Neil Senturia and Barbara Bry are perhaps San Diego's best-known entrepreneurial couple, with impressive individual resumes and a long list of co-accomplishments made possible through their marriage and business partnership, Blackbird Ventures.

 

 

Neil Senturia, CEO of San Diego News Network (SDNN), wanted to create the local news room of the future with this commercial endeavor.  Two of the hallmarks of SDNN are its innovative business model and proprietary technology.  

 

Neil has more than 25 years of diverse entrepreneurial endeavors including starting two software companies, a materials science company, developing 1.8 million square feet of real estate, and writing for popular television sit-coms. Atcom/Info, his first software company, pioneered high speed Internet access in hotel rooms and was sold for $65 million. Neil has been an adjunct professor in the MBA program at San Diego State University where he taught new venture creation, and he has served on the board of directors of SDSU’s Entrepreneurial Management Center. 

 

Neil has a B.A. degree in English from Tufts University, a masters’ degree in film from New York University, and he was a fellow at the American Film Institute. He thinks that he should have an MBA from Harvard since he has attended three reunions with Barbara and has been a frequent guest at the Harvard Club of New York.

 

Barbara Bry, Neil's wife and the associate publisher of SDNN, has been on the founding team of two companies and three non-profit organizations, including the Voice of San Diego.   At SDNN, she is focused on marketing and business development.   A Harvard MBA herself, she has been an active member of our community.

 

After graduation from HBS, Bry worked as a national business reporter for the Sacramento Bee and the Los Angeles Times.  In 1986 she accepted an offer to run the newly founded CONNECT program in Technology and Entrepreneurship at UCSD.  Not long after, in 1989, she founded Athena, a nonprofit organization for women technology executives, for which she also served as executive director. 

 

Next Barbara became a co-founder of Atcom, the leader in developing internet kiosks and high speed internet access in hotel rooms.  The company was sold in 1999 in a transaciton valued at $80 million and is now owned by Cisco.  In addition, Barbara was on the founding management team of proflowers.com, which completed a successful IPI in December 2003 as Provide Commerce (PRVD).