Finney Gilbert, a bilingual entrepreneur, technology executive, and financial services professional, has spent the past eight years based in Tokyo founding, building and financing companies in Asia and Japan. His core competencies are in the areas of the Cloud, big data, enterprise software, software as a service (SaaS), network security, cloud identity, and messaging. His experience also extends to telecom equipment, silicon, and chip-on-board manufacturing.

 

Mr. Gilbert began his career in advanced technology in Japan in the early '90s. After returning to southern California, he served as the Director of New Product Development at Southland Microsystems (acquired by Staktek) and Vice President of World Wide Marketing at Viking Technology (acquired by Sanmina-SCI). He then founded Irvine based Infinilink, a startup developer of telecom gear and software for service providers and consumers.

 

Global Capital assisted Infinilink in raising VC financing in the late '90s and established a continuing relationship with Mr. Gilbert. In the early 2000s, Mr. Gilbert worked with Global Capital on several venture financings, management buyouts, mergers and acquisitions (both buy-side and sell-side), as well as restructuring and distressed situations including Chapter 11 alternative plans.

 

After securing Global Capital client MX Logic its initial $5.5 million VC investment, Mr. Gilbert was recruited by the CEO to lead their Asia-Pacific (APAC) and Japanese market expansion. In his role as General Manager, APAC & Japan, Mr. Gilbert ultimately built the largest enterprise SaaS mail filtering service in Japan. Following McAfee's acquisition of MX Logic in 2009 acquisition by McAfee, he was recruited to run the SaaS and cloud security business across APAC and Japan as Regional Director, SaaS and Cloud Security. After a reorganization, he became responsible for all network mail security, web security, and data loss prevention (DLP) offerings in the region across all delivery platforms including SaaS, on premise, and hybrid. Concurrent with his work at MX Logic, Mr. Gilbert also co-founded and served as Vice President, Corporate Development for next-generation communications company GDX (also acquired by McAfee). In this role he established, incorporated and raised $3 million in venture capital for the joint venture subsidiary in Tokyo.

 

Following Intel's acquisition of McAfee, Mr. Gilbert returned to the start-up world, founding the Asia presence for Denver-based Ping Identity. He served as Managing Director, APAC & Japan, and later sat on the Corporate Advisory Board. Ping's customers now include major Asian financial institutions and the largest telecom service providers and enterprises in Japan.

 

Mr. Gilbert now returns to Global Capital’s Silicon Valley office with a wealth of operational, strategic, and real-world management experience. His deep domain expertise provides the firm’s clients with invaluable insight, and ability to execute transactions in these cutting edge markets.

 

Mr. Gilbert holds a bachelor's degree in economics from the University of California, Irvine and has studied Japanese language at Stanford University.