Agiliance Board of Directors
- Patrick J. Conte
- Pravin Kothari
- Mary Coleman
- Peter Burckhardt
- Nina Saberi
- Kip Myers
- Gilles Samoun
- Sean Cunningham
- Cliff Higgerson
Patrick J. Conte
President and Chief Executive Officer
Member of the Board
As Chief Executive Officer, Patrick Conte is responsible for driving the company’s overall vision, executing on its strategy, overseeing all business operations and working closely with customers and partners to grow the business. Mr. Conte joined Agiliance from a series of successful early stage startups.
At Teneros, the leader in Application Continuity Appliances, he was EVP and General Manager of Field Operations responsible for the company's go-to-market strategy and execution, field sales, channels, support, NOC operations, and marketing. Prior to Teneros, as VP Worldwide Field Operations, he led Topspin to the number one spot in the InfiniBand switching market, and drove the OEM and Enterprise sales strategies that led to a $250M acquisition by Cisco Systems in May 2005. Prior to Topspin, he was VP of Sales and Marketing at Cobalt Networks during its IPO, the third largest in 1999, for this pioneer in Server Appliances which was then acquired by Sun Microsystems for $3.4B. Prior to Cobalt, he was VP of Sales and Channels at Dynamic Pictures, a leader in high performance 3d graphics that was acquired by 3dlabs, Inc. in July 1998.
Mr. Conte has also held positions at Wyse Technology, where as VP Sales he led the go-to-market of the industry's first network appliance, Winterm, and at Netscaler, where as EVP Sales & Marketing his teams delivered the industry's leading Web Traffic Management and Secure Applications appliances. Mr. Conte holds a BS in Political Science and History from James Madison University, and an MS in International Relations from Northern Illinois University.
Pravin Kothari
Founder and Chief Technology Officer
Chairman of the Board
As Chief Technology Officer of Agiliance, Pravin Kothari is responsible for product vision, product strategy and engineering.
Prior to founding Agiliance, Mr. Kothari was the founding VP of Engineering at ArcSight, a leading security information management software company, where he led the product development for five years from inception to market dominance. Prior to ArcSight, Mr. Kothari was the founding Chief Architect at Impresse Corporation. Previously, he held technical leadership positions at Verity, Attachmate and Tata Consultancy Services. Mr. Kothari has over twenty years of successfully bringing new products to market in information security, compliance, enterprise software, SaaS services, and large-scale software infrastructure.
Mr. Kothari holds an MS in Computer Science from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Bombay. He is a Certified Information Systems Auditor (CISA), Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP), and Charter Member of TiE, a global organization dedicated to the advancement of entrepreneurship.
Mary Coleman
Member of the Board
Mary Coleman is Managing Director, USA for Walden International,a global venture firm. Mary joined Walden International in 2002.
Prior to joining WI, she was CEO of Rightworks, an e-procurement and trading exchange software firm, which was acquired by I2 Technologies. She joined Rightworks from Internet Capital Group, where she had been a Managing Director focusing on investments in enterprise software and internet infrastructure including companies such as Rightworks. Prior to Internet Capital Group, Mary was the CEO of the Baan Company, a leading European ERP software firm. She attained this position after selling Aurum Software, a customer relationship management software firm, where she was the CEO, to the Baan Company, after taking Aurum Software public on NASDAQ. Earlier in her career Mary served as a Vice President of Marketing in several high technology firms. Mary studied electrical engineering and computer science at the University of Colorado in Boulder.
Peter Burckhardt
Member of the Board
Peter Burckhardt is President of Burckhardt Consulting, LLC and has 15 years of consulting, high technology operating and investment experience. Mr. Burckhardt has been supporting Silicon Valley Innovation Company (SVIC) since 2000, launching and working with Agiliance, ArcSight, and CloudShield.
Previously, Mr. Burckhardt served as Director of Strategy at Corio (acquired by IBM), where he redesigned the product offering and initiated joint venture deals to expand internationally. Prior to Corio, he was an Engagement Manager at McKinsey and managed high technology projects focusing on strategy and operations. Mr. Burckhardt led Credit Suisse First Boston’s global technology project with 600 full-time employees and a $200 million budget.
Mr. Burckhardt holds a Master of Science in Electrical Engineering from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology and an M.B.A. from the University of Chicago, where he received a Rotary ambassadorial scholarship, led the Technology Management Group and majored in Accounting and Finance.
