Linda Yates

Linda Yates is a seasoned CEO with over 20 years of experience creating global strategy and driving innovation. She is currently CEO and Co-founder of Mach49, a start up in stealth mode to be launched in 2014. Linda has served on the Boards of both private and public companies. She continues to serve as an advisor to large corporations on strategy and innovation and acts as a bridge between the Silicon Valley and the Global 1000 leveraging her broad network of venture firms and start-ups in the Silicon Valley. She is a long-time activist and leader in the 21st Century Learning movement and she is the co-founder of Creekside Learning Lab, a school built to serve as a demo site for best practices in 21st century learning. In collaboration with other top experts in the field, she is working to radically transform both public and private education and deeply embed design thinking, innovation, creativity, risk taking, critical thinking, leadership, collaboration, STEAM (beyond STEM), global and cultural competency, authentic, hands-on, multi-disciplinary, project-based curriculum, ethics, integrity, choice, relevance, passion and the elimination of pointless stress within and across education. She is well known as a crusader in the areas of the Environment, Sustainability, Cleantech and Climate Change. Linda has guest lectured for several years at Stanford University for both the Graduate School of Engineering (Engineering Solutions to Climate Change: Green Building) and STS (Science Technology and Society) and last year helped mentor Stanford’s first Solar Decathlon team. She was a founding member of the Sustainability Committee, the Climate Change Committee and the Buildings, Energy and Transportation Committee for the town of Portola Valley, California. Most recently, she is the co-owner/developer with her husband, Foundation Capital Partner, Paul Holland, of the greenest custom home in America. Tah.Mah.Lah, http://www.tahmahlah.com/, serves as a demonstration house for the purposes of educating a broad audience of consumers, developers, designers, students, companies and trades on best practices in green building and sustainable living. The house was built to beyond LEED standards and has been widely recognized with awards and media. Linda spent a decade as a member of the Board of Directors for NYSE-traded Sybase Inc., the largest enterprise software company exclusively focused on managing and mobilizing information for the unwired enterprise and has been a board member and advisor to many private companies in the past. Linda is a Co-Founder and was Chief Executive Officer of Strategos – a leading international strategy consulting firm she co-founded with business guru Gary Hamel, whose global clients have included many of the Global 1000, helping them innovate in fundamentally new ways by “Bringing the Silicon Valley Inside”. Prior to Strategos, Linda spent six years with the Mac Group/Gemini Consulting where she held various positions including Head of the European High Tech Practice (London/Amsterdam), the West Coast office (San Francisco), and Co-Head of the High Tech and Telecommunications Practice (West Coast). Linda is a member of the 2001 class of Henry Crown Fellows at the Aspen Institute.