Partner, American River Ventures Fmr IBM

Inducted in 1996

Barbara Grant has spent the past three decades acquiring management and operational and technology development experience working in both startup companies such as Siros Technologies and major corporations, like IBM. Barbara is the inventor of eight patents and numerous technical publications in a variety of technology sectors.

Barbara was most recently CEO of Siros Technologies, a Silicon Valley startup that developed innovative optical components and subsystems for the communications and data storage markets. While she was at Siros, the company raised over $60 million in funding from top-tier venture capital and corporate investors. Before joining Siros, Barbara was at IBM for twenty-one years, where she held several executive positions. Her last position was vice president and general manager in the Data Storage Division.

Over the course of her career, Barbara has led teams who have developed and introduced more than fifty new IBM products.

These products incorporated new technologies, and IBM exhibited them throughout their product lines. These products included new lithographic materials for semiconductor manufacturing, technologies found in TFT LCD technology used in IBM's ThinkPad product line, numerous data processing printer and scanner products, high-density magnetoresistive heads for hard disk drives, and technologies for the world's highest capacity tape drives and storage subsystems.

In 1996, WITI recognized Barbara for her accomplishments in leadership and development of technology while at IBM in her election to the inaugural group of the Hall of Fame. Barbara's current board roles include Agoura Technologies, Integrated Materials, Triformix Inc., and Xponent Photonics.

She is a member of the board of visitors for the University of California at Davis (UCD)—UCD’s Research Advisory Board—and also sits on the board of the Sacramento Area Region Technology Alliance. Barbara is a partner in American River Ventures, a venture capital fund managing over $100 million in investments in early-stage technology companies.

Barbara holds a bachelor of science in chemistry from Arizona State University and a PhD in organic chemistry from Stanford University.

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