Kevin Fiur (President & CEO)

Kevin Fiur is the Founder and CEO of IP Tactics, LLC. Formerly, Mr. Fiur served as CEO and director of Seitel, Inc., a $150mm a year company specializing in acquiring, managing and licensing data. Kevin was general counsel of the Houston based firm before becoming its President and CEO. During that time, Mr. Fiur oversaw the Company’s licensing program and participated in over $200mm of licensing deals, including negotiating the recovery of over $50mm in revenues on matters when the ownership of the IP was in dispute. He started his professional career as a lawyer with Baker Botts LLP, where he gained recognition as a top strategist and negotiator. His education includes a B.A. in the Plan II Honors Program from the University of Texas at Austin, an MBA from the Acton MBA Program in Austin (with honors), and a J.D. (Order of the Coif) from the University of Texas School of Law.

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Omar Hakim (Vice President of Business Development)

Omar Hakim is an intellectual property commercialization expert and management consultant with over 18 years of experience. He most recently was president of Hakim Ventures LLC, an intellectual property investment and consulting firm based in Austin, Texas. Hakim Ventures manages investments in six IP-centric portfolio companies and has provided extensive intellectual property commercialization consulting services to Applied Materials, International Science & Technology Centre (Moscow, Russia) and the Trident Growth Fund LP. Prior to founding Hakim Ventures LLC, Mr. Hakim was Accenture’s Asia regional director of network consulting. While at Accenture, he also worked closely with dozens of technology start-ups, assessed their market opportunities, intellectual property and business models and made investment recommendations to Accenture Technology Ventures and other VCs. Mr. Hakim is a subject matter expert in Internet networking technologies, telephony infrastructures, complex software implementations and business process outsourcing. He also is an inventor with three awarded patents and two pending patents. Mr. Hakim received a BS degree in applied mathematics from the University of New Mexico and a MS degree in science and technology commercialization from The University of Texas at Austin.

Giovanna Barreiro (Director of Patent Research & Analysis)

Giovanna Barreiro is a technical and business savvy professional with over 10 years of experience in software development, project management and technology evaluation for commercialization. She has extensive intellectual property portfolio management experience: from asset mining and identification to portfolio analysis and licensing, including portfolios of patents, software and business processes. Before joining IP Knowledge Ventures, Ms. Barreiro spent several years at AT&T Knowledge Ventures, the IP monetization subsidiary of AT&T/Bell Labs, where she was a key member of the Intellectual Property Portfolio Management team. At AT&T, Ms. Barreiro's responsibilities included portfolio strategy, asset mining, technical and business evaluations and infringement analysis among others. Ms. Barreiro was also part of the AT&T patent committee for several years. She holds two BS degrees: Computer Science and Industrial Engineering. She also received her MBA in Management from Bryant College in Rhode Island.

Michael Higgins (Associate Director of Patent Research & Analysis)

Michael Higgins is an intellectual property financial modeling and value assessment expert. Mr. Higgins has experience in product valuation, intellectual property licensing and commercialization, product sales, marketing, and new business development. Prior to joining IP Knowledge Ventures, Mr. Higgins served as an Opportunity Analyst for AT&T Knowledge Ventures in Austin, Texas, the IP monetization arm of AT&T/Bell Labs. With AT&T, he teamed with the finance, legal, and portfolio management groups to commercialize internal AT&T IP assets. In addition, Mr. Higgins was an integral member of the Joint Venture and Business Development teams, where he performed market due diligence and developed strategic options for asset commercialization. Responsibilities included analysis of competitor market shares and trends, growth drivers, and market factors including revenue, risk, and time-to-market. Mr. Higgins received his B.S. in Finance from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

We are always looking to add talented people with a passion for intellectual property. Please contact us if you are interested in a career with IP Tactics.