Leadership - Executive Team
Rex Northen - Executive Director
Rex is an entrepreneur with a long history of building and managing companies and successful teams. He has product development, management and technical expertise having founded and served as CEO with technology companies both in Europe and the United States. His background includes experience in the design, development and implementation of business automation systems as well as sales, marketing, online marketing, and consulting. Rex has worked with many hundreds of companies including a diverse range of startups and global corporations. In 2007-2008 volunteered for the California Cleantech Open as Chair of the Mentors and Angel Investor programs and an active member of the fundraising team. He holds an M.A. with Honors from Oxford University.
James Cape - Director of Development
James Cape has been working in the Silicon Valley high technology industry since 1983. During his first seventeen years he worked at Intel Corporation where he gained broad experience in a variety of sales, marketing and venture capital positions including building Intel’s Enterprise Platform Group to a $1.5B business in less than 18 months through major OEMs, systems builders and white box makers; and developing key alliances with ~400 ISVs including industry leaders SAP, Oracle, Seibel, Novell, Tibco, SCO, Rational and BEA.
In August of 2001 James left Intel to form a consulting practice focused primarily on channel and product strategy, channel “go to market” programs, launch preparation and execution and “best practice” creation around key sales and marketing processes. Client engagements include Cisco, IBM, Intel, NetManage, Network Appliance, Phoenix Technologies, Plastic Logic, SanDisk, Seagate, Sun, Spikesource, Symantec and sgi.
As a seasoned high technology sales and marketing professional, James has extensive experience working with a broad variety of partner types in both commercial and retail channels and is adept at linking product strategy to channel strategy while developing practical programs that positively impact partner behavior, and mostly importantly drive revenue growth.
Recently, based on interview feedback from top tier venture capitalists, CEO mentors and senior solar industry leaders, James has been involved with mapping the nascent alternative energy market ecosystem and channel routes to market as part of developing a new consulting practice.
Katie Roberts - Marketing and Communications Manager
Katie graduated from Santa Clara University with degrees in Communication and Business Marketing. Before joining the Cleantech Open staff, Katie's experience includes roles in marketing with a Bay Area home builder, and the San Jose Sharks. She is the Communications Chair for the local Santa Clara Alumni Chapter, and spends many hours per month volunteering with Hands-On Bay Area. Katie is originally from Colorado and enjoys running, skiing and any outdoor activity.
