Silicon Valley Power 100: Newmark executive managing director Jon Mackey to Landing AI CEO Andrew Ng

Editor's note: For the first time, the Silicon Valley Business Journal has named the region's Power 100. This list represents the most influential business people in the region, as selected by SVBJ editors and reporters. For more about this project, and to see a full breakdown of list makers, click here.

Part VI: Read about these Power 100 list makers below:

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Newmark Group Inc.

Jon Mackey

Executive managing director and San Jose market leader, Newmark

For 21 years, Jon Mackey has been working with landlords and tenants alike on commercial real estate deals in Silicon Valley and along the Peninsula. Starting with the boutique brokerage of Cornish & Carey and then moving over to Newmark after the national firm acquired C&C in 2014, Mackey racked up a series of accomplishments inside and outside the firm. He rose to become managing director of Newmark's Silicon Valley office, which has topped the Business Journal's Commercial Real Estate Firms List for the past five years. Mackey also remains an active broker, having represented Tishman Speyer Properties on the largest U.S. office lease in 2021, Meta Platforms' nearly 720,000-square-foot lease of Moffett Green in Sunnyvale. 

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Scott Lewis

Connie Martinez 

CEO, SVCreates 

SVCreates is a non-propfit organization that cultivates, supports and promotes Silicon Valley's creative arts and culture scene. As its leader, Connie Martinez is at the forefront of the local arts scene, leading the charge in getting much-needed funding to both veteran and upcoming artists and programs. In her LinkedIn profile, Martinez defines herself to a "civic entrepreneur and community strategist," having hatched several community ventures, creating new not-for-profit business models and producing team-oriented solutions to complex issues impacting San Jose's arts community.  

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Maria Martinez 

Chief operating officer, Cisco Systems Inc. 

Maria Martinez, a veteran of Salesforce Inc. and Microsoft Inc., joined Cisco in 2018 with a mandate for change. Part of CEO Chuck Robbins multi-year effort to remake the venerable Silicon Valley tech company, Martinez began at the company as the newly created chief customer experience officer. She restructured the company, combining business units and focusing Cisco’s efforts around one thing: the customer. One of Martinez’s initiatives included advocating a “customer obsession” mantra that directed employees to do more to satisfy customer needs. In 2021, Robbins boosted Martinez to chief operating officer, a role that will keep her busy as Cisco cuts its workforce by 5% in a $600 million restructuring plan. 

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Ann Mather

Ann Mather

Board member, Alphabet, Netflix, Arista Networks, and Airbnb

Ann Mather's career illustrates the moment when Hollywood and Silicon Valley connected. Following stints with Village Roadshow Pictures and The Walt Disney Company, Mather became executive vice president and chief financial officer for Pixar in 1999 just as it kicked off somewhat contentious partnership with Disney. Mather left Pixar in 2004 and found success on the boards of many of Silicon Valley’s most dynamic and influential tech companies including Alphabet Inc., Netflix Inc., and Airbnb. She also chaired the board of MGM Studios before its acquisition by Amazon.com Inc. in 2021. Mather’s board tenures have seen her guide such notable IPOs as Arista Networks Inc., Bumble Inc. and Airbnb.

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Laura Layera

Katia McClain

Chief people officer and partner, Steinberg Hart

For more than a decade Katia McClain has worked in San Jose but she says her hometown of Mexico City still shapes her approach to architecture. She often talks to young Latinos about the importance of embracing their culture. “We come from families rich in history; they’re centered around people,” she said. “They’re full of texture and color. That authenticity, that honesty, where we come from, can actually add value to a team, to a society, to a design.” McClain joined architectural firm Steinberg Hart as its Northern California managing principal in August 2017. An active member of the San Jose Downtown Association (SJDA) Downtown Design Committee, she is the immediate past president of the SJDA's board of directors.

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ServiceNow

Bill McDermott 

CEO, ServiceNow Inc.

While other Silicon Valley employers are shedding staff — in some case by the thousands — ServiceNow is going the other way. Under CEO Bill McDermott, the company has steadily added employees, climbing the ranks of the region's top employers. And unlike other his peers, McDermott has declared his company "absolutely" will have no layoffs this year. McDermott has been a fixture in the tech industry for decades. Prior to joining ServiceNow in 2019, he was the CEO of SAP SE. Known for wearing sunglasses following an accident that cost him his left eye, McDermott has been recognized multiple times for his management style.

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Judy Miner

Chancellor, Foothill-De Anza Community College District

Judy Miner, the chancellor for the Foothill-De Anza Community College District, stays busy. Besides leading the two-campus district in Los Altos Hills and Cupertino, Miner has become a vocal advocate for community colleges writ large. Miner, who grew up in San Francisco and was the first in her family to go to college, serves on a collection of regional and national advisory boards as well as being on the executive board of the Silicon Valley Leadership Group. Plus, Miner funds two $2,000 scholarships each year to one Foothills and one DeAnza student who is enrolled in a workplace major.

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LiPo Ching | San Francisco Business Times

Mark D. Mordell 

CEO and chairman, Avidbank Holdings Inc. 

Mark Mordell began his career in real estate, and soon found he had a knack for identifying “problem projects” and turning them around. In 1991, Mordell founded the real estate management company, CBC Properties. It was here working with small banks that eventually led him first to join Avidbank’s board in 2006 and become its chairman the next year. In 2012, he became the San Jose-based business bank’s CEO. Mordell, who played college football at Stanford University, remains modest about his success. He believes three ingredients make a company work: “Some leadership, plans and some good people.” One to-do on Mordell’s list for the future: take Avidbank through an initial public offering within the next two years. 

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Adobe

Shantanu Narayen

CEO, chairman and president, Adobe Inc. 

Adobe Inc. has been a fixture in downtown San Jose since it moved its headquarters there from Mountain View in 1996. Under CEO Shantanu Narayen, the company is the fourth largest private employer in the city with some 3,800 workers and is a top 10 corporate philanthropist in Silicon Valley. Narayen is doubling down on the region. The company is near completion of its new North Tower and plans to move in soon. The tower can accommodate future expansion by up to 3,000 employees and add 700,000 square feet of space to Adobe's footprint in San Jose's core.

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Andrew Ng 

CEO and founder, Landing AI 

Co-chairman and co-founder, Coursera Inc. 

Andrew Ng is a busy man. He’s one of the leading voices around AI in Silicon Valley. As CEO of Landing AI, Ng puts his expertise to work. The Palo Alto-based company has developed a novel computer vision technology with applications across a range of industries — to help manufacturers with defect detection with a relatively small data set, for example. Founded in 2017, Landing has raised $57 million, according to Crunchbase data. Also in 2017, Ng launched the $175 million AI Fund to — you guessed it — fund startups pursuing artificial intelligence and related tech. Ng is an adjunct professor at Stanford and has co-authored more than 200 research papers around machine learning, robotics and related topics. In 2012 he co-founded an education platform called Coursera Inc.  At Google LLC he helped direct the Google Brain deep-learning project and has run teams and conducted research around big data and AI at Baidu USA. 

CLICK HERE: Read about the next 10 people on the Power 100.

The SVBJ Power 100 was written by editor-in-chief J. Jennings Moss, managing editor Troy Wolverton, special projects editor Lynn Peithman Stock, assistant editor Olivia Peterkin, technology editor Cromwell Schubarth and senior reporter Max A. Cherney. Also contributing were Michelle Boudin, Anthony Duignan-Cabrera, Danny King and Terry Wimmer.