Kim Karin Polese (born November 13, 1961) is a

Silicon Valley Silicon Valley is a region in Northern California that is a global center for high technology and innovation. Located in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area, it corresponds roughly to the geographical area of the Santa Clara Valley ...

entrepreneur and technology executive. She serves as Chairwoman of CrowdSmart Inc., a software products company. Polese serves on the board of the Long-term Stock Exchange and is an adjunct faculty member at the University of California. Until 2015, Polese was a chairwoman of ClearStreet Inc., a company whose products help employers and their employees reduce their healthcare spend. An advocate of public policy to increase America's innovation capacity, Polese was named to President Obama's Innovation Advisory Board in 2011. The Board guided the Commerce Department's study of US economic competitiveness, delivering a report with recommendations to Congress in January 2012. In May 2012, Polese was named to the '' San Francisco Business Journal''s list of "Most Influential Women". Polese is the recipient of the 2010 National Center for Women & Information Technology Innovator Award. Early in her career, in 1997, she made ''

Time Time is the continuous progression of existence that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, and into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequ ...

'' magazine's list of "The 25 Most Influential Americans". In 2018, Polese appeared in the documentary ''Silicon Valley: The Untold Story''.

Education

Polese received a BA degree in

biophysics Biophysics is an interdisciplinary science that applies approaches and methods traditionally used in physics to study biological phenomena. Biophysics covers all scales of biological organization, from molecular to organismic and populations ...

in 1984 from the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...

and studied

computer science Computer science is the study of computation, information, and automation. Computer science spans Theoretical computer science, theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, and information theory) to Applied science, ...

at the

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW and informally U-Dub or U Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington, United States. Founded in 1861, the University of Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast of the Uni ...

. She was awarded an honorary doctorate in business and economics from California State University in 2011. She is a fellow at

Carnegie Mellon University Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. The institution was established in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie as the Carnegie Technical Schools. In 1912, it became the Carnegie Institu ...

's Center for Engineered Innovation.

Work history

In addition to serving CrowdSmart as chairman, Polese is an Aspen Institute Crown Fellow and serves on a number of boards, including the Silicon Valley Leadership Group, TechNet, the

University of California The University of California (UC) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university, research university system in the U.S. state of California. Headquartered in Oakland, California, Oakland, the system is co ...

President's Board on Science and Innovation, UC Berkeley's College of Engineering, the

Long Now Foundation The Long Now Foundation, established in 1996, is an American non-profit organization based in San Francisco that seeks to start and promote a long-term cultural institution. It aims to provide a counterpoint to what it views as today's "faster ...

, the Public Policy Institute of California and the

Global Security Institute The Global Security Institute (GSI) is a largely private (though partly bipartisan), non-governmental international organization with a mission to eliminate nuclear weapons through international cooperation and security. It aims to influence nati ...

. Polese served on the board of

Technorati Technorati is a search engine and a publisher advertising platform. Technorati launched its ad network in 2008. In 2016, Synacor acquired Technorati for $3 million. The company's core product was previously an Internet search engine for search ...

, Inc. from 2004 to 2006. She is an advisor and investor in several early-stage technology companies. Previously, Polese served as CEO of SpikeSource Inc., which developed software to automate open source application management. The company was incubated in 2003 at VC firm

Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers Kleiner Perkins, formerly Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB), is an American venture capital firm which specializes in investing in incubation, early stage and growth companies. Since its founding in 1972, the firm has backed entrepreneur ...

and launched its first products in April 2005. The company was acquired by software company Black Duck in November 2010. Prior to SpikeSource, Polese co-founded Marimba Inc., an Internet-based software management pioneer. She served as president and CEO until 2000, leading Marimba to profitability. She was chairman from 2000 to 2004, when Marimba was sold to BMC Software for $239M. Before co-founding Marimba, Polese spent more than seven years with

Sun Microsystems Sun Microsystems, Inc., often known as Sun for short, was an American technology company that existed from 1982 to 2010 which developed and sold computers, computer components, software, and information technology services. Sun contributed sig ...

and was the founding product manager for

Java Java is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea (a part of Pacific Ocean) to the north. With a population of 156.9 million people (including Madura) in mid 2024, proje ...

when it launched in 1995. She also influenced the transition of its internal name of "Oak" to "Java". Prior to joining Sun, Polese worked on expert systems at IntelliCorp Inc., helping Fortune 500 companies apply artificial intelligence to solving complex business challenges.

References

External links

Kim Polese speaks at Stanford University

Kim Polese speaks at the University of California

Kim Polese interview by InformIT

Kim Polese interview by David Berlind from ZDNet as Spikesource came out of beta

Kim Polese interview by David Berlind from ZDNet

{{DEFAULTSORT:Polese, Kim 1961 births Living people UC Berkeley College of Letters and Science alumni American technology chief executives American women chief executives American chief executives of financial services companies Henry Crown Fellows 20th-century American businesspeople 20th-century American businesswomen 21st-century American businesspeople 21st-century American businesswomen