Nina Saberi
Member of the Board
Nina Saberi is the founder and managing general partner of early stage venture capital firm Castile Ventures. An industry veteran with extensive investment and operational experience, Nina entered the venture community as a general partner of OneLiberty. She began her technical carrier at a start-up, went on to lead a successful joint venture, and then turned around a venture-backed company. Nina was the CEO of Netlink which was acquired by Cabletron in 1996, ranking among the top three acquisitions of the year.
In addition to Agiliance, Nina's investments include security and compliance companies ChosenSecurity, GeoTrust (acquired by VeriSign) and Network Intelligence (acquired by EMC), as well as Ahura Scientific, Aurora Networks, Brix Networks (acquired by EXFO), Sonus (NASDAQ:SONS), and Trapeze Networks (acquired by Belden).
Ms. Saberi is the Chair of the Advisory Council at the University of Rhode Island's College of Engineering where she received her BS in Electrical Engineering.
Gilles Samoun
Member of the Board
Gilles Samoun is the Chairman and CEO of Solsoft. Mr. Samoun joined Solsoft after working at Benchmark Capital as a member of its EIR team. Prior to Benchmark, Mr. Samoun was the founder and CEO of Qualys where he established the company as the leading global online security auditing service provider. Before founding Qualys, Mr. Samoun was the CEO of MediaPath Technologies, a LAN caching software company which was privately acquired. He also spent 5 years at Verity, a leading provider of software solutions that power business portals, where he served as General Manager and Vice President for Europe. While at Verity, Mr. Samoun successfully managed sales growth and developed the company's European presence. Prior to Verity, Mr. Samoun held various technical leadership and management positions at Artefix and Fininfo.
Mr. Samoun holds a degree in Physics from Orsay University, and a Masters in Computer Science from Paris Jussieu University.
Kip Meyers
Member of the Board
Kip Myers is a Partner with Red Rock Ventures where he has established a track record as a successful venture investor and entrepreneur.
Prior to Red Rock, Kip was a partner in Vanguard III, IV and V over a fourteen year period. Previously, he was founder and vice president of engineering and marketing of Plexus Computers. Kip also co-founded Onyx Systems. Earlier he served as an engineering manager at Zilog.
Kip earned an M.B.A. and a B.S.E.E. from U.C. Berkeley.
Sean Cunningham
Board Observer
Sean Cunningham has spent over 25 years managing, investing and building companies in the high tech industry.
Mr. Cunningham joined Intel in 1994 and has worked in multiple management roles in Marketing and Sales. Sean spent three years as an entrepreneur with Intel startup companies funded by Intel New Business Investment group. He has been making equity investments with Intel Capital since 2000, and currently serves as Director of Strategic Investments responsible for Intel investments in enterprise and internet security technology. He is leading investments for multiple Intel business units.
Mr. Cunningham serves as the Intel Capital Board of Director Observer on Agiliance, Cloakware, Credant Technologies, Crossbeam Systems, Tricipher, Lockdown Networks, Signacert and Lifemasters . He previously was Board of Director Observer for Zone Labs (acquired by Checkpoint Software), Musicmatch (acquired by Yahoo) and Trymedia (acquired by Macrovision).
Prior to Intel, Mr. Cunningham was responsible for Marketing and Service Management functions for over five years with Sequent Computers. He also held numerous Finance Management and Marketing positions during his seven years at ISC Systems.
Mr. Cunningham graduated from Gonzaga University with a BBA in Finance and Management. He earned his MBA from Gonzaga University.
Cliff Higgerson
Board Observer
Cliff Higgerson is a Venture Partner with Walden International. Cliff Higgerson has more than 35 years of experience in research, consulting, planning and venture investing. Cliff has backed some of the most successful companies in the communications industry.
Recent investments and board seats include Astute Networks, Hatteras Networks, Kotura, Lambda OpticalSystems, Ygnition, and Xtera Communications. Prior to investments include such industry leaders as Advanced Fibre Communications (Nasdaq: AFCI); America Online; Ciena (Nasdaqa; CIEN); Digital Island (acquired by Cable & Wireless); Digital Microwave, now Stralex Networks (Nasdaq: STXN); Tellabs (Nasdaq: TLAB); MCI (Nasdaq: MCIP); Octel (NYSE: OTL); and Tut Systems (Nasdaq: TUTS).
Cliff was a Founding Partner of ComVentures and a General Partner with Vanguard Venture Partners. He has also served as a Managing Partner and Director of Research for Hambrecht & Quist, and as a Special Limited Partner and Director of the Communications Group for L.F. Rothschild, Unterberg, Towbin.
Cliff holds an MBA from the University of California at Berkeley, and a BS from the University of Illinois.