Laura Roden is Founder and Managing Director of Capital Formation Consultants. She is an expert in the structure, analysis, diligence and marketing of alternative investments and investment funds. She works closely with investors such as family offices, foundations and endowments, and wealth managers to help identify high quality solutions for their allocations in these areas. She also provides consulting services to fund managers (private equity, venture capital, hedge and debt, including ESG) seeking to raise capital. She is considered an industry expert on angel and venture capital investing and has been a featured speaker at many industry events, including the Milken Global Conference.Laura brings a fiduciary- and fundamental analysis-based approach to investment due diligence, a perspective formed during her earlier career roles as a corporate Chief Financial Officer, as head of a direct equity investment group, and as a senior consultant with Touche Ross (now Deloitte). Laura is a board member of Heritage Bank of Commerce (NASDAQ: HTBK), a publicly traded commercial bank with approximately $5b in assets, where she chairs the Finance and Investment Committee and is also on the Audit Committee. She is also a Professor Emeritus in the Accounting & Finance Department of San Jose State University, where she has taught corporate finance, banking and entrepreneurship in the undergraduate and MBA programs for many years. Ms. Roden has twice been nominated one of the "Most Influential Women in Silicon Valley" by the San Jose Business Journal, and was the subject of a dedicated chapter of the 2011 book "Women Leaders at Work." She earned her undergraduate and MBA degrees at Harvard University, and achieved the status of ABD for her doctorate at the University of South Africa (UNISA). She holds Series 7, 65 and 79 securities licenses (inactive).She can be contacted at info at capformconsultants.com, or (415) 805-2425.