William E. Mitchell

William E. (Bill) Mitchell is the founding partner of Sequel Venture Partners, LLC (formerly Sequel Capital Management, LLC), formed in January 2010 to provide transformational capital, breakthrough strategic thinking and management expertise to innovative companies ranging from early stage start-ups to mid-level enterprises, primarily in the technology sector.

Prior to this, Mitchell was chairman of the board and chief executive officer of Arrow Electronics, Inc. (NYSE: ARW), a $23 billion Fortune 120 company providing distribution and advanced supply chain solutions to the technology industry. He joined Arrow in February 2003 as president and chief executive officer, was named chairman of the board in May 2006, and retired as chairman of the board and chief executive officer in January 2010.

Mitchell began his career at Raychem Corporation, where he spent more than 20 years in various roles in finance, manufacturing, international operations, worldwide sales and marketing and senior executive management. In 1993, he was named president and chief executive officer of Nashua Corporation, a manufacturer of specialty products and services for print application needs. In 1995, he became chairman, president and chief executive officer of Sequel, Inc., then a privately held computer services company. Mitchell then led the acquisition of Sequel, Inc. by Solectron Corporation (now part of Flextronics International), where he formed Solectron Global Services and built a $1.2 billion technology services company.

Currently, Mitchell serves on the Board of Directors for Rogers Corporation (NYSE: ROG) as its lead independent director; Humana Inc. (NYSE: HUM) where he also serves on the Audit and Nominating and Governance Committees; and Veritiv, Inc. (NYSE: VRTV), as the presiding director of this company created from the merger in July 2014 of XpedX, the distribution arm of International Paper and Unisource Worldwide, a Bain Capital company. Previously, he served on the Board of Directors of National Semiconductor prior to its sale to Texas Instruments, as well as the Brown-Forman Corporation, where he was chair of the Audit Committee. He was also chair of the Compensation Committee of Spansion, Inc., which merged in March 2015 with Cypress Semiconductor, Inc.

Mitchell is active with educational institutions. He serves as a director of the UCLA Foundation where he is the immediate past chair. In addition, he serves on the Board of Directors of the Westwood Technology Transfer Corporation, which has oversight responsibility for the intellectual property portfolio of the university; and he previously served as a director of the UCLA Investment Company.

He has also served on the Board of Directors of the Metropolitan Opera of New York, the Lincoln Center Corporate Leadership Committee, and the Eisenhower Fellowships Foundation.

Mitchell holds a bachelor’s degree in engineering from Princeton University where he graduated magna cum laude and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. He received his master’s degree in engineering from the University of Michigan where he was named a National Science Foundation Fellow. He has served as a member of the University of Michigan College of Engineering Advisory Council.