Rob Genieser is Managing Partner of Vertex Europe, where he oversees the day-to-day operations. In 1996, he joined Hambrecht & Quist (H&Q), in San Francisco and rose to Managing Director for the firm's wireless, optical and communications software practices. In this capacity, he sponsored H&Q's investments in Chromatis (acquired by Lucent), Paragon Software (acquired by Openwave) and Wavtrace (acquired by Harris). In addition, Rob executed the IPOs of Portal Software, ONI Systems, Corvis, Openwave and INET, among others. In the M&A field, he assisted VisionTech on its sale to Broadcom, I-compression on its sale to Globespan, Herrmann Technology on its sale to Lucent, Terayon on its acquisition of Telegate and MoreCom on its sale to Liberate. Shortly after Hambrecht & Quist's merger with JP Morgan at the end of 2000, Rob moved to London to run the company's emerging technology practice for Europe and Israel. Earlier in his career, he worked as a consultant for Bain & Company in San Francisco, where he focused on the telecommunications industry. Prior to receiving his MBA, he worked for Morgan Stanley in both New York and Hong Kong, as a member of the corporate restructuring group. he received an A.B. cum laude and an MBA from Harvard University.