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Executive Team
Russell Stern
Dean Barnat | Scott Hughes |
Russ Krapf | Steve Pope | Martin Porter
Derek Roberts | Danny Shamlou | Mike Smith | Bruce Tolley |
George Zimmerman
Solarflare Communications is managed by an experienced team with a successful record of delivering physical layer and data networking products into complex markets and solving difficult communications problems.
Russell Stern
President and Chief Executive Officer
Russell Stern has served as President
and CEO at Solarflare Communications since 2004. He was formerly President and CEO
at JNI Corporation in San Diego, California. Prior to JNI, Mr. Stern served as General
Manager and COO at Quantum Corporation. For more than 13 years, he held a number
of increasingly responsible positions in the disc drive industry including five
years at Western Digital Corporation in Irvine, CA, where he held the positions
of Sr. VP, R and D, VP, Worldwide Operations and as Co-Chief Operating Officer.
Mr. Stern has also held executive engineering and marketing positions with Seagate
Technology and Adaptec. He began his career at IBM, where he held various engineering
and management positions in the development and manufacturing of the IBM PC / XT
/ AT and PS/2. He obtained his Bachelor of Technology in Electrical Engineering
from the Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester, NY. Mr. Stern is also a
Foundation Board member of the Orange County High School of the Arts, a chartered
public school in Santa Ana, CA.
Dean Barnat
Vice President, Operations
Dean Barnat is responsible for Solarflare’s
world-wide supply chain manufacturing operations including foundry, assembly, test
and logistics. Dean has over 20 years of industry experience encompassing IC test
development, product engineering and manufacturing operations. Previously, he was
VP of Operations for RF Magic, a successful RFIC company acquired in June 2007 by
Entropic Communications. Dean also worked for Peregrine Semiconductor, Brooktree,
and Unisys Corporation and contributed to or led development and deployment of numerous
digital, mixed signal and RFIC test solutions supporting characterization, qualification
and production for these companies. Dean’s background also includes enterprise
yield management. He ran professional services for Syntricity Inc. makers of yield
analysis software for the semiconductor industry. Dean holds a BSEE degree from
San Diego State University.
Scott Hughes
Chief Financial Officer and Vice President, Finance and Administration
Scott Hughes is responsible for all financial,
human resources, legal and IT functions at Solarflare. He was formerly VP, Worldwide
Services at Quantum Corporation, a leading supplier of tape drives and storage automation
systems. Prior to Quantum, he spent over 10 years at disc drive maker Western Digital
Corporation, where he held several senior management positions including VP, Human
Resources, VP, Sales Operations, and VP, E-Business. Scott started his career with
Hewitt Associates, a consulting firm specializing in compensation, benefits and
human resource management. He holds a BA and MA in Economics from Stanford University.
Russ Krapf
Vice President of Sales and Business Development
Russ Krapf is responsible for all worldwide
sales and business development efforts which includes strengthening customer relationships
and OEM partnerships. Russ was formerly with ARIO Data Networks where he was CEO
and introduced innovative storage networking solutions. Prior to that, Russ was
VP of Business Development in the Fibre Channel connectivity business at JNI Corp
in San Diego, where he was responsible for all Business Development strategy and
ultimately for the sale of the company to AMCC. Russ was VP of Business Development
at Western Digital Corporation and he has held a number of other CEO and senior
executive positions in the past with companies such as Keen Personal Media, Western
Digital, Censtor and Seagate. Russ holds a BS in Engineering Science from Florida
State University and an MBA from Boston University.
Steve Pope, PhD
Co-Founder and Chief Technical Officer
Steve Pope is the CTO for controllers at Solarflare. Previously he co-founded Level
5 Networks and prior to that was a post-doctorate researcher in the field of high-speed
networks and operating systems at Olivetti Research Labs, which later became AT&T
Laboratories Cambridge. He holds a PhD in Computer Science from the University of
Cambridge.
Martin Porter
Vice President, Software Development
Prior to Porter's positions with Solarflare, he served as software director for
three years at Level 5 Networks, which merged with Solarflare in 2006. Porter spent
the five previous years in the same role at Conexant where he oversaw the protocol
stack development group for ADSL silicon. He holds a first class degree in mathematics
from Nottingham University and a master's with distinction from York University.
