In Byron S. Lee’s 40-year career, he has worked in diverse industries, including fintech, pharma, security, marketing, supply chain, storage, biotech, and even a brief flirt with fashion. His journey began at the IBM Almaden Research Center where he built novel optical instrumentation with custom optics, sensors, analog electronics, signal processing, and embedded systems. Writing patents and papers provided him with intellectual fulfillment, but his work with customers at IBM Japan and Spain inspired him to venture into startups.
As a CTO and VP of Engineering, he led five startups to successful exits by building and coaching diverse teams of data scientists; ML engineers; UX specialists; mobile, web, and platform engineers; system and network administrators; DevOps; QA; customer support; compliance; product management; solution architects; and professional services. Highlights include creating the first Pharmaceutical Key Opinion Leader Social Network platform, productizing the Anti-Spam ML platform used by Yahoo! on billions of emails a day, and developing a Predictive Marketing Analytics Data Warehouse for Consumer Packaged Goods used by the Coca-Cola Company, P&G, and Nestlé.
Byron has witnessed the evolution of companies by leading teams from two-person startups to public corporations. He has also managed acquisitions from both sides, including due diligence, combining teams, integrating technologies, and aligning product lines. A Bay Area native, Byron earned a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering & Computer Science from the University of California, Berkeley, and a Master of Science in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University.