Corporate Leader for Kirby Arnold & Associates Workshops

Robin Nebel has spent the past 20 years as CFO, COO and President of a number of successful high tech companies.  As CFO of 800-Software, she was responsible for finance and operational aspects of the business as it grew from a start-up to $250 million in sales and 250 employees. During this time, Ms. Nebel served on the advisory boards of numerous high tech companies including Lotus Development, Ingram Micro and Microsoft.  She was involved in the sale of 800-Software to Digital Equipment, a subsequent sale to Corporate Software and a later merger with R.R. Donnelly. 

Ms. Nebel spent the last 5 years at Ellie Mae, one of the few successful dot com companies and the fastest growing business in the San Francisco Bay Area from 2000 through 2002.  While at Ellie Mae, she was instrumental in raising over $50 million in venture capital funding, acquiring two software companies, successfully merging them and evolving the company from a web-site producer to a software and Internet hub for the mortgage industry.  Ms. Nebel oversaw the development of an enterprise level software solution for the mortgage broker industry and its adoption by twenty percent of the industry in its first six months of release.  She also led the development of a network of over 80,000 settlement service providers and lenders who participate in Ellie Mae’s ePass Internet transaction platform.  In 2003, over twenty percent of the loans processed in the United States involved an Internet transaction facilitated by Ellie Mae.

Ms. Nebel began her career at Arthur Andersen & Co. specializing in small businesses.  Her first start-up was a computer translation and marketing company, Micro Marketing International, that helped many of the early computer software companies set-up their initial European distribution networks.  She founded a mail order catalog for women’s golf clothing and also worked as CFO for an early stage wireless pc modem company.  She has taught in the business schools at the University of California, Berkeley, San Francisco State University and Golden Gate University.