Stephen Hughes is a Senior Relationship Manager for Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) based in Los Angeles.  Stephen leads the SVB Financial Group Early Stage team in the region. The Early Stage team focuses on the banking needs of Technology, Life Science, and Cleantech companies from startup through revenues of $75MM. Through its 27 domestic offices and operations in England, India, Israel, and China, SVB Financial Group (NASD: SIVB) provides domestic and international commercial banking, investment management, and valuation services to technology companies at all stages of their life cycles -- from startup to public. With over 10,000 clients, SVB is the preferred partner for more than half of the venture-backed technology companies in the US.

Prior to joining SVB, Stephen served as Co-founder & CFO of How2TV, a video-based "helpdesk" for leading consumer electronics companies. At How2TV, Stephen wrote the initial business plan, built the financial infrastructure, raised capital from JP Morgan Partners and Thomas Weisel Partners, and ultimately assisted in the sale of the company to another venture-backed entity in 2001. Prior to How2TV, he founded Royal Bank of Canada's US Technology Banking Group in 1993, providing banking services to 40 of the 50 largest technology companies in the US, including IBM, Microsoft, Cisco, Intel, Oracle, HP, and Dell.

He earned both his MBA and an Honors BA in Business Administration from the Ivey Business School in Canada.