Hadar Pedhazur - Founder and Principal
Mr. Pedhazur founded Opticality Ventures (OV), after
successfully creating and building Verticality Investment
Group (VIG).
Hadar founded Verticality Investment Group, a venture
capital firm, in early 1998. He sourced, vetted, negotiated
with and then assisted in the management of the portfolio
companies in which he invested. He maintained an intense
schedule, serving on the boards of four of the VIG
companies, assisting in customer calls, attending a variety
of management meetings and participating in industry
conferences and panels. Leaving VIG to start OV is the next
step toward creating a larger, synergistic entity which will
help different technology companies achieve extraordinary
potential and value. Hadar's principal interests in the VIG
portfolio companies are being transferred to OV.
Prior to VIG, Hadar had an 18-year career encompassing all
aspects of technology. From 1991 through 1998 he served as
Managing Director and Head of Technology for the Global
Equity Derivatives (GED) group of the Union Bank of
Switzerland (UBS). He assembled a team of top-notch
technologists who worked across the globe in eight locations
in a distributed object-oriented environment, which he
envisioned, architected and managed. The technology group
distinguished itself by keeping up with rapid product
development executed by GED staff who remained on the cusp
of innovation in the financial services sector. Mr. Pedhazur
served on a variety of management committees at UBS where he
helped shape the technology direction and platforms for the
bank at large.
Prior to UBS, Mr. Pedhazur spent eight years at CS First
Boston (CSFB) where he attained the position of Chief
Technology Officer of CS First Boston (Asia) Pacific. Prior
to that, he held a variety of positions, including Head of
Equity Financial Strategies Technology, Head of Fixed Income
Technical Services, Head of Decision Support Technical
Services and Head of Whole Loan Mortgage
Technology. Mr. Pedhazur introduced a number of
technological innovations at CSFB, including object-oriented
programming, and a mainframe-based real-time market feed.
Mr. Pedhazur spent his first three years after college, as
an Actuarial Programmer, beginning his career as an
Actuarial Trainee at Peat, Marwick, Mitchell and
Company. After a year at Peat Marwick, he worked at Coopers
and Lybrand designing defined benefit and defined
contribution valuation systems.
Mr. Pedhazur has spoken at numerous technology and related
business conferences and has held a number of advisory
roles, including membership on the User Advisory Board of
NeXT. He currently serves as Chairman of the Zope
Corporation Board.
He was educated at New York University, where he received a
degree in Psychology and Mathematics.
hadar@opticality.com
http://www.opticality.com/