John Kohler

Biography

For the past several years, John has been Director of Impact Capital at Santa Clara's Center for Science, Technology and Society and has also served as mentor to Social Entrepreneurs at the Global Social Benefit Accelerator. In 2011 he authored a report on impact investing entitled Coordinating Impact Capital: a New Approach to Investing in Small and Growing Businesses and recently co-authored a chapter on equity investing in New Frontiers of Philanthropy (Oxford Press-2014). He is now pioneering a new investment vehicle - the Demand Dividend - that presents investors with a 'structured exit' alternative to equity. In addition, he is Chairman and co-founder of Toniic, a syndication network of impact investors. John's background also includes twenty years of executive level positions at technology corporations including Hewlett Packard,Silicon Graphics and Unisys. He was one of the founding executives at Netscape Communications. John serves as a board member at PACT, an NGO based in Washington D.C. He was a managing member of the UCLA Venture Capital Fund and serves on the CSTS Advisory Board and the UCLA Sciences Board of Visitors.