Board of Directors
Meet the Board
John-Bernard “JB” Duler
Co-Founder, EFN
John-Bernard “JB” Duler co-founded EFN with Thomas Jensen in 2003.
He has a 30 year background in business creation and management including founding Esurance the leading personal auto insurance business and more recently Kiv Broker, Visada and Automatic. He founded Duler and Co. which was acquired by Arthur J. Gallagher (NYSE: AJG) in 2012. Before that John-Bernard was a founder and was the CEO of Formatics Technologies, a software company formed to offer products to accelerate sustainable manufacturing in the chemical and food processing industries.
Early in this career, he gained worldwide experience having held senior management posts with global financial services companies such as AXA, Cigna (now Chubb). John-Bernard has lectured on finance and entrepreneurship at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, Temple University, and San Francisco State University and has served as a mentor and judge for venture competitions with EFN at Stanford University, UC Berkeley and for the Global Social Venture Competition.
John-Bernard holds the European equivalent of a BS in mathematics, a MS in engineering from Ecole des Mines in France, and an MBA in Finance from the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.
Thomas Jensen
Founder, EFN
Thomas Jensen founded EFN in 2003 when he was a lecturer for a venture design class at UC Berkeley that was mentor-based. He is EFN’s Executive Director. Over his 30 year career, Tom also founded public-private partnerships, start-ups and consulting practices that use technology to address important problems in energy, climate, manufacturing and supply chain. Tom served as Vice President at SAIC, a $11 Billion Fortune 500 company that is an international leader in technology innovation, development and applications. Over 20 years at SAIC, he held positions as the Global Practice Director for Sustainable Solutions and as a director in the company’s utility practice. Tom served as principal founder and vice president at Formatics Technologies, a software company spun off from SAIC that used big data and intelligent matching to accelerate sustainable manufacturing in the chemical and food processing industries.
Over 19 years leading EFN, our non-profit has grown to a network of over 10,000 people representing over 4,000 organizations worldwide with over 550 mentors, 100+ universities, over 2,000 startups, 500 large organizations, government agencies, investors and non-profits. EFN serves entrepreneurs throughout the U.S, in Africa, Australia, and Europe with funding from foundations, the U.S Department of State, the U.S Department of Energy, State governments, universities and individual and corporate donors. Flagship programs that Tom leads include co-directing the Empower Innovation Network, nearly 1000 companies and organizations advancing climate innovation and entrepreneurship, and EFN’s partnership with the U.S Government to build and serve the American Made Network, an ecosystem of funders and innovators advancing innovation domestically.
He has taught and lectured at Columbia, University of Michigan, and UC Berkeley’s Business Schools, and lectured in engineering and environmental management at Stanford University. He earned a BA in economics from University of California at Los Angeles and an MA from the Claremont College.
Dr. Po Chi Wu
Co-Founder, EFN
Visiting Professor, at College of Engineering, UC Berkeley
Po Chi helped found EFN at UC Berkeley in 2003 to offer high quality, structured mentoring to other organizations worldwide. He is a visiting professor at UC Berkeley and an Adjunct Professor in the School of Business and Management at the Hong Kong University of Science & Technology where he has initiated programs in innovation and entrepreneurship at all levels: undergraduate, MSc, MBA, and professional training for corporate executives. His 30 years of experience as a highly successful international venture capitalist and entrepreneur provides a unique perspective and a rich context for everything he does. Po Chi is also a Partner and co-founder of FutureLab Consulting, LLC, which offers a comprehensive approach that combines meaningful strategic modelling, effective consulting, world-class training and software. Previously, he was co-founding Executive Director of the Global Innovation Research Center, Peking University and an Adjunct Faculty at the University of San Francisco. Earlier, Po Chi was a co-founder and Managing Director of DragonBridge Capital, an investment advisory firm that focused on early-stage, technology-focused companies in China. Po Chi holds a Ph.D. in Molecular Biology from Princeton University and BA degrees in Mathematics and Music from the University of California at Berkeley.