Charles Plant is a serial entrepreneur, financial advisor, and innovation economist. He was co-founder and CEO for 15 years of Synamics, a telecommunications software firm. He has been Board Chair at four and CFO of eight emerging technology companies. He has worked on numerous financing and M&A transactions in investment banking, on the management committee and CFO of three venture capital firms, and as an advisor to and at a number of incubators. As founder of The Narwhal Project, he is conducting research into what it takes to create world-class technology companies and has written more than 35 research papers and one book. He has a CPA, and MBA in Marketing and is completing a PhD in Innovation Economics.