Eric R. Ball

Eric Ball was born in 1964 in Detroit and grew up in Michigan. Since then, he has lived in upstate New York, suburban New Jersey, Los Angeles, rural England. Since 1999, he lives, works, and plays in Silicon Valley with his wife Sheryl, two teenage sons Spencer and Carter, a golden retriever, and a Balinese cat.

From 1988-2015 Eric worked in finance at several large corporations: AT&T, Avery Dennison, Cisco Systems, Flex, and Oracle. From 2005-15 he served as Senior Vice President & Treasurer at Oracle, where he and his team issued $52 billion in bonds to finance 105 acquisitions, and managed $60 billion in cash and investments. In 2011 he was named one of the "100 Most Influential People in Finance" by the editors of Treasury and Risk magazine.

Since 2015, Eric has worked with startups, first as CFO of C3 AI, and then as a founding general partner at Impact Venture Capital. This firm invests in early-stage applied-AI startups and has a portfolio of 30 companies and growing. He serves on multiple nonprofit and for-profit boards, including the public companies Glu Mobile (gaming company acquired by Electronic Arts in 2021) and SoundHound (sound AI unicorn that went public in 2022). He has also taught at three universities, earned his doctorate in 2007, and his pilot's license in 2012.

Eric co-authored his first published book "Unlocking the Ivory Tower" in 2012 with Joe LiPuma. This book identifies, summarizes, and applies the academic research in management of most relevance to practicing executives. More about the book can be found at www.unlocktheivorytower.com, and online education based on the book at https://novoed.com/minimba?referral_token=f7961a. A 2013 interview with KPCC public radio in Los Angeles can be heard at: http://www.scpr.org/events/2013/01/24/unlocking-ivory-tower-management/.

In 2022, Eric published his debut novel "Silicon Galaxy" that explores what happens when aliens with advanced technologies encounter a Silicon Valley venture capitalist. Zach Randall has to decide if the aliens bring peace and prosperity or invasion, and faces a skeptical government and public in his efforts to teach the visitors how to be entrepreneurs and mint new unicorn businesses.