A serial tech marketer and entrepreneur, Andy Smith is a Principal of Vonavona Ventures where he advises and bootstraps technical and social ventures with guidance in marketing and customer strategy. Over the past 20 years, he has served as an executive in the high tech industry leading teams at Dolby Labs, BIGWORDS, LiquidWit, Intel, Analysis Group, Polaroid, Integral Inc. and PriceWaterhouseCoopers.
As a guest lecturer at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business, Andy speaks on social technology, engineering virality, and brand building, with a focus on applying technology to address real problems. He is a contributor to GOOD Magazine, where he writes on businesses that embrace and integrate a social mission. He has also keynoted or spoken at The 140 Characters Conference, Social Media Breakfast, GE’s Ecomagination Day, IIR’s ePharma Summit, Merkle’s CRM Executive Summit, World 50, Marketing Week, TechCoire and Interbrand, and is on the boards of 140 Proof, ProFounder, The Glue Network, EveryWun, and One Family One Meal.
A permanent transplant to the Bay Area from New Jersey, Andy has studied in The Parthenon, lived in a converted South African prison, and counts a regiment of Windsor Castle’s Scots Guards among his friends. Andy’s a gardener, gadgeteer and a serious tech geek and also the creator of “The No Cookie Diet” which he’s still on two years later. Once bumped from a flight that tragically crashed, he has since learned to accept travel mishaps, and most everything else, with equanimity.
Andy earned his MBA at UCLA’s Anderson School and holds an Economics degree from Pomona College.
Follow Andy on Twitter: @kabbenbock
