Eric Ball

Eric is General Partner at Impact Venture Capital, an early-stage tech venture firm in Silicon Valley.

From 2005 through 2015, Eric was Senior VP of Finance for Oracle, a $40+ billion provider of the world’s most complete, open, and integrated business software and hardware systems. He led a team of 22 in managing the company’s worldwide treasury operations, capital markets activity, investment portfolio, foreign exchange, stock services, venture portfolio, and risk management. His team has borrowed over $60 billion to fund acquisitions. Eric was named by Treasury & Risk Management magazine in 2011 as one of the “100 Most Influential People in Finance.”

Eric serves on several boards, including: Glu Mobile (Nasdaq: GLUU), Oracle Japan (a public company listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange) and the Richard M. Lucas Medical Foundation. He is a board advisor to Kyriba Corporation. 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 is a long-time investor in several startup companies. He is a Kauffman Fellow, having completed a two-year program dedicated to innovation investing. Eric is coauthor (with Joe LiPuma) of the book 'Unlocking the Ivory Tower: How Management Research Can Transform Your Business', available at amazon.com. Eric and Joe also teach an online class based on this book at Illumeo (as well as Udemy and NovoEd). Eric lives in Menlo Park with his wife Sheryl Axline and their two sons. He earned his pilot's license in 2012.

Experience

General Partner : Impact Venture Capital [2017 - present]

Impact VC is an early-stage tech venture firm. It closed its Fund I in March 2019, and had 11 portfolio companies in AI applications as of Q1 2019.

Chief Financial Officer : C3 AI - [2015-16]

C3 AI (formerly C3 IoT) is a leading enterprise AI software provider for accelerating digital transformation 

Senior VP & Treasurer : Oracle Corporation - [2005-05 to Current]
Leads 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 manages a $200+ million venture portfolio. The team has borrowed over $30 billion to fund acquisitions.

Assistant Treasurer : Flextronics - [2001-04 to 2005-05]
Ran corporate finance and risk management

Assistant Treasurer Corporate Finance : Cisco Systems - [1999-11 to 2001-05]
Established corporate finance function and managed stock services.

Director Financial Services : Avery Dennison - [1994-06 to 1999-11]
Held multiple roles: capital markets, foreign exchange, operating role with Fasteners business unit in the UK, finance support for sales team in Office Products group.

District Manager Financial Studies : AT&T - [1988-03 to 1994-06]
Held multiple operating and headquarters roles: financial analysis in long distance business unit, corporate treasury, built foreign exchange function for leasing subsidiary, conducted M&A analysis and value-based management implementation in corporate controller's financial studies team.

Education

Ph.D., Management and Finance : Peter F. Drucker Graduate School of Management (at Claremont Graduate University ) - [1995 to 2007]

M.A. and MBA, Economics and Finance : William E. Simon Graduate School of Business Administration (at University of Rochester ) - [1984 to 1988]

A.B., Economics : University of Michigan-Ann Arbor - [1981 to 1984]