Venture Capital and how to find, approach and work with VC firms

William O'Brien is a speaker at the Annual Investors Choice® Venture Capital Conference .

The following information about William O''Brien is from a recent NASDAQ press release:

New York, December 19, 2005 — The Nasdaq Stock Market, Inc. ("NASDAQ®"; NASDAQ: NDAQ) announced today that William O'Brien has been appointed Senior Vice President, New Listings, with NASDAQ's Corporate Client Group. In this role, O'Brien will be responsible for managing NASDAQ's efforts to attract U.S. listings, including IPOs and exchange switches. Mr. O'Brien will report to Bruce Aust, Executive Vice President of the Corporate Client Group.

"Bill's leadership in working with clients and his intimate knowledge of market structure make him an ideal addition to the Corporate Client team," said Bruce Aust, Executive Vice President of the Corporate Client Group. "NASDAQ continues to gain momentum in its listings business and we are very pleased to have Bill on board to help communicate the benefits of listing on NASDAQ."

Prior to this appointment, O'Brien served as senior vice president of NASDAQ's Market Data Distribution group. In this role, O'Brien was responsible for maintaining the integrity of all market data disseminated to the public and worked with NASDAQ Technology Services to create new data products to serve the industry's information needs. He was also responsible for the creation and dissemination of information products from the quoting and trading of NASDAQ securities.

Mr. O'Brien joined NASDAQ in 2004 from Brut, LLC, where he helped direct all operational and strategic affairs of the company. O'Brien helped lead Brut through its September 2004 acquisition by NASDAQ. Mr. O'Brien joined Brut as Senior Vice President and General Counsel in September 2000, with responsibilities that included management of Brut's legal affairs, regulatory strategy and Compliance Department.

Previously, Mr. O'Brien was Vice President and Assistant General Counsel at Goldman, Sachs & Co., where he was responsible for providing legal and regulatory compliance coverage to the firm's prime brokerage, securities lending, equity financing and soft-dollar business units. Before joining Goldman Sachs he was an Associate at Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP, practicing in their Market Regulation Practice Group.