Company - Board of Directors
Cyan's leadership team is enhanced by a board of directors with a track record of success in founding, funding, scaling and transitioning innovative companies to public enterprises via IPOs and acquisitions.
Paul Ferris is a founding General Partner with Azure Capital Partners where he specializes in communications and systems technologies. His current active board memberships include Calix Networks, Cyan Optics, Personeta and Phanfare, and he is a board observer at Medsphere. Other representative investments include Innovance Networks and World Wide Packets. Prior successful investments include Com21 (IPO in 1998) and Phone.com (IPO in 1999).
Prior to Azure, Paul worked at several investment banks, including Credit Suisse First Boston, where he was the Global Head of the Communications Investment Banking Group, and at Deutsche Bank Securities and Morgan Stanley, where he focused on communications infrastructure and hardware companies.
Over the course of his career, Paul has provided strategic and investment advice to numerous leading communications infrastructure companies. Notable firms include ADC Telecommunications, Broadcom, Cerent (acquired by Cisco Systems), Com21, Efficient Networks (acquired by Siemens), Lucent Technologies, Next Level Communications, New Focus, Nortel Networks, Packet Engines (acquired by Alcatel), Phone.com, Siara Systems (acquired by Redback Networks), Siemens and Xros (acquired by Nortel Networks).
Paul received his B.A. degrees in Computer Science and English from Amherst College, where he graduated summa cum laude.
Mark Floyd was named Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of SafeNet in July of 2009.
Previously, Mr. Floyd served as CEO of Entrisphere, a communications equipment provider, which was successfully sold to Ericsson in 2007. Prior to that, Mr. Floyd was the founder and CEO of Efficient Networks, a leading telecommunications equipment company specializing in Digital Subscriber Lines (DSL), which he took public and later sold to Siemens for $1.7 billion. Most recently, Mr. Floyd was a Partner with El Dorado Ventures. He currently serves as the Chairman of Tekelec (Nasdaq: TKLC) and is also on the Board of Riverbed Technology, Inc. (Nasdaq: RVBD) and Cyan Optics, Inc.
Mr. Floyd held several executive positions with Crosspoint Ventures Partners, Networth Inc, Interphase Corporation, Scott Instruments and Texas Instrument Inc. He currently serves on the Boards of Tekelec (Nasdaq: TKLC), as chairman, Riverbed Technology Inc.(Nasdaq: RVBD), and Cyan Optics Inc. He was also a senior consultant to Ericsson. Prior to SafeNet, Mr. Floyd was a Venture Partner with El Dorado Ventures, which invests across a broad range of technology sectors.
Mr. Floyd holds a B.B.A. in finance from the University of Texas at Austin. He has received several recognitions including the 2001 Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award for the Southwest region.
Stewart Gollmer is a Managing Director of Tenaya Capital. He initially joined the predecessor to Tenaya (Lehman Brothers Venture Partners) in 2001, and co-founded Tenaya in 2009. Previously, Stewart was a member of Lehman Brothers' Technology Investment Banking group, where he was responsible for corporate finance and strategic advisory assignments. Prior to joining Lehman Brothers, Stewart was a corporate attorney.
Stewart currently serves on the Boards of AOptix Technologies, Cast Iron Systems, Cyan Optics, Health Language, Kodiak Networks, Lucky Pai, Overture Networks and Storwize. He is also a board observer of TeleNav. He was previously a director of Navini Networks (acquired by Cisco Systems) and a board observer of comScore Networks (Nasdaq: SCOR).
Stewart holds an M.B.A. from the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business, a J.D. from Brigham Young University and a B.A. from Johns Hopkins University.
Promod has 19 years of experience in the venture capital industry and currently serves as managing partner at Norwest Venture Partners. He joined Norwest Venture Partners in 1990. He has been ranked as a top dealmaker on the annual Forbes Midas List for the past nine years, and in 2004, Forbes named him as the #1 venture capitalist based on performance over the last decade. In 2006, Promod was presented with a Global Leadership award from NASSCOM.
Promod focuses on investments in semiconductor and components, systems, software and services. He was an early investor and a board member of Cerent (acquired by Cisco), Siara Systems (acquired by Redback Networks), OnDisplay (acquired by Vignette), Winphoria Networks (acquired by Motorola) and Extreme Networks (Nasdaq: EXTR).
His current investments include Adventity, AmberPoint, Appnomic Systems, Cast Iron Systems, Cyan Optics, FireEye, Persistent Systems, Sonoa Systems, Sulekha, Vanu, Veveo, Virtela Communications and Yatra. Other notable investments and previous board seats include Tivoli Systems (acquired by IBM), Forte Software (acquired by Sun Microsystems), Kiva Software (acquired by Netscape), Information Advantage (acquired by Sterling Software), Arbortext (acquired by PTC), Open-Silicon (acquired by Unicorn Investment Bank), Resonext Communications (acquired by RF Micro Devices), Showcase (acquired by SPSS), Yipes (acquired by Reliance/Flag Telecom) and ZