Mark Heising founded Medley Partners, a private market investment firm, in 2004. Previously he was the Founder of VLSI Cores, which designed and licensed cryptographic integrated circuits. He holds six U.S. Patents in cryptography, compression and data communications. Mark serves on the board of directors for Sion Power. He is Chair of the Environmental Defense Fund. He is a Trustee for the Institute for Advanced Study and a Board member for the Heising-Simons Foundation and the Heising-Simons Action Fund. Mark and his wife, Liz Simons, took the Giving Pledge in 2016, publicly committing the majority of their wealth to philanthropic causes. Mark earned a BS in Physics and a MS in Electrical