Research Team

Rob Romero has 20 years of engineering, marketing and investment experience the technology business. Mr. Romero’s professional experience includes engineering & management roles at Baldur, TCSI, Bay Networks, Netsys, and Cisco. Mr. Romero also founded and served as VP of Marketing at eVoice, a leading voicemail provider, sold to AOL in 2001. In 2001, Mr. Romero founded Connective Capital Ventures, and made early-stage investments in companies such as Vonage, IronPort and LiveOps. In 2003, Mr. Romero founded Connective Capital Management, a public equity investment firm, focused in the high growth sectors including technology and alternative energy. Mr. Romero holds a BS in EE, a BA in Economics, and an MS in Engineering Economic Systems from Stanford University. Rob has lived in Mexico, Brazil and Spain and speak Spanish and Portuguese.

Ron Lee is a Senior Research Analyst covering climate change-related sectors (solar, wind, biofuels, coal/gas, energy efficiency, agriculture, transportation, utility, industrials) globally as well as all sectors in the Chinese market. Ron brings five years of equity research experience (UBS, Deutsche Bank Alex Brown), and six years of technology industry consulting and operating experience (McKinsey and Co., MIPS Semiconductor, Silicon Graphics, Cirrus Logic). Ron holds a BS in Electrical Engineering, University of Texas Austin; an MS in Electrical Engineering, Stanford University; and an MBA from Wharton. He is the CFA charterholder. Ron was born and raised in Hong Kong, China and speaks Mandarin and Cantonese.

Keith Hwang is a Senior Research Analyst covering the semiconductor, telecom, and materials sectors. Keith brings six years of semiconductor engineering and management experience (Intel), and two years as a patent examiner. Keith holds a BS in Materials Science and Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University, 1993; and an MS and Ph.D. in Electronic Materials Science and Engineering, Columbia University, 1997 and 2000.

Praveen is a Research Consultant covering the climate change-related sectors (solar, wind, biofuels, coal/natural gas, energy efficiency, agriculture, transportation, utility, industrials) globally. Prior to Connective Capital, Praveen held senior management positions at a technology startup - Cobalt Networks (company did a successful IPO and was later acquired by Sun Microsystems). Prior to the start-ups, Praveen held engineering and marketing positions at Intel, Hewlett-Packard, Novell, and Sun Microsystems. Praveen holds a B.Tech (Electrical Engineering) from Indian Institute of Technology, an MS in Electrical Engineering from Washington University at St Louis, and an MBA from the University of California, Berkeley. Praveen was born in India and speaks Hindi.

   Operations Team

Sidney Chen is in charge of IT infrastructure, trading, portfolio accounting, risk management and attribution analysis at Connective Capital. Sidney has more than 10 years of risk management, IT operations and accounting experience from GE Capital, Union Bank, Boston Scientific and LendingClub. He has an MBA from Santa Clara University and BA in Economics from UCLA.

Ivan Tsurikov is a trader and risk manager for Connective Capital Management. Ivan has an BS in Management Science from the University of California in San Diego.

As the Administrator at Connective Capital Management, Cindy Matsuyama is responsible for investor correspondence, including document review and performance reporting, and human resources. She graduated from UC Santa Barbara.