Apprenda’s Leadership Team
Sinclair Schuller, CEO
Before co-founding Apprenda, Sinclair held positions at Morgan Stanley, Eden Communications, and the State University of New York (SUNY). Sinclair holds a dual Bachelor of Science in Computer Science & Mathematics from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, where he graduated Summa Cum Laude. Sinclair excels in understanding the economics of SaaS platforms and ecosystems, and is a frequent speaker and panelist at industry events.
Matt Ammerman, VP of Client Services
Matt brings over a decade of technology-related customer implementation and development experience to his role as Apprenda’s VP of Client Services. Matt joined Sinclair Schuller and Abraham Sultan in 2005 to initiate R&D efforts on the Apprenda SaaS Application Server. Today, Matt leads Apprenda’s client services team, which drives implementation and customization of Apprenda for customers around the world. He’s a regular speaker at various .NET Code Camps around the U.S.
Abraham Sultan, VP of Engineering
Abraham focuses on coordinating engineering efforts and making technology choices. Previously, Abraham worked at SaaS vendor Informz and held a role as Director of Java Development at Eden Communications. Prior to that, he worked at SUNY as a lead engineer on a finance application that supported 40,000 users distributed across approximately 50 SUNY campuses. Abraham holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
Rakesh Malhotra, VP of Product
Prior to joining Apprenda, Malhotra was at Microsoft for more than nine years where he most recently was principal group program manager for cloud and data center management and was among the one percent of employees nominated to Microsoft’s Corporate Leadership Bench Program. Previously, he was principal lead program manager for Microsoft’s Enterprise Storage Division. During his tenure at Microsoft, Malhotra helped found the cloud and virtualization group in 2005, built and managed a team of program managers to deliver System Center Virtual Machine Manager and assisted in promoting the company’s cloud technology platforms including Windows Server Hyper-V and Windows Azure. Malhotra received his bachelor of applied science in computer engineering from the University of Waterloo where he graduated with first class honors.
Kerry Ancheta, VP of Sales
Prior to joining Apprenda, Kerry spent nearly a decade working with global ISV’s to help them embed various database technologies. In 2002, he helped start up the sales organization for MySQL, where as the VP Enterprise Sales North America he led enterprise and embedded ISV sales in various global markets; eventually leading to MySQL’s successful acquisition by Sun Microsystems for $1 billion. Kerry received his B.A. in Business from the University of Washington.
Jesse Kliza, Director of Marketing
Jesse is responsible for the creation and execution of Apprenda’s strategic marketing initiatives, generating demand and awareness, and evolving the company’s brand. Jesse draws from a strong background in Software as a Service, having served as Community Evangelist and Product Manager at SaaS ISV Autotask before joining Apprenda. Prior to Autotask, Jesse served as Director of Marketing at Eden Communications (acquired by Unicom Systems). Jesse holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Information Technology, with a focus in Neuroscience from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
Board of Directors
Sinclair Schuller, CEO, Apprenda Inc.
Before co-founding Apprenda, Sinclair held positions at Morgan Stanley, Eden Communications, and the State University of New York (SUNY). Sinclair holds a dual Bachelor of Science in Computer Science & Mathematics from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, where he graduated Summa Cum Laude. Sinclair excels in understanding the economics of SaaS platforms and ecosystems, and is a frequent speaker and panelist at industry events.
Michael Seckler, Partner, Euclidean Technologies
Michael Seckler is responsible for investor relations and investment operations at Euclidean Technologies. Prior to Euclidean, Mr. Seckler was Division Vice President of ADP Employease, a $150M business employing 700 people within ADP. In this role, Mr. Seckler had overall P&L responsibility and was responsible for operations, product development, and strategy for the business. Prior to this role, Mr. Seckler co-founded the pioneering Software-as-a-Service firm, Employease. At Employease, Mr. Seckler was responsible for business development and helped lead the company to 36 straight quarters of revenue growth prior to the company’s acquisition by ADP for $160M. Mr. Seckler graduated from Williams College with a dual bachelor’s degree in History & Geology.
