meet the team
PIUS team members have successfully facilitated more than $40 billion in technology and intellectual property transactions.

Joe A. Agiato
Founder and CEO
Joe Agiato is the Founder, President and Chief Executive Officer of PIUS. Joe oversees the structuring and pricing of deals, all due diligence functions, and developing and maintaining deal sourcing, patent, trademark and trade name valuations.
Joe holds a MBA with a concentration in Finance, a MS in Valuation Sciences, and a BS in Accounting and Economics.

Kimberly Cauthorn
COO
Kimberly Klein Cauthorn is Chief Operating Officer of PIUS, overseeing all business operations and assisting in product development. An attorney, Kim brings more than 30 years of legal, academic, consulting, and insurance experience to her role.
Kim has researched and written extensively on IP risk and insurance topics and has spoken on the subject at conferences across North America and Europe. She holds a J.D. from St. Mary’s University School of Law where she was an articles editor for the St. Mary’s Law Journal, and a B.A. in English from the University of Texas.

Harry W. Rodgers
CMO
Harry has responsibility for product distribution through the insurance broker channel and for insurance carrier relationships. He also assists with the design and development of PIUS’s insurance programs.
Harry is a graduate of the University of Tennessee and is accredited as a Certified Insurance Counselor (CIC). Harry is proud to serve on the board of the Divers Alert Network (DAN), which provides worldwide medical assistance, medical research, and scuba-diving insurance products for over 250,000 members.

Alexis Coyle
Senior Managing Director
Alexis Coyle brings global financing expertise to PIUS, including 20 years working with technology companies of all sizes and life stages at Silicon Valley Bank, ABN AMRO Bank, and Scotia Capital. She started her career in corporate banking in New York, with Citibank and TD Bank. Most recently, she founded and led the Technology Banking team in San Francisco for East West Bank.
Alexis holds a BA in Mathematics from Wellesley College.

Sam Khoury
Managing Director
Sam Khoury brings to PIUS more than 25 years of valuation and licensing experience. In addition to the valuation of patents, trade secrets, trademarks and general know-how, he has developed training courses on technology assessment and valuation. He is also the President and Founder of Inavisis, a firm dedicated to intellectual asset management (IAM) and leveraging of corporate intangible properties. Previously, he was Senior Intangible Asset Appraiser of The Dow Chemical Company.
Sam holds a Ph.D in Chemistry, MS in Organic Chemistry, and a MBA.

Jaime Siegel
Managing Director
Jaime Siegel brings more than 25 years of international intellectual property experience to the PIUS team. More than half of his career was spent with Sony, where he was the Vice President and Senior IP Counsel, responsible for global patent licensing and litigation. He oversaw programs that generated well over one billion dollars. Jaime’s responsibilities included intellectual property licensing, litigation, and counseling. He led a global team developing and executing on licensing programs on a variety of Sony’s technologies, which included a patent portfolio of several thousand patents.
Jaime also served as Chairman of the Board of MPEG LA, the world’s most successful patent licensing pool, for two years. Prior to joining Sony, Jaime was an associate attorney at the leading IP firms of Fish & Neave and Kenyon & Kenyon, and an engineer in the aerospace industry.

Lee A. Shodiss
Director
Lee Shodiss has more than 30 years of experience in the financial services industry, focused on asset-based lending, serving technology and non-technology markets across the U.S.
Lee has a B.A. in Economics with an emphasis in management from the University of California, Irvine. He holds board positions on Team IMPACT and Touch-A-Life Foundation.

Amelia Erickson
Senior Analyst
Amelia Erickson is the Senior Analyst at PIUS and uses her technical skills to assess potential clients. Amelia takes a holistic approach when analyzing companies, looking at not only the intellectual property and technology, but also the company’s financial position, investors, business model, and market share.

Catherine L. Smith
CAO
Catherine Smith is the Chief Administrative Officer for PIUS, managing the day-to-day administrative needs of the company. She oversees the planning, management and direction of activities between the departments and outside the company. She is also responsible for budgeting, executive reporting, and marketing administration.