Christopher J. Rowan

Mr. Rowan is a founding Managing Director of AvTech Ventures.
He has ten years domestic and international entrepreneurial experience building and managing technology ventures as well as investment experience identifying, executing and managing technology investments.
After working at an advertising agency in Paris, France, he lived and worked in Japan for ten years, where as a General Manager of International Business Development at Sony, he spearheaded several technology, multimedia, Internet and new technology intrapreneurial and investment successes in Japan, the United States and Europe.
In 1999, Mr. Rowan joined IRI (Japan), Japan’s Internet technology and business building leader.
He was a core member of the successful IPO team.
After managing several successful investments and start up launches in Japan, he then founded IRI USA in 2000 to expand IRI’s investment activity to the US.
Mr. Rowan is a member of the Boards of Directors of Rebol Technologies, Miva Corporation, a leading e-commerce company and Sports-J, Japan’s preeminent online sports information service, is an accomplished computer programmer in several languages and has extensive experience vetting various technological investments.
Mr. Rowan received his BS (cum laude) in International Marketing from Santa Clara University and completed Sophia University’s Japanese Language Institute graduate course in Japanese.
He is literate, and conversationally and culturally fluent in Japanese.