harvey holds an undergraduate degree in economics, a law degree from the Australian National University and an MBA from the Harvard Business School.

P. Michael Masterson

Mr. Mike Masterson has been an entrepreneur in the pharmaceutical, biotech and industrial technologies industries for over 24 years. Mike currently serves as the Chairman and CEO of ALD NanoSolutions, Inc., Board member and former CEO of Xcellerex, Inc., as well as Founding Director of Preferred Times, Inc. Prior to founding ALD NanoSolutions, he was a Venture Partner at Flagship Ventures where he was the founding CEO of Beyond Genomics, engeneOS, and Genstruct. Before joining Flagship Ventures, he was CEO and President of KMI/Parexel, an internationally recognized FDA compliance consulting and automated systems validation testing firm, which was acquired by Parexel International (NASDAQ: PRXL). In his early career, Mike held technical and management positions with Dupont, Pfizer, and Procter & Gamble. He holds a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Massachusetts and an M.S. in the same discipline from the University of Colorado. In addition, he completed the Owners/Presidents Management (OPM) Program at the Harvard Business School.