Managing Director

Danny Warshay

Danny Warshay has devoted his career to building, managing and harvesting high-growth entrepreneurial ventures. He is the founder and managing director of DEW Ventures, a platform he uses to launch and develop a portfolio of new, quickly growing companies and to advise a variety of others.

Danny began his entrepreneurial pursuits while an undergraduate at Brown, as co-founder of Clearview Software, the developer of the SmartForms suite of Macintosh applications software. Apple Computer acquired Clearview in 1989. He then co-developed Specialized Systems and Software, a custom software development firm sold to Medline Industries.

Danny led the growth of Anchor Communications, a startup magazine and Internet publishing company sold in two parts to A.H. Belo Corporation and Miller Publishing Group. While at Anchor, Danny served as publisher of the company's regional titles, including Rhode Island Monthly, and spearheaded the launch of its first Internet products, including RhodeIsland.com. He also served as Chief Operating Officer of Anchor’s first national products, Getaways magazine and GetawaysOnline.com Internet travel service.

As co-founder and managing director of Health Business Partners — the nutrition industry’s premier venture capital and financial advisory firm — Danny built and led the firm's venture capital practice.
Danny’s corporate experience came at Procter & Gamble as a member of the Duncan Hines Brand Management team, where he managed the development and marketing of new products.

One of Danny’s business passions is Open-Book Management – an approach to empowering, motivating and rewarding employees through exposure to all relevant measures and financial literacy, and by providing a meaningful stake in the outcome through employee ownership. He has spoken in national forums and has been interviewed in Inc. Magazine on the topic, and coaches companies interested in embracing this approach.

Danny is an adjunct professor at Brown University where he teaches Entrepreneurship and New Ventures: A Socratic Approach to Innovation Analysis and Application – an advanced course that he developed in the interdisciplinary Commerce, Organizations and Entrepreneurship program (COE). In the 2008 Critical Review, this course was the highest rated course at Brown. He teaches Entrepreneurial Finance and Technology Entrepreneurship and Commercialization in the Brown Masters Program in Innovation Management and Entrepreneurship (PRIME), and serves on the PRIME faculty leadership team.

He also teaches entrepreneurship internationally. In 2006, he was the recipient of the Brown Israel Faculty Exchange Fellowship, through which he taught his Entrepreneurship and New Ventures course in the Executive MBA Program of the Recanati School of Business at Tel Aviv University. This experience led to his becoming a member of the faculty of Tel Aviv University’s Sofaer International MBA program. During the program’s summer trimester, Danny teaches his Entrepreneurship and New Ventures course in this global experience rooted in Israel's innovative, entrepreneurial and high-tech business culture.

In January and June 2008, he taught intensive versions of his Entrepreneurship and New Ventures course for Egyptian executives, heads of Egyptian NGOs and entrepreneurs at the TMA Executive Training Institute of Cairo. In July 2009, through Brown’s Office of International Programs, he taught a similar course at Instituto Universitário de Lisboa in Lisbon, Portugal. In June 2009 and 2010, he co-led and presented in the week-long Workshop on Technology Entrepreneurship Teaching in the Brown International Advanced Research Institute (BIARI). In January 2010, he taught his intensive version of Entrepreneurship & New Ventures at the Zhengzhou University of Light Industry in Zhengzhou, China. In June 2010, he led a series of intensive technology entrepreneurship and commercialization workshops in Shanghai, China at Fudan University, Jiaotong University, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai University, Shanghai Business School, and Donghua University. In July 2010, the Israel office of Battery Ventures engaged Danny to lead a two-day Entrepreneurship & New Ventures workshop for 30 high-tech CEOs.

In recognition of his active support for Brown students in and out of the classroom, in 2011 Danny was awarded the first ever Nathalie Rutherford Pierrepont Prize for Leadership, Career Advising, and Motivation. He was also previously nominated for the Karen T. Romer Award for excellence in advising, and was a finalist for the Barrett Hazeltine Award for Excellence in Teaching. Google’s University Program awarded Brown’s Program in Commerce, Organizations, and Entrepreneurship an unrestricted grant to recognize the impact Danny’s teaching has had on his students, several of whom have gone on to work at Google.

Danny has served on the boards of numerous startups and on a variety of non-profit boards focused on health and education. Those include Rhode Islanders Sponsoring Education (RISE) which provides mentoring, social service support and educational opportunity for the children of incarcerated parents; the Brown University President’s Leadership Council Technology Ventures Committee; and the Miriam Hospital Board of Governors. He was a founding board member of the Brown University Entrepreneurship Program where he is now a Trustee Emeritus; and he is an Honorary Life President of the Brown University Hillel Foundation where for four years he served as President during the foundation’s $12 million capital campaign and construction of its 28,000 square foot new facility.

To recognize Danny’s leadership, Brown Hillel annually awards the Danny Warshay ’87 Exceptional Leadership Award to the student who has most clearly demonstrated the leadership qualities of mentoring, modeling and community building. Danny was also the 2006 recipient of the Merrill L. Hassenfeld Leadership in Community Service Award.

Danny received a B.A. in History, magna cum laude, from Brown University (Junior Year at Hebrew University in Jerusalem), and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.

In addition to spending time with his wonderful wife and three terrific children, Danny loves the mental and physical challenges and rewards of vinyasa yoga. He is also an avid (and tortured) Cleveland sports fan.

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