A Track Record
of Disruptive
Innovation
The team behind Pensando has worked together for more than 25 years. They are the #1 innovation team in the world with an unmatched track record of disruptive innovation. This will be their #9 $multi-billion market.
Leadership
Co-founder & CEO
Previously at Cisco for +20 years, Prem developed and honed many key innovations that helped the company evolve, including Routing & Switching capabilities and Software Defined Networks
Most recently served as SVP / General Manager of Cisco INSBU
Co-founder and part of the unprecedented spin-in team for Andiamo Systems, Nuova Systems (CFO) and Insieme Networks (CEO), which were acquired for an aggregate amount >$2bn
Prior to Cisco, worked at Crescendo Systems (acquired by Cisco) and David Systems
B.E. in EE from Birla Institute of Technology and Science; M.S. in EECS from UC Davis
Co-founder & Chief Business Officer
Previously was at Cisco for +20 years, Soni has extensive experience in marketing and driving industry transformation through disruption and commercializing innovative technologies
Held numerous positions including SVP/GM, most recently serving as Cisco’s SVP of Marketing
- Over the last decade she has been involved with start up ventures as part of the MPLS team
- Co-founder and part of the spin-in teams for Nuova Systems and Insieme Networks at Cisco where she focused on all aspects of the business related to bringing the product to market with customers and partners, including market validation, product development, competitive analysis, etc.
Prior to joining Cisco, Soni held marketing executive positions at UB Networks and Excelan
Independent Non-Executive Director of The Sage Group plc
B.S. in Computer Science from University of London
CFO/COO
Previously at Cisco for +20 years, Randy’s key accomplishments include the establishment of consistent processes and operational metrics, double-digit productivity growth and augmenting the manufacturing model
Most recently served as Cisco’s EVP of Operations
Board member and secretary for the Cisco Foundation
Serves on the Board for Miller College of Business and MetricStream and as Trustee of the Ball State
University Foundation
B.S. in Accounting and Economics from Ball State University
Vipin Jain
Founder and CTO
Previously at Cisco for +15 years, Vipin has built products in multiple areas including Switching, Routing, Network Protocols, Embedded Systems, Distributed Systems, Software-defined Networking, Containers, Orchestration, Security, Cloud Infrastructure, and DevOps
Most recently served as a Distinguished Engineer at Cisco Systems
- He joined Cisco via acquisition of Nuova Systems
- During his tenure at Cisco he worked on ASIC definition for Nexus and ACI products. He also worked on the software architecture for Unified Computing System (UCS) and three generations of very successful Nexus 2k and Nexus 5k data center product line.
- Built Cisco’s open source container networking software, evangelized as Contiv in the community, that provides networking in Docker and Kubenetes
Prior to joining Cisco, Vipin held positions at Lucent, Riverstone Networks, Nortel Networks and Cabletron Systems
Has authored 15 patents
B Tech degree with Honors in Computer Science from NIT Warangal, India
Chief Revenue Officer
Frank brings over 28 years of industry experience to Pensando. Prior to joining the company, he was Senior Vice President of Global Data Center Sales at Cisco. While there, he drove the success of Cisco in the data center from annual revenues of $3 billion to over $11 billion today. Frank helped pioneer and expand Cisco’s presence in the data center with the introduction of multiple disruptive technologies that grew to multi $Bn/year businesses.
Francis Matus
Vice President of Engineering
Previously at Cisco for +15 years, Francis is part of the Pensando founding team. He has developed over 20 production ASICs in the areas of CPU, storage, and network design and covering process technology nodes starting at .25 micron with his latest designs in 7 nanometer
Most recently served as SVP of ASIC Hardware at Cisco
Prior to joining Cisco, held senior roles at AMD, Nishan Systems, Andiamo Systems, Nuova Systems, and Insieme Systems.
Holds 17 patents in the area of microprocessors, networking switch silicon, and optics
BSEE from LSU and attended UT Austin graduate school pursuing an MSEE
Vice President of Software
Previously at Cisco for +10 years, Krishna is part of the Pensando founding team. He is responsible for the development of the entire Pensando software stack
Most recently served as VP of Engineering at Cisco
- Founding engineer at Insieme networks where he lead the team that built ACI Switching Infrastructure (Insieme was acquired by Cisco Systems in late 2014)
- Worked at Nuova Systems (acquired by Cisco Systems in 2008) where he was responsible for the Nexus 2k/Nexus 5k/Nexus 6k product line software
- Krishna was one of the first employees at Greenfield Networks (later acquired by Cisco)
Has numerous patents in the field of Networking
Masters in Computer Engineering from Texas A&M, College Station
Vice President of Hardware Engineering
Previously at Cisco for +10 years, Victor has a proven track record of bringing innovative systems to market with technical management and design experience in all stages of development from conception to production
Most recently served as VP of UCS Engineering at Cisco
- Lead all platform engineering activities in the Compute Systems Product Group, including all Cisco UCS-B, infrastructure, and UCS-C servers: Hardware, low level platform software, and Firmware
- Lead HW engineering activities in Cisco’s Switching, Server Access and Virtualization Product Group including Cisco’s blade servers (UCS-B series), Nexus 2K-5K Access Switches and UCS-B Adapter products
Prior to joining Cisco, Victor held senior roles at Sun Microsystems and Nexi Systems
Holds 7 patents
BS in Electrical Engineering from California State University Fresno
Scott Stevens
Field CTO & VP, Global Systems Engineering
Scott has spent the last 7 years at Palo Alto Networks leading the Global SE’s where he grew the team from 117 to 1300. This included developing processes to scale the adoption of Palo’s technology to meet customer’s business outcomes.
Previous to that, Scott spent 14 years at Juniper Networks leading various teams, and left there leading the Global SE team. He also served as a US Air Force officer, where he had extensive hands-on and leadership roles in building wide area networks.
Founder, ASIC Architect & Designer
Previously at Cisco for +10 years, Mike has focused on Computer/Network Architecture and ASIC design for over 25 years
Most recently served as Distinguished Engineer at Cisco
Prior to joining Cisco, Mike held senior design roles at SGI, Growth Networks and Atheros Communications
Has 33 issued patents
BS/MS in Electrical Engineering from Stanford
Silvano Gai
Pensando Fellow
Previously at Cisco for +10 years, Silvano is the author of several books and technical publications on computer networking as well as multiple Internet Drafts and RFCs
Most recently served as a Cisco Fellow
- During his time at Cisco, he was an architect of the Cisco Catalyst family of network switches, the Cisco MDS family of storage networking switches, the Nexus family of data center switches and the Cisco Unified Computing System (UCS)
Prior to joining Cisco, Silvano was a full professor of Computer Engineering, tenure track, at Politecnico di Torino, Italy, and a researcher at the CNR (Italian National Council for Scientific Research)
Responsible for 50 issued patents
Diego Crupnicoff
Pensando Fellow
Previously at Mellanox Technologies for +18 years, Diego has been a member of the InfiniBand Trade Association and took part in the definition of the InfiniBand RDMA Standard
Most recently served as VP of Architecture for Mellanox Technologies driving chip and system architectures for multiple generation of Ethernet and RDMA products
- Previously chaired the IBTA Technical Working Group and was one of the founding directors of the OpenFabrics Alliance
- Over the past two decades, has participated in multiple other SDOs and Tech Committees including the IEEE802, IETF, T11, NVME and the ONF
Holds multiple patents in the areas of computer networks and system architecture
B.Sc. in Computer Engineering (Summa Cum Laude) and M.Sc. in EE. (Summa Cum Laude) both from the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology
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