Michael Panesis, MBA

Executive Director, Center for Entrepreneurship

Book this person as a speaker:

Email: mpanesis@callutheran.edu
Phone: (805) 493-3493

Speeches:

• The Future of Entrepreneurship in the Conejo Valley and Ventura County

• Startup Communities: What They Are and how You Can Help

• Confessions of an Angel Investor

Mr. Mike Panesis is the Executive Director of the Center for Entrepreneurship at California Lutheran University (CLU) in the USA. He comes to CLU from the Technology Management Program (TMP) at the University of California (UC), Santa Barbara’s College of Engineering, where he ran the University of California Santa Barbara’s (UCSB) highly successful New Venture Competition (NVC). While at UCSB, he also developed a mentor network for advising students, represented the TMP at community events, and innovated with the NVC to reflect best practices in the Santa Barbara start-up community. Additionally, Mike played a key role in creating the new start-up incubator for the Goleta Entrepreneurial Magnet.

Mike is Chairman Emeritus of the Board of Governors of Tech Coast Angels (TCA), one the largest accredited angel investor group in the country and is head of the TCA’s Central Coast Investor Network, and a founding member of Santa Barbara Angel Alliance.

Mike’s career spans a diverse range of industries and roles, including executive management, tech start-ups, information technology management and management consulting for companies like Semtech, Whitestone Research, DealerTrack, Church & Dwight, Deloitte & Touche and AT&T.

Mike holds a MBA degree in Marketing from Rutgers University in New Jersey and received his BS in Computer Science for Business from the DeVry Institute of Technology. He is on the Board of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Enterprise Forum of the Central Coast Chapter and Steering Committee of the Ventura County Greek Festival.