Mark Ashida joined OVP Venture Partners in 2007 and focuses on investments in infrastructure, SaaS, networking, and enterprise software.
Prior to joining OVP, Mark served as General Manager of Windows Enterprise Networking at Microsoft, where he was responsible for the networking infrastructure and authentication servers, representing over $450 million in enterprise sales.
Prior to Microsoft, Mark was Chief Operating Officer at InterTrust, a public company (ITRU). InterTrust provided secure, trusted computing for the secure distribution of music, video, and other digital goods and was the leading company in digital rights management. The underlying technology was seminal as confirmed by Microsoft, which paid the company over $400 million in a license settlement. InterTrust was sold to Sony and Philips for $450 million in 2002.
Before joining InterTrust, Mark was also involved as a General Manager at Intel Architecture Labs in the spinout of PassEdge, a green business focusing on security, networking, and digital rights management. Mark was CEO of an early venture-backed WAN networking equipment company later sold to 3Com, and involved in a turnaround of one of the earliest web measurement companies. He also was a partner at Braxton Associates, acquired by Deloitte & Touche, and leader of its West Coast Strategy Practice. He currently serves on the Board of Directors for Avenda, DepotPoint, Serus, and Symform, and is a Board Observer to Lucid Commerce, CGI, Carbonflow, and Collaborative Software Initiative.
Mark received his undergraduate degree from Pomona College and his M.B.A. from Harvard Business School. Mark grew up as the son of a U.S. diplomat and spent most of his pre-college life in Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. He is the father of two college students and has yet to find a high tech gadget he does not enjoy.