Peter Sonsini, Partner, NEA
As a Partner at NEA, Pete specializes in software, systems and technology-enabled services companies. His current board memberships include Apprenda, BeachMint, BuzzMedia, Conviva, DeviceVM, Engine Yard, Eucalyptus Systems, MapR, and Tintri. Previous boards include Xensource (acquired by Citrix Systems) and Teracent (acquired by Google). Prior to joining NEA, Pete was Senior Director of Strategic Alliances at VMware where he struck the company’s OEM deals and grew annual sales through OEMs from $0 to $40 million in four years. Pete received his MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, and his BA in Political Economy from the University of California, Berkeley.
Tom Grossi, Principal, NEA
Tom joined NEA in 2005 and focuses on investments in enterprise technology, digital media and e-commerce. Tom is a Director of Apprenda and is involved with NEA’s investments in Data Robotics, Groupon, MediaBank, Millennial Media, Vertica and ViXS. He also worked with Echo Global Logistics (NASDAQ: ECHO), Innerworkings (NASDAQ: INWK) and Motricity (NASDAQ: MOTR) prior to those companies’ public offerings. Prior to NEA, Tom worked as a retail and e-commerce consultant at the Boston Consulting Group and as an engineer at AOL developing network monitoring systems. Tom received AB and SM degrees in Computer Science from Harvard University and an MBA from the Harvard Business School where he was a Baker Scholar.
Frank Artale, Partner, Ignition Partners
Frank Artale is a Partner at venture capital fund Ignition Partners. Frank was most recently Vice President of Business Development at Citrix, where he brought 24 years of experience in the software industry and was responsible for all aspects of Citrix’s business development with software and hardware technology partners. Artale joined Citrix from XenSource where he was responsible for strategic marketing and business development. Prior to XenSource, Artale was a founder and CEO of Consera Software, a management software company, which was acquired by HP in 2004. Artale’s complete biography can be found here.
Board of Advisors
Simon Crosby, CTO, Data Center and Cloud, Citrix Systems
Simon Crosby is CTO of Citrix Systems’ Data Center and Cloud Division. He was founder and CTO of XenSource, a leading virtual infrastructure solution provider for enterprises, prior to the acquisition of XenSource by Citrix. Before XenSource, Crosby was a principal engineer at Intel where he led strategic research in distributed autonomic computing, platform security and trust. In 2007, he was awarded a coveted spot as one of InfoWorld’s Top 25 CTOs. More on Crosby’s cloud and virtualization perspectives can be found on his Citrix blog.
Mark Leslie
Mark Leslie is founder and CEO of Veritas Software, a leading storage management software company that merged with Symantec in July 2005. He became CEO of Veritas in 1990 and brought the company from 12 employees and $95,000 in revenues to 5,500 employees and $1.5 billion in revenues, making Veritas the fifth largest software company in the world. Leslie is now the Managing Director at Leslie Ventures and a Lecturer in Management at Stanford Graduate School of Business.
Les Trachtman, COO, Force3
Les Trachtman currently serves as COO at Force3, a company that designs technology offerings that improve productivity, reduce costs and enhance the way people conduct business in commercial, government and healthcare markets. Trachtman has previously served as CEO of several different technology companies including Transcentive and e-OneHundred Group. Prior to these ventures, he spearheaded corporate development for Progress Software and Hyperion Software. A more detailed biography can be found here.
Michael Hickey, Executive in Residence, Siena College
Mike Hickey is currently President of The Hickey Group and an Executive in Residence at Siena College. In his previous role as President of Pitney Bowes Business Insight (PBBI), Hickey managed a global software business to record revenue of $400 million with over 1900 employees.As President of Pitney Bowes Business Insight from 2007 until 2010, Mike merged two like sized former public software companies (MapInfo and Group1 Software) into one integrated global business that became one of the 70 largest software companies in the world. Hickey was with MapInfo since 1995 and served as Chief Operating Officer from 2002 through the acquisition by Pitney Bowes in 2007. During his tenure at the company he was a key executive that helped drive revenue from $35 million to $186 million annually and eventually sold the company for $480 million to Pitney Bowes.
