Ned Hill has nearly 20 years of experience as an operator, consultant, and investor in technology companies, with a particular focus on communications, computing, and data center technologies. Prior to joining DFJ Mercury, Mr. Hill was a Director with Sternhill Partners, a Texas-based early-stage venture capital firm, where he worked closely with pioneering start-ups in several important emerging markets, including WiMAX (Navini Networks, acquired by Cisco); blade servers (RLX Technologies, acquired by Hewlett-Packard); and virtualization (Surgient). Prior to Sternhill, Mr. Hill was with BellSouth Internet Services where he was in charge of broadband operations during the initial deployment and growth phases of BellSouth's high-speed DSL and fiber optic Internet service. Before BellSouth, Mr. Hill worked with McKinsey & Company as a management consultant, focusing primarily on the communications industry; BroadBand Technologies, a start-up fiber-in-the-loop, telecom equipment manufacturer that went public in 1992, where he managed deployments throughout the U.S. and Puerto Rico; Alcatel Network Systems; and Siecor Corporation, a fiber optic cable manufacturer owned by Siemens and Corning.
Mr. Hill currently serves on the board of directors of ActaCell, in innovator of next-generation high power lithium ion battery technology; and on the advisory boards of the Rice Alliance for Technology & Entrepreneurship and the Houston Technology Center’s IT Screening Committee.
Mr. Hill earned a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from North Carolina State University and a Master of Business Administration from The Amos Tuck School at Dartmouth College where he was named an Edward Tuck Scholar.