Founder of Microplace, Inc., Gerald D. Held is a businessperson who has been the head of 10 different companies and presently holds the position of Chairman of Software Development Technologies, Inc., Chairman at Tamr, Inc., Chairman for Madaket, Inc., Chief Executive Officer at Held Consulting Group LLC and Managing Director at Discovery Ventures LLC. Dr. Held is also on the board of 5 other companies.

Gerald D. Held previously occupied the position of Executive Chairman for Singlestore, Inc., Executive Chairman for TrickPlay, Inc., Chief Executive Officer at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers LLC, Acting Chief Executive Officer at Cantiga Systems, Inc., Director & Senior VP-Server Product Division at Oracle Corp., Chairman at Bella Pictures, Inc., Executive Chairman for Vertica Systems, Inc., CTO, Director, SVP-Strategy & VP-New Ventures at Tandem Computers, Inc., Senior Vice President-Strategy at New Ventures, Inc., Member of Montalvo Arts Center and Founding Director at Microplace, Inc.

He received an undergraduate degree from Purdue University, a graduate degree from the University of Pennsylvania and a doctorate from the University of California, Berkeley.