Brook H. Byers will join Stanford's Board of Trustees in April

Brook H. Byers was instrumental in forming the Byers Eye Institute, which is part of Stanford Hospital & Clinics. (Photo: Courtesy of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers)

The Stanford University Board of Trustees has elected venture capital investor Brook H. Byers, a partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers in Menlo Park, Calif., to a five-year term that begins April 1.

"We are fortunate to welcome Brook Byers to the Stanford Board of Trustees," said Leslie Hume, chair of the board.

"With a distinguished career in venture capital and a deep knowledge of entrepreneurship in the health care, engineering, business and environmental sectors, Brook brings perspective and expertise that will be invaluable to the university. He also is passionate about education, the arts and public policy. I am grateful to Brook for making this commitment to serving Stanford."

Byers was instrumental in forming the Byers Eye Institute, which is dedicated to combating blindness and preserving sight. The institute, which is part of Stanford Hospital & Clinics, was dedicated in 2011.

Byers also served on Stanford's Graduate School of Business Advisory Council, which provides external perspective and review, as well as advocacy and support for the school's programs, strategic direction and overall objectives.

In addition, he served on Stanford's Interdisciplinary Biosciences Advisory Council from 2003 to 2011. Its members – leading figures from the venture capital community and industry, including biotechnology and information technology – served as advisers to the Bio-X Program and to the Department of Bioengineering.

Byers, who was raised in Atlanta, earned a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology in 1968 and an MBA at the Stanford Graduate School of Business in 1970. Two years later, he became a venture capital investor.

In 1977, Byers joined Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers as a named partner. Byers has been personally involved with entrepreneur teams in building more than 50 new technology-based ventures, many of which have become public companies.

Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers is a premier venture capital firm in the medical, health care and biotechnology sectors, as well as in the digital, social web, e-commerce and green-tech sectors.

Byers was the founding president and chair of four biotechnology companies that were incubated in the firm's offices and later became public companies with an aggregate market value of more than $8 billion.

He has been associated with companies that pioneered the medical use of molecular biology, monoclonal antibodies, personalized medicine, molecular diagnostics, genomics and gene sequencing.

Currently, he is serving on the board of directors of CardioDX Inc., Crescendo Bioscience Inc., Genomic Health Inc., Five Prime Therapeutics Inc., OptiMedica Corp., Pacific Biosciences Inc., Tethys Bioscience Inc., Veracyte Inc. and XDx Inc.

Formerly, Byers served as the chair of Idec Pharmaceuticals Corp., Athena Neurosciences Inc. and Hybritech Inc., and as a director of several other companies, including Signal Pharmaceuticals Inc., Onyx Pharmaceuticals Inc., Gen-Probe Inc. and Electronic Arts Inc.

Currently, Byers is a board member of the University of California at San Francisco Foundation and the NewSchools Venture Fund, a nonprofit venture philanthropy firm dedicated to creating a future in which children, regardless of race or economic status, have access to the resources they need to succeed in college and beyond.

He also served as president and a director of the Western Association of Venture Capitalists, and was a founder of TechNet. In 2008, he was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. A year later, he received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Venture Capital Association. In 2010 he received an honorary doctorate from Georgia Tech.

Previously, Byers served as a director of the Entrepreneurs Foundation, the California Healthcare Institute, the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco and the Georgia Tech Advisory Board.

Including Byers, the Board of Trustees will have 32 members at its next meeting, April 16-17, three fewer than its limit of 35.

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