Mr. Matthew Howard brings over 20 years of experience in marketing, product management, engineering, business development, and sales in a wide range of technologies to Norwest Venture Partners. In 2006, Matt joined the Forbes Midas List as a top 100 dealmaker. Matt focuses his efforts on communication and storage systems, embedded systems, semiconductors, security and rich media. He currently serves on the board of MovieBeam, Omneon Video Networks, Reconnex, SpectraLinear and Summit Microelectronics. Previously, Matt was on the board of Airespace (acquired by Cisco Systems), Skystream Networks (acquired by Tandberg Television), Spinnaker Networks (acquired by Network Appliance), Swan Labs (acquired by F5 Networks) and Webstacks (acquired by Extreme Networks). Matt is a board observer with FireEye, TestQuest, Veraz Networks and Yipes. He was a board observer with ZettaCom when it was acquired by IDT and he previously served on the board of the Wireless Communications Alliance (WCA). Prior to joining the firm in 2000, Matt held a number of senior positions with Cisco's IOS organization and the Internet Business Unit. He established Cisco's security and VPN strategy, situated Cisco as the leading firewall appliance manufacturer, and launched the first load-balancing product. Previously, Matt was vice president of marketing at Vertical Communications, where he focused on voice over IP and launched the first MGCP enabled media gateway. In addition, Matt has held various positions at Digital Equipment Corporation, BDM International, and Bolt, Beranek and Newman (BBN) Communications Corporation. He began his career as a cryptological analyst with the U.S. Naval Security Group. Matt holds a bachelor of business administration, with an emphasis in information systems, and a master of science degree in telecommunications management.