In 1986 Bill founded San Francisco-based H.W.Jesse&Co, later known as Jesse.Hansen&Co. Since then he has been an active investor and advisor to founders, families and entrepreneurs focusing on consumer oriented enterprises. Bill is a co-founder of SBJ.

Bill has served on over 20 boards during his career as an investor and advisor and currently serves on the boards of BuDhaGirl, Swensons Drive-In Restaurants, Rack & Riddle, The Perfect Purée of Napa Valley, and Rishi Tea. Prior notable investments include Peet's Coffee & Tea, where he served as an investor, board member and Chairman, Serena & Lily (Chairman), and The Wine Group where Bill served as a board member since the company's inception in 1981, including service as its Chairman (2012-2015). Bill has helped guide the success of numerous other consumer companies and has served on the boards of Specialized Bicycle Components, Troy Lee Designs, Aidells Sausage, Smith Sport Optics, Western Athletic Clubs, Stanislaus Food Products and WIRED Ventures among others.

Bill has more than 15 years of operating experience that includes serving as CEO of American Hawaii Cruises, VP of The Getz Corporation heading Global Business Development as well as Operations in Europe and Africa, CEO of The Delta Queen Steamboat Co., VP Operations of The Coca Cola Bottling Company of New York and GM of the Mediterranean/MidEast Division of Prudential Lines.

Bill is the author of several case studies that have been taught at Harvard Business School and other universities. He is also a past Chairman of the Northern California Chapter of the Young Presidents' Organization. Bill graduated from Lehigh University with a BS with dual majors in Economic Statistics and Finance and a minor in English as well as an MS in Operations Research. He received an MBA from Harvard Business School. Bill enjoys saltwater, reading, design, great food, wine and traveling. He and his wife Jessica (that's right, Jessica Jesse) have visited 75 different airports together, Bill has another 126 solo.

Tony has more than 20 years of experience in marketing, sales and business development within the information technology industry. Tony is presently Vice President of Big Data Solutions at Avalon Consulting. Prior to Avalon, Tony served as CEO of The Hive Group. Before The Hive Group, Tony was Senior Vice President of Marketing at InStranet (acquired by Salesforce.com) where he oversaw all areas of product strategy, corporate and product positioning, and managed all corporate-level marketing functions, including product marketing, corporate communications, market intelligence, and InStranet's customer advisory board. Prior to InStranet, Tony was Group Vice President of Extranet Business Development at Business Objects where he led the company's pioneering work in extranets and e-business. Before joining Business Objects, he served as Director of Business Development for Oracle Corporation's Education Division and worked as a consultant and systems engineer at EDS. Tony holds a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin.

Joe Urso has served as CEO and Chairman of the Board at Aerus Holdings, LLC (formerly Electrolux USA) since 1998, when he led a group to acquire the company. Aerus Holdings owns a number of companies in the health and safety industries, including interests in Beyond By Aerus, Allergy Buyers Club and Inthinc, Inc. Joe has and continues to serve on the boards of a number of companies and resides in Dallas, Texas. He is active in the Direct Selling, Franchising and Direct Marketing industries, and also owns interests in several B2B companies using a SAS model.

Pierluigi is Managing Partner of Tellos LP. In 1981, he co-founded Logitech, and served at Logitech for sixteen years, first as President and CEO and later as Vice-Chairman. Pierluigi was CEO at Sierra Sciences and Chairman at Digital Persona (merged with Crossmatch). He is on the Board of Trustees of the Bruno Leoni Institute.

Jim has more than 25 years of experience in the software and information technology industries. Previously, he served as CEO of The Hive Group, and held management roles at Business Objects (acquired by SAP), Oracle, and EDS (acquired by HP). Jim holds a Bachelor of Science in Engineering from Cornell University and a Master of Business Administration from the Johnson Graduate School of Management at Cornell.

Melissa has over 20 years of experience in IT consulting, system integration, software development, and insurance. Prior to Visual Action, She was Director of Finance & Administration for The Hive Group. Melissa was also Accounting Controller at Sapers & Wallack, and was the Senior Accountant at Nervewire, Inc. (acquired by Wipro Ltd.). She is responsible for accounting, planning, benefits, and real estate activities. She has a Bachelor of Science in Accounting and Finance from Northeastern University and a Master of Business Administration from Suffolk University.

John has over 20 years of experience in software design and engineering. John served as Director of Engineering at The Hive Group immediately prior to his current role at Visual Action. He was a pioneering member of the original Honeycomb (now Flaremap) development team. Later, John joined the mobile technology company 4INFO, architecting solutions for mobile devices. He rejoined The Hive Group in 2013 to lead the Company’s operational treemap initiatives across all device platforms and products; and continues those responsibilities at Visual Action. John holds a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from Stanford University.

Caleb is involved with deployments for Visual Action's most noteworthy customers. He leads companies in strategically aligning the Flaremap platform with their business processes—expertly applying his background in visual workspace design. Caleb's work spans both private and public-sector organizations. He holds a Bachelor of Business Administration from St. Bonaventure University.

Nathaniel leads design and development efforts of the Visual Action Platform — engineering the Platform to flexibly accommodate a diverse range of business contexts and use cases, while recognizing an array of different user types and levels of user sophistication. Beyond the broad functional and technical capabilities, his responsibilities include developing the Platform to meet the stringent security requirements of Visual Action's customers. Nathaniel holds a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science and in Network and Computer Security from the State University of New York Polytechnic Institute.

Ben Shneiderman is a Distinguished University Professor in the Department of Computer Science, Founding Director (1983-2000) of the Human-Computer Interaction Laboratory, and a member of the Institute for Advanced Computer Studies at the University of Maryland, College Park. He is a pioneer in the field of information visualization, and originated the treemap concept for visualizing hierarchical data.

Dr. Shneiderman is the author of "Designing the User Interface: Strategies for Effective Human-Computer Interaction" (fourth edition April 2004). He co-authored "Readings in Information Visualization: Using Vision to Think" with Stu Card and Jock Mackinlay, and "The Craft of Information Visualization: Readings and Reflections" with Ben Bederson. Ben's vision of the future is presented in his October 2002 book "Leonardo's Laptop: Human Needs and the New Computing Technologies."