Leann Pinto, former Director of Patent Licensing at IBM, joins IPwe as President
IPwe announced that Leann Pinto is joining the company as President, effective immediately. As IPwe President, Leann will be primarily responsible for day-to-day executive management, developing corporate strategy and expanding enterprise relationships.
Leann joins IPwe after three years at IBM, where she was a key player in the patent business group, serving, most recently, as the Director of Patent Licensing. At IBM, she oversaw the monetization of its renowned patent portfolio of almost 65,000 patents worldwide and was personally responsible for generating over $150 million in revenue during her tenure.
Leann first became aware of IPwe CEO Erich Spangenberg when she was a patent litigator in the pharmaceutical space, achieving notable victories for numerous international brand pharma companies. When she was introduced to Erich again upon transitioning to IBM, Leann was impressed with IPwe’s evolved patent monetization approach and collaborated with IPwe through the companies’ partnership to improve understanding, promote adoption and transactional efficiency in this critical asset class.
“When working with the IPwe team in the past, I was amazed by their skills, creativity and passion to transform the intellectual property space,” said Leann. “Now, I am excited to work with Erich and the great team he has assembled to further scale IPwe’s proprietary data and technology into a user-friendly platform that not only enables a more efficient patent monetization process but also provides clear metrics on the value and return on investment for intellectual property assets to all stakeholders, including both finance and business leaders.
“From my time at IBM, I know we have to be more collaborative, inclusive and transparent to effectively manage this critical asset class and I believe I can make a significant contribution to advancing this effort at IPwe.”
“Leann is a force in the patent licensing space and her knowledge will allow IPwe to expand our operations and grow our enterprise-level clientele,” said Spangenberg. “She has a proven track record with enterprise and the skills necessary to improve our products and give us insights on how to improve the user experience for all our customers. Leann is committed to scaling IPwe so that we can bring transparency, collaboration and efficiency to the intellectual property space”.
