Editor at Large at CNET Networks and author of the Release 0.9 blog, Esther works to foster innovation, entrepreneurship and bottom-up thinking across industries. Her next event is the third annual Flight School: Air, on the on-demand aviation industry, which will take place next June 20 to 22 at the Aspen Institute.

In her private investment activities, Esther focuses on emerging technologies, emerging companies and emerging markets. Esther is also an active player in policy-making concerning the Internet and society. From 1998 to 2000, she was founding chairman of ICANN (the organization responsible for overseeing the Domain Name System).

After graduating from Harvard in economics, Esther began her serious career in 1974 as a fact-checker for Forbes and quickly rose to reporter. In 1977 she joined New Court Securities as "the research department," following Federal Express and other start-ups. After a stint at Oppenheimer covering software companies, she moved to Rosen Research and in 1983 bought the company from her employer Ben Rosen, renaming it EDventure Holdings.

The daughter of an English physicist and a Swiss mathematician, Esther started traveling in Eastern Europe in 1989 and eventually helped to fill the small but vital vacuum at the intersection of Eastern Europe, high-tech and venture capital, even as she remains active in the US and Western Europe