Board of Directors

Founder & PresidentMatt Lauzon

Matt Lauzon founded Gemvara (formerly Paragon Lake) as a student at Babson College. Gemvara was born when Matt and fellow students uncovered a niche in the jewelry industry at the intersection of e-commerce and mass customization. The vision was a shopping experience where jewelry lovers could have fun and get exactly what they wanted. Since graduating from Babson in 2007, Matt has led the company's growth from an idea in a dorm room to an online retailer serving customers throughout the United States and Canada. Investors include prestigious blue-chip firms Highland Capital and Canaan Partners. Matt earned a B.S. in Business Management from Babson College where he was an Arthur M. Blank Scholar. At Babson, he was named one of America's Top Entrepreneurs Under the Age of 25 by BusinessWeek, was the winner of the John H. Muller Jr. Business Plan Competition, and was awarded the Shelby Cullom Davis prize for social entrepreneurship. Most recently, Babson College awarded Matt with its Distinguished Alumni Award.

Matt also serves as one of six members named to the 2010 Future Leaders Group for the Massachusetts Innovation & Technology Exchange.

ChairmanDeborah Besemer

Deborah Besemer was most recently the CEO of Gemvara from May 2009 through Feb 2010. Previously she was the President and CEO of BrassRing, a leading provider of talent management solutions. Under her leadership, revenues grew consistently, from $1 million in revenue to $40 million until she oversaw the sale of the company to Kenexa Corp. for $115 million. Prior to joining BrassRing, Deborah was president of Systemsoft Corporation and spent more than a decade at Lotus Development, where she managed worldwide field operations with revenues in excess of $1.3 billion and more than 4,000 employees in 46 countries.

Deborah is a former Chairperson of the Massachusetts Technology Leadership Council (formerly Mass Software Council) and served on the Board of Trustees for 9 years. She served on the University of Massachusetts High Tech Executive Council, and The New England Small Business Advisory Council for the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. She is also currently serving on the board of directors at Brightcove and Double-Take Software. Formerly, she served as board director at Bullhorn, My Perfect Gig, Kubisoft, Inc. and Eprise Corporation

General Partner - Highland CapitalBob Davis

Bob Davis is a General Partner at Highland focusing primarily on digital media and the internet since 2001. He currently represents Highland on the boards of Bullhorn, Going, Hangout Industries, NameMedia, Gemvara, Quattro Wireless and Turbine and previously served on the board of Fastclick (Nasdaq: FSTC) until its successful merger with ValueClick (Nasdaq: VCLK) and Quigo (acquired by AOL).

Bob is the best-selling author of "Speed is Life: Street Smart Lessons from the Front Lines of Business."

Prior to joining Highland, Bob served as the Chief Executive Officer of Terra Lycos (TRLY) and was responsible for all aspects of the company's business. Before the October 2000 combination of Terra and Lycos, Bob was the Founder of Lycos, Inc (LCOS) and served as its President and Chief Executive Officer since its inception in 1995. In just five years, Bob led Lycos from a start-up with $2 million in venture capital funding to a multi-billion dollar profitable business. Under his leadership, Lycos jumped from the fastest IPO in Nasdaq history, a mere nine months from inception to offering, to an esteemed member of the Nasdaq 100.

Bob has served on the boards of several public and private sector companies including John Hancock (JHFS), Ticketmaster (TCMS), Terra Lycos (TRLY), Lycos (LCOS) and Lycos Europe (LCY). He also serves as a Trustee for Children's Hospital Trust Board, The Rivers School and also serves on the Board of Advisors for the Boston College Carroll School of Management and the Northeastern University School of Technological Entrepreneurship.

Bob has advised former President Clinton on matters relating to internet commerce and regulation and has addressed Congress, The United Nations, The National Press Corps and the U.S. Council of Foreign Relations on similar matters. Bob has been inducted into the Academy of Distinguished Entrepreneurs and received the Massachusetts Interactive Media Council's Lifetime Achievement Award.

Venture Partner - Canaan PartnersDaniel Ciporin

Dan Ciporin is committed to building innovative businesses that make the Internet a more engaging place for consumers. Dan joined Canaan's Connecticut office in 2007 to invest in emerging leaders in online advertising and digital media in the New York corridor, as well as in communications infrastructure companies that deliver interactive content to connected consumers.

Dan brings two decades of executive-level operational experience to Canaan. He was the former Chairman and CEO of Shopping.com, the pioneer in online comparison shopping, where he oversaw growth from zero to over $100 million in revenues in just five years, culminating in the company's IPO in October 2004 and later acquisition by eBay in 2005. Previously, Dan served as chairman of the Internet Lab, a US-Israeli incubator for early-stage consumer Internet startups, as Senior VP of MasterCard International, where he was responsible for the marketing and product management of all online global debit products, and as a strategy consultant for both Mars and Co. and Corporate Value Associates.

At Canaan, Dan sits on the board of Lending Club, an innovative online lending community where people borrow and lend money, bypass the banks, and get better rates; and Peer39, the global leader in semantic advertising solutions. In addition to his work with Canaan, Dan is on the boards of three public companies: Primedia (PRM), one of the world's leading targeted media companies; VistaPrint (VRPT), which supplies more than 10 million global customers with customized printed products online; and leading graphics software company Corel (CREL).

Dan earned an AB from Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and an MBA from Yale University. Dan is committed to improving the lives of people living in poverty in Southeast Asia. After serving in 1980 as Director of Educational Programs for the UN-funded Sakaeo Refugee Camp in Thailand - where he lived in a teak stilt house in the middle of a remote rice paddy - Dan has continued to support volunteer organizations in that part of the world.