User:Tyresopop/sandbox

Michael “Mike” A. Smerklo is an entrepreneur and accredited CPA, who has worked in the technology industry for more than 20 years. He is currently the managing director and co-founder of Next Coast Ventures.

Education
In 1991, Smerklo graduated from Miami University with a BS in Business Administration. He then went on to receive an MBA from Kellogg Graduate School of Management, graduating with distinction.

Career
Smerklo first began his career working as an investment banker for Morgan Stanley and Lehman Brothers. Following this, he joined the executive team at LoudCloud (Opsware) “driving sales, marketing and business development efforts."

From January 2003-August 2014, Smerklo was the President and CEO of ServiceSource International, Inc. In this role, he led the team’s corporate strategy and grew the company to a publicly traded company (NASDAQ: SREV). He was a member of its Service Executive Industry Board in December 2009 and held a role as chairman from November 2008-May 2015.

Following his time at ServiceSource, he co-founded Nucleus Growth LLC and founded True North Ventures LLC.

Currently, Smerklo acts as managing director and co-founder for Next Coast Ventures, an Austin-based venture capital firm, founded in 2016. He is still involved with his past endeavors. He is the Non-Exec Chairman at Nucleus Growth and a Director at ServiceSource and is also a Board Observer of Lecorpio Inc.

Accolades
Smerklo has received many recognitions including winning Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award. San Francisco Business Times and the Wall Street Journal have also recognized him for his leadership. He has a recurring blog in Forbes.