Fellowship
Fellow
Class
16
Current Firm
Impact Venture Capital
Location
United States

Eric Ball

Fellowship
Fellow
Class
16
Current Firm
Impact Venture Capital
Location
United States
Education

Eric obtained his Bachelor's degree in economics, with Honors, at the University of Michigan, and earned dual Master's degrees in economics and business at the University of Rochester. He earned his PhD in 2007 at the Drucker-Ito School of Management. His venture-related dissertation served as the initial draft of a coauthored paper ('Can VCs Time the Market' An Analysis of Exit Choice for Venture-Backed Firms') in the September 2011 issue of the Review of Financial Studies. 

Eric lives in Menlo Park with his wife Sheryl Axline and sons Spencer and Carter. He earned his pilot's license in July 2012.

Professional

Eric Ball is a technology finance professional, investor, and board member. He currently serves as General Partner for Impact Venture Capital, which has made several technology investments. He also chairs the Audit Committee at Glu Mobile, a publicly-traded leader in 3D freemium mobile gaming. 

From 2015-16, Eric served as CFO of C3 IoT, a pre-IPO company meeting an urgent demand for enterprise IoT applications that enable organizations in data-intensive industries to use real-time performance monitoring and predictive analytics to optimize business processes. 

Until 2015, Eric served as Senior VP and Treasurer for Oracle, a $40 billion provider of the world's most complete, open, and integrated business software and hardware systems. He joined the company in 2005 and led a team of 22 in managing the company's worldwide treasury operations, capital markets activity, investment portfolio, foreign exchange, stock services, and risk management. Eric also managed a $200+ million venture portfolio. His team borrowed over $52 billion to fund acquisitions. 

Prior to joining Oracle, Eric worked in a variety of headquarters and operating finance roles at Flextronics, Cisco Systems, Avery Dennison, and AT&T. 

Eric was named by Treasury & Risk Management magazine in November 2003 as one of the 'Top 40 Under 40' in Finance, and in June 2011 as one of the '100 Most Influential People in Finance.' 

Eric is coauthor (with Joe LiPuma) of the book Unlocking the Ivory Tower: How Management Research Can Transform Your Business [http://www.kauffmanfellows.org/book/unlocking-the-ivory-tower-how-management-research-can-transform-your-business/], published in October 2012 by Kauffman Fellows Press, and available at amazon.com. The book was also released in Japan in April 2016 by Keio University Press. Eric and Joe also developed an online class based on this book in 2013, available at Kauffman Fellows Academy, Udemy, and Proformative Academy. 

Eric also wrote "What Can Venture Capitalists Learn from Academics'" [http://www.kauffmanfellows.org/journal_posts/what-can-venture-capitalists-learn-from-academics/] in the Fall 2012 Kauffman Fellows Report.

Fellowship

Eric is served his fellowship at Oracle as a member of Class 16.