Bio

Laura Black joined Needham & Company in 1999 and is a seasoned corporate finance professional as well as an experienced Board member. With over 30 years of experience in high technology, business strategy and finance, she has refined her expertise in developing shareholder value creation strategies and advising companies on equity capital raising and M&A. Laura serves as a board member of two publicly traded companies: VIAVI Solutions, a provider of network & service enablement and optical security and performance solutions, and Ichor Holdings, a leader in the design, engineering and manufacturing of critical fluid delivery subsystems for semiconductor capital equipment. She chairs the Corporate Development Committee and the Cybersecurity Steering Committee and serves on the Nominating & Governance for VIAVI; she chairs Ichor’s Nominating & Governance Committee and serves on the Audit Committee. She previously served as a board member of Super Micro, a provider of advanced computer server systems, for seven years. As an investment banker for Needham & Company, Laura has advised a broad range of technology companies on over $50 billion of mergers, acquisitions, IPOs and other equity financings. At Needham, Laura has focused on cybersecurity, infrastructure and enterprise software, and next-gen industrial technologies. She previously served as head of corporate finance at Black & Company where she raised public equity capital and completed numerous M&A and strategic advisory assignments. She also held the position of Director of M&A for TRW Avionics & Surveillance Group where she evaluated acquisition candidates, managed direct investments and divestitures, and raised venture capital to back spin-off companies. She began her career at TRW as an electronic circuit design engineer for spread spectrum communications systems. Laura earned an MS in management from Stanford University Graduate School of Business and an MSEE from Santa Clara University and a BSEE from the University of California at Davis.