Ken Denman

Ken Denman is a General Partner at Sway Ventures and a voting member of the Investment Committee. Ken brings nearly two decades of CEO experience to Sway Ventures’ consumer and enterprise investments, garnered through successful transformations at several companies.

Ken is a former Silicon Valley technology CEO and now stays equally busy as a public and private board member and venture capitalist. Previously he was co-founder, President and Chief Executive Officer of Emotient, Inc., a developer of software technology to analyze facial expressions, until the company was acquired by Apple in January 2016. He was the Chief Executive Officer of Openwave Systems, Inc., subsequent to his role as the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of iPass, Inc., for which he led a successful IPO. Ken was also a Senior Vice President for MediaOne. As an expat, he was Chief Operating Officer of MediaOne International based in London.

He is a member of the boards of directors of Costco Wholesale, Inc., VMware, Inc., and Motorola Solutions, Inc., where he is the lead independent director and chair of the nominating and governance committee. He was appointed to the Edward V. Fritzky chair as visiting professor at the University of Washington’s Foster School of Business in 2012. Ken sits on the boards of the Foster School and the University of Washington Foundation. He and his wife Mary, reside in Cherry Hills Village, Colorado.