Our team consists of experienced investors, advisors and business leaders, each of which bring a unique mix of years of practical business experience, a strong commitment to Utah’s entrepreneurs and a shared belief in the vision of Grow Utah Ventures.

This team is unique in that for the most part, all of the key members have other jobs to which they are dedicated and committed to.  As members of Grow Utah Ventures, they contribute what extra time they have to fulfilling their responsibilities at Grow Utah Ventures.  By relying on this “virtual management team,” Grow Utah Ventures benefits from a team of highly skilled and experienced members which is unparalleled.

Alan E. Hall – Founder/Chairman
Mr. Hall is the founder, former CEO and chairman of MarketStar Corporation an outsourced global marketing and sales organization, which helps thirty of the world’s largest high technology companies generate billions of dollars in revenues from the small to medium business space. The company has several thousand employees with operational capabilities in one hundred countries. He was the 1997 Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year in the State of Utah.

Alan is also the founder and chairman of Grow Utah Ventures, a non profit organization which fosters entrepreneurial development. Under Mr. Hall’s direction, Grow Utah has established several incubation facilities for entrepreneurs, encouraged the formation of seven new Angel Investor organizations from Logan to St. George and is supervising the state-wide rollout of Seed Utah, a private initiative to increase entrepreneurism. An Angel himself, Alan has sixty personal investments in early stage Utah technology companies.

Last year, Alan and Greg Warnock launched Mercato Partners, a multi-million dollar venture capital firm that will focus on investing in the marketing and sales growth of US high technology companies.

Alan is chairman of the Utah Technology Council; a member of Wells Fargo’s community advisory board and a founding board member of World Trade Center Utah. He also sits on the board of the Intermountain Healthcare Foundation. In addition, Alan is a member of the board of trustees of Weber State University. He was the Utah co-chair of Romney for President. He and his wife Jeanne are chairman and president of the Hall Foundation. Its purpose is to fund not for profit organizations that help the needy. Its theme is that there be no poor among us.

www.marketstar.com
www.growutahventures.com
www.mercatopartners.com
www.alanandjeannehallfoundation.org.

T. Craig Bott –President/CEO
Craig has provided senior level management advice and council on strategy, marketing and management to hundreds of emerging and expanding businesses throughout the western United States. He directed Ernst and Young’s Entrepreneurial Management consulting services and owned and operated his own successful consulting business for many years.
He has served in a variety of senior operational positions at such companies as Franklin Covey, MarketStar as well as the Utah Governor’s Office. He has operated and led numerous companies in the areas of software technology, consumer electronics, services, and most recently wireless broadband.
He has helped numerous businesses raise investment capital, design product and operational strategies and implement successful marketing and sales campaigns.
He has advised and consulted with numerous civic and community leaders on how best to strengthen and grow their economic and business base and achieve job growth. He has directly advised the Utah Governor’s Office on strategies to strengthen and expand the Information Technology and Aerospace industries of the state.
He is a nationally published author, and as acted as an adjunct professor at Weber State and Brigham Young Universities. He has a degree from Weber State University and a Masters in Management from Brigham Young University.


Kent Thomas-CFO
Kent serves as the CFO for Grow Utah Ventures. He is the founder and managing member of CFO Solutions, L.C.
Since founding CFO Solutions in 1996, Kent and his team have served over fifty companies ranging from startup to $30 Million in annual revenues. He has helped his clients raise more than $150 Million in equity, debt and lease financing. Prior to founding CFO Solutions, L.C., Kent served as chief executive or chief financial officer/controller of seven companies since 1980, including a $55 million, publicly traded corporation (Marathon Office Supply in Los Angeles, CA) and most recently as the Vice President and CFO of InsurQuote Systems, Inc. (an insurance rating software developer based in Provo, Utah).
Kent started his career in the Salt Lake City office of Ernst & Whinney (currently Ernst & Young) in 1979. Kent has a BS in Accounting from Brigham Young University (1979), an MBA from the University of Utah (1980), and is a licensed Certified Public Accountant.


Greg Warnock-Advisor
Greg Warnock serves as an advisor to Grow Utah Ventures. He is one of the founding partners of vSpring Capital and continues as an active partner today.
He has extensive private equity investment experience having invested in 18 companies during the 12 years preceding the formation of vSpring. He was previously the founder of Precision Data Link, which he sold to Profit Recovery Group (PRGX) in 1998. He was an angel investor in Knowlix, a successful software company that was acquired by Peregrine Systems. He syndicated and participated in the seed financing of Advion BioSciences, a successful company later funded by Skyline Ventures, Perseus-Soros BioPharmaceutical Fund and Polaris Venture Partners. He was principle in more than 20 M&A transactions prior to vSpring.
Greg received a BS in Computer Science and a MBA from the University of Utah.


Jen Leiniger- Financial Controller
Jen is a well rounded controller with over 20 years experience in businesses as diverse as brick manufacturing and entertainment software.
As a consultant, Jen serves start up to mid stage venture funded companies in a variety of roles including full charge controller, special projects, and accounting systems implementations and conversions.
Jen has a BS degree in accounting from West Virginia Wesleyan College and an MBA from Frostburg State University in Maryland.