Derek Roberts, PhD
Co-Founder and Vice President, Hardware Architecture
Derek Roberts is responsible for the controller hardware architecture at Solarflare.
He co-founded Level 5 Networks in July 2002. Prior to this, Dr. Roberts was the
hardware architect for the CLAN high-performance networking project at AT&T
Laboratories Cambridge. While at AT&T Labs, he was also responsible for numerous
leading-edge hardware developments. Previously, Dr. Roberts headed up application
software development at Myriad Solutions. He holds a first class degree in Electrical
Sciences and a PhD in Voltage Standards from the University of Cambridge.
Danny Shamlou
Senior Vice President of Engineering
Shamlou joins Solarflare with over 15 years of senior level engineering management
experience. Prior positions include general management and engineering vice president
roles at Mindspeed and Conexant where he was responsible for timely execution and
production release of several mixed signal Systems-on-Chip (SoC) products. Most
recently, Shamlou worked for Starport Systems as vice president of engineering where
he led the development of ultra high-frequency radio frequency identification SoC
and a 65nm XFI SERDES IP core. He has a bachelor's degree from the University of
Tennessee and a master's degree from Georgia Tech.
Mike Smith
Vice President, Product Marketing
Mike Smith is responsible for product planning, product management and product marketing
at Solarflare. Previously, he was Executive VP of Worldwide Marketing at Emulex,
a leader in the storage networking market. At Emulex, Mike played a key role in
driving product strategy and customer engagements, and was instrumental in securing
design wins with major OEMs. Prior to Emulex, he held various marketing management
roles at Adaptec and spent 10 years at Western Digital, where he held a variety
of marketing management and engineering positions. Mike began his career at Texas
Instruments as a design engineer. He holds an MBA from University of California,
Irvine and a BS in Electrical Engineering from the New Jersey Institute of Technology.
Bruce Tolley, PhD
Vice President, Corporate & FinServ Vertical Marketing
Bruce Tolley is responsible for corporate and financial services vertical marketing including technical, event,
and partner marketing activities at Solarflare. Previously, he served as Solarflare's
Vice President of Marketing, and earlier Director of Product Management. Prior to
joining Solarflare, Bruce was a Senior Product Line Manager at Cisco Systems where
he managed the Ethernet transceiver business that included product life cycle management
and the launch of Metro Ethernet, 10 Gigabit, and 1000BASE-T switch solutions. Prior
to Cisco, he served in various marketing management roles at 3Com Corporation. Formerly
Study Group Chair of the IEEE 802.3aq 10GBASE-LRM standards project, Bruce is a
frequent contributor to the IEEE 802.3 Ethernet standards projects and served as
an officer of the 10 Gigabit Ethernet Alliance and the Gigabit Ethernet Alliance.
He holds a BA from UC Santa Cruz, MA from Stanford University, MBA from Haas School
of Business, UC Berkeley, and a PhD from Stanford University.
George Zimmerman, PhD
Co-Founder and Chief Technical Officer
George Zimmerman is the CTO for the physical layer (PHY) line of business and founder
of Solarflare Communications. He is an acknowledged expert in wireline communications
and has been a defining force in the development of 10GBASE-T as well as various
DSL technologies. His technical interests focus on communications and signal processing
near the fundamental limits, particularly where there are man-made noise sources
to be mitigated. As CTO, George is responsible for Solarflare's core physical layer
technology development and technical direction of its PHY products. He led the initial
formation of the IEEE 10GBASE-T Study Group, with a tutorial on the subject in November
2002, and was a significant contributor throughout the 802.3an standards process.
Prior to founding Solarflare, Dr. Zimmerman was with PairGain Technologies, as Chief
Scientist and VP of Strategic Planning. He drove basic technology development and
standardization for DSL, as well as new market and business development strategy,
including mergers and acquisitions. Before PairGain, George was with Caltech and
NASA/JPL where he was responsible for signal processing R and D for NASA’s
Deep Space Network. He holds a PhD in Electrical Engineering from Caltech, and an
undergraduate degree from Stanford University.