VIRTENSYS BOARD OF DIRECTORS
John Nicholson — Chairman
John Nicholson has a track record in advising emerging and high-growth technology businesses as a non executive director and chairman over the last 10 years, underpinned by more than 25 years international experience at a senior level in the information technology industry including serving as a Vice President of Compaq Computer Corporation and before that as a Vice President of Digital Equipment Corporation. He has experience of living and working in various parts of the world, including the USA, Europe and the Pacific region.
Ahmet Houssein — President & CEO
Ahmet has established expertise in successfully building and growing high-tech organizations with over 30 years of industry experience, most recently as president and CEO of Silverback Systems, sold to Brocade in 2007. Prior to that, Ahmet was VP/GM of Adaptec's Storage Solutions Group. Before joining Adaptec, Ahmet was with Intel Corporation, where he was one of the key leaders in the creation of the Next Generation I/O (NGIO) and general manager of Home Server Operation. Additionally Ahmet was a founding board member of the Storage Network Industry Association (SNIA).
Stuart Paterson — Director
Stuart Paterson is a Partner at SEP and focuses on communications and semiconductor technology. SEP is one of the leading VC groups in Europe, with over $500 million under management.
Stuart has led many successful A round start-ups as well as a number of late stage deals over the last decade. Recent investments include the WiMax and 3G chip company picoChip; wireless distributed antenna systems business Zinwave; Skyscanner, the online flight bookings company and Radioscape, which specialises in digital broadcast technology.
His successes include a number of flotations on the London Stock Exchange including IndigoVision, Orbital Software and CSR which is now worth over $2 billion, as well as trade exits to Cisco, Agilent and Rolls Royce.
Alex Brabers — Director
Alex Brabers is Executive Vice President of GIMV, responsible for all IT venture capital investments. Through his experience of over 15 years in venture capital, Alex brings to GIMV a rich experience in private equity. Alex exited several companies through either trade sales or IPO's and holds board positions in Telenet, Inside Contactless, L&C, Aventiv, Virtensys and Oree. Previous mandates: Option International, Barconet, Telos, Emme and Mobistar. Prior to joining GIMV in 1990, Alex worked in the banking industry, first as trader in international money market instruments, later in the strategic planning department.
Alex holds a Master in Economics from the University of Louvain.
Tom Valis — Director
Dr. Tomas Valis joined Celtic House in 1996. Tom is based in the Toronto. Following an initial career in both academic research and Industrial R&D, he switched to the world of finance becoming an analyst in the technology capital markets. Tom holds a Ph.D. in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Toronto and was a post-doctoral researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Tom is a domain expert in telecom and networking with a focus on product strategy. As a financial analyst, he worked extensively with Positron Fiber Systems and led its successful private placement in 1996. On joining Celtic-House, Tom co-architected the Optera Metro Optical Networking product line at Cambrian Systems (acquired by Nortel) and was co-author of the foundational IP.
He continues to pursue fundamental technology investments. Tom's current investment focus includes Cloud Computing, Semantic Databases, and Virtualization.
Tom has served on over 20 private company boards. He was the lead partner on five major Celtic House exits: PixStream (acquired by Cisco Systems), Cambrian Systems (acquired by Nortel Networks), SkyStone Systems (acquired by Cisco Systems), NorthChurch Communications (acquired by Newbridge Networks), and Extreme Packet Devices (acquired by PMC-Sierra). Tom currently serves as a board member of four Celtic House companies.
Paul Lombardelli — VP Component Engineering (UK)
Paul brings 19 years engineering and management experience to the Virtensys team. Prior to founding Virtensys he was a Senior Program Manager with both Xyratex and Cadence where Paul successfully executed number of multimillion dollar projects, establishing design and manufacturing flows, managing high value outsourcing contracts and delivering working silicon devices. Paul also held the position of Director of IC Design with Power X Networks, managing the ASIC design department and delivering to market the award winning TeraChannel chipset.
