Outside Directors

Peter Gotcher, Executive Chairman

Peter Gotcher has been a member of the Dolby Board of Directors since 2003 and accepted the role of Executive Chairman of the Board of Directors effective March 1, 2009. In addition to providing leadership for the board, Peter brings extensive experience in Dolby's traditional markets and emerging media, providing valuable perspective for the board and the Chief Executive Officer.

Peter is an independent investor focusing on investments in digital media technology companies. From 1999 through 2003 he was a Venture Partner with Redpoint Ventures, a Silicon Valley venture capital partnership. From 1997 to 1999 he held the same position with Institutional Venture Partners. He has served on the board of directors of 14 public and private companies, and in addition to his position at Dolby, Peter currently serves as a director of Pandora, Line6, Dash Navigation, and Topspin Media (where he is Chairman and cofounder). He is also a member of the Board of Trustees of the Berklee College of Music.

Peter founded Digidesign, Inc., in 1984 and served as its President, CEO, and Chairman through the company's initial public offering in December 1993, and subsequent merger with Avid Technology in January 1995. Peter served as the General Manager of Digidesign and Executive Vice President of Avid until May 1996. Previously, he worked for Dolby Laboratories and holds a BA degree from the University of California at Berkeley.

Ray Dolby, Founder

Dolby Laboratories' founder, Ray Dolby, was born in Portland, Oregon, in 1933. While still in high school, he went to work for Ampex Corporation, where he ultimately became responsible for developing the electronics for the first Ampex professional videotape recorder, the precursor of every professional and consumer videotape system today. He received his BS degree in electrical engineering from Stanford University in 1957 and, as a Marshall Scholar, left Ampex to pursue further studies at Cambridge University in England, where he received a PhD degree in physics in 1961.

In 1965, Ray founded Dolby Laboratories with the initial goal of developing electronic systems for reducing the background noise, such as hiss, introduced by the tape recording process. With the success of those systems and many analog and digital innovations since, the Dolby name has come to be associated worldwide with quality audio from film soundtracks, home theater systems, audio- and videocassettes, DVD, TV audio, and cable and satellite transmissions. Ray makes his home in San Francisco with his wife, Dagmar. Learn more.

N.W. (Bill) Jasper, Jr.

Bill Jasper was the CEO and president of Dolby Laboratories until his retirement in March 2009. He joined Dolby in 1979 as Vice President, Finance and Administration and was named company President in 1983. He led the company through its evolution from a small technology innovator to an international entertainment technology leader. Over the years, he has led the company through many of its technology transformations, including analog to digital, music to film, cassettes to DVDs, and audio-only to audio and video.

Bill is a member of the Audio Engineering Society (AES) and the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE), and is an at-large member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS).

Bill received a BS in industrial engineering from Stanford University, and an MBA in finance from the University of California, Berkeley.

Nicholas Donatiello, Jr.

Nicholas Donatiello has been the President and CEO of Odyssey Ventures, Inc. since September 1993. Prior to founding Odyssey, he was Press Secretary and Campaign Manager for US Senator Bill Bradley and a consultant at McKinsey & Company.

Nick is a director of three of the American Funds managed by Capital Research and Management. He is also a director of Classmates Media Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of United Online, as well as a number of other private companies. In addition, Nick served as chairman of the board of Northern California Public Broadcasting, Inc. from 2006 through 2008. Nick holds a BSE degree in systems engineering from Princeton University and an MBA degree from Stanford University.

Ted W. Hall

Ted W. Hall is an entrepreneur and business leader with extensive operating and consulting experience in technology-related businesses, professional services, financial services, and natural resources.

Ted served for more than 27 years as a leader and operating manager of McKinsey & Company, a leading global consulting firm. He served as an elected member of the McKinsey shareholder committee, which is McKinsey's board of directors, for 12 years.

The General Partner of Long Meadow Ranch and President of the associated Long Meadow Ranch Winery in Napa Valley, Ted also serves as Chairman of Tambourine, Inc., a specialty music production and distribution company. He is Managing Director of Mayacamas Associates, his own consulting firm. He is also a former Chairman of the Board of the Robert Mondavi Corporation, a global producer of fine wines. He has served on the boards of directors of a wide variety of educational and civic organizations, including the Stanford Business School's Advisory Council and the San Francisco Symphony. A former professional trombonist and record producer, Ted is a member of the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences. He holds a BSE degree in electrical engineering from Princeton University and an MBA degree from Stanford University.

Sanford R. Robertson

Sanford R. Robertson is a principal of Francisco Partners, the world's largest technology buyout fund. With a focus on structured investments in technology and technology-related businesses, Francisco Partners is a pioneer in the private equity category of Technology Buyouts.

Prior to founding Francisco Partners, Sanford was the founder and Chairman of Robertson, Stephens & Co., a leading technology investment bank formed in 1978, and sold to BankBoston in 1998. Since the sale, Sanford has been an active technology investor and advisor to several technology companies. Sanford was also the founder of Robertson, Colman, Siebel & Weisel, later renamed Montgomery Securities, another prominent technology investment bank. Sanford was one of the pioneers in the creation of West Coast technology banking as an industry in the late 1960s, and has remained one of the industry's most renowned participants to this date. He has had significant financing involvement in over 500 growth technology companies throughout his career, including 3Com Corporation; America Online, Inc.; Applied Materials, Inc.; Ascend Communications Inc.; Dell Computer Corporation; E*Trade Securities, Inc.; Siebel Systems, Inc.; and Sun Microsystems, Inc. Sanford currently serves on the boards of directors of Pain Therapeutics and salesforce.com.

Sanford received both a BA degree and an MBA degree with distinction from the University of Michigan.

Roger S. Siboni

Roger S. Siboni is Chairman and former CEO of Epiphany, Inc., the leading provider of intelligent customer interaction software.

Before joining Epiphany, Roger was Deputy Chairman and Chief Operating Officer of KPMG Peat Marwick—a $9 billion, 85,000 person worldwide accounting and consulting organization. As COO, Roger led the firm to consecutive years of record revenue and profitability. Prior to becoming Deputy Chairman, as head of KPMG's Technology Practice, he grew that business by over 250 percent in his four years of leadership.

Roger currently serves on the boards of Cadence Design Systems and FileNet Corporation. He previously served on the boards of Macromedia, Active Software, Pivotal Software, and Corio Systems. He has also served on the boards of the Central Park Conservancy, the San Francisco Asian Art Museum, and the San Francisco Exploratorium. A graduate of the University of California at Berkeley, Roger is past Chairman of the Advisory Board for the Walter A. Hass School of Business at the University of California at Berkeley.

Avadis Tevanian, Jr.

Avadis Tevanian is the former Software Chief Technology Officer of Apple Computer. As Software CTO, Avie focused on setting company-wide software technology direction for Apple. Prior to his tenure as Software CTO, Avie was Senior Vice President of Software at Apple, a role he took on when Apple acquired NeXT in 1997.

As SVP of Software, Avie led the software engineering team responsible for the creation of Mac OS X and worked as part of Apple's executive team that engineered the turnaround and current success of Apple. Before joining Apple, he was Vice President of Engineering at NeXT and was responsible for managing NeXT's industry renowned engineering department. Avie started his professional career at Carnegie Mellon University, where he was a principal designer and engineer of the Mach operating system upon which Nextstep, and now OS X, is based.

He holds a BA degree in mathematics from the University of Rochester and MS and PhD degrees in computer science from Carnegie Mellon University.