Newport Beach-based chipmaker Mindspeed Technologies Inc. added Robert J. Conrad to its board earlier this month.
Conrad, 50, is executive vice president and general manager of the mobile, computing, consumer and communications product group at Portland, Maine-based Fairchild Semiconductor International Inc. He also helps lead corporate strategy, operations and investor relations.
Before coming to Fairchild, Conrad was chief executive of Massachusetts-based Trebia Networks Inc., a storage networking chip startup which was bought by Costa Mesa-based Emulex Corp. for $2 million in 2003.
He held previous posts at Analog Devices Inc. and spent a decade at Texas Instruments Inc.
With the addition of Conrad, Mindspeed’s board now has seven members, including Chief Executive Raouf Halim, Chairman Dwight Decker, Michael Hayashi, Ming Louie, Thomas Madden and Jerre Stead.
Decker was the former chief executive and chairman of Mindspeed’s neighbor and former parent company, Newport Beach’s Conexant Systems Inc.
In other Mindspeed news, the company said it landed a product design win from Sweden’s PacketFront Systems AB.
Expected shipment volumes and financial details are being kept close to the vest.
Mindspeed, which had a recent market value of about $200 million, designs chips that go into citywide broadband networks, voice over Internet devices and other telecommunication gear.
New Digs
Next week, Western Digital Corp. is set to begin moving its headquarters to its new digs in Irvine.
The top maker of disk drives for computers, servers and consumer electronics slowly will be moving more than 1,200 employees from Lake Forest to its new offices at Irvine’s Park Place.
Western Digital is doing a ribbon cutting to mark the occasion on Sept. 9.
Chief Executive John Coyne will be in attendance along with Irvine Mayor Sukhee Kang, who’s set to make opening remarks.
The company’s lease for its Lake Forest space, where it’s been for 10 years, is winding down. Presumably, it’s getting a better deal in Irvine.
Before moving to Lake Forest, Western Digital’s offices were in the Irvine Spectrum.
A few weeks ago, the company did a bit of reshuffling in the executive suite.
Western Digital promoted Tim Leyden to chief operating officer and Wolfgang Nickl to chief financial officer.
Leyden has spent more than two decades at Western Digital, most recently as finance chief. Before that, he held senior finance roles at Irvine’s Sage Software Inc., which is part of British business software maker Sage Group PLC.
Leyden now could be in line to be the company’s next chief executive. Western Digital has a history of promoting its operations chief into the top spot. Coyne was promoted from president and chief operating officer to chief executive in 2007.
Nickl has been the vice president of finance since 2005. Prior to that, he served in leadership positions in the company’s worldwide business operations for several years. Nickl joined Western Digital in 1995 from IBM Corp.
Both report to Coyne.
WebVisible in India
Irvine-based WebVisible Inc., an online advertising search company for small businesses, moved into a bigger office in India in order to grow.
The company has a 15,000-square-foot office in Mumbai in which it has nine workers. It plans to have 30 workers in India by the year’s end and 130 in two years’ time.
In February, WebVisible secured $20 million in a third round of venture funding.
WebVisible’s software helps businesses buy and target online advertisements. It’s raised an estimated $37 million to date.
WebVisible’s services target smaller businesses—from one-person shops to companies with 250 workers.
Its software automates the process of buying online advertising.
Tech Coast Angels
Irvine-based Tech Coast Angels, a loose coalition of Southern California angel investors, has tallied three successful exits since the start of the year.
The group counted two initial public offerings and a buyout among its investments.
Monrovia-based Green Dot Corp., a provider of reloadable prepaid debit cards, raised $164 million last month in a public offering.
Green Dot’s offering yielded a 110-times return for investors, according to the Tech Coast Angels website.
San Diego drugmaker Trius Therapeutics Inc. raised $50 million in its August public offering.
Los Angeles-based Language Weaver Inc., a maker of statistics software, was acquired in July by Britain’s SDL PLC for $43 million in cash.
“The three exits marked what has been a dynamic year for America’s largest angel investment network despite the economy,” the company said in a statement.
The Tech Coast Angels said it had done 14 new and follow-on deals by the end of second quarter totaling $19 million.
