Who should attend:
- Manager/director-level positions in Technical Marketing and Product Strategy
- Manager/director, Innovation Group
- Applications engineers
- VP, Sales and Marketing for technical organizations
Instructor Bio
Dr. Andrea Belz, Vice Dean for Technology Innovation and Entrepreneurship
Andrea Belz is the incoming Vice Dean for Technology Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering. She serves as the Director of the NSF Innovation Corps (“I-Corps”) funded Innovation Node - Los Angeles and has served as Entrepreneur-in-Residence, with faculty appointments in the USC Viterbi School of Engineering; the Iovine and Young Academy for Arts, Technology, and the Business of Innovation; and the USC Marshall School of Business. She has also served as Visiting Professor of Engineering at the California Institute of Technology.
Her research focuses on modeling technology-based entrepreneurial ecosystems and she has published research in optical systems, nuclear physics, geomicrobiology, and systems engineering with an emphasis on NASA SBIR program. She is the founder and chair of the Technology Transfer and Infusion session at the IEEE Aerospace Conference. Dr. Belz is Managing Director of Kinetic Intelligence, an intellectual property strategy consultancy, and has previously guided strategic planning for world-class innovators including Avery Dennison, BP, California Institute of Technology, CVI Melles Griot, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Occidental Petroleum, Raytheon, SPIE, and UCLA, as well as venture capital firms, university technology startups, and international public-private partnerships supporting technology transfer ecosystems. An active angel investor, she serves on the Board of Directors of Caltech spinoff laser manufacturer Ondax.
She holds a B.S. in physics from the University of Maryland at College Park, with High Honors in physics and University Honors in political economics; a Ph.D. in physics from the California Institute of Technology; and an M.B.A. in finance from the Pepperdine University Graziadio School of Business.
Viktor P. Brandtneris, Principal of Brandtneris Consulting
Viktor has a diverse financial and general management background from experiences in both corporate and entrepreneurial environments. In his early career, he worked in the computer industry in numerous Financial Planning and Modeling roles for companies including IBM and Computervision. His first entrepreneurial endeavor was as co-founder of the Devonshire Trust Company, a boutique money management and mutual fund company in Salem, Massachusetts.
After the sale of Devonshire Trust, Viktor stayed active in the financial markets, small business consulting and entrepreneurial endeavors. As Principal of Brandtneris Consulting, he provides business-modeling services centered on the Lean-Start Up Customer Discovery process for corporate clients. Viktor is a member of the national teaching faculty of the National Science Foundation’s Innovation Corps (I-Corps) Commercialization program. He is also part of the teaching teams for the University of Southern California’s Innovation-Los Angeles Node and the University of Michigan, Center for Entrepreneurship’s regional I-Corps program. He has worked with numerous universities, governmental agencies, corporate clients, and early stage companies.
Mr. Brandtneris has an MBA in Finance & Marketing from Boston College and a double major B.A. in Economics & Psychology from the University of Pennsylvania.
Continuing Education Units
CEUs: 2.1
USC Viterbi School of Engineering Certificate of Participation is awarded to all participants upon successful completion of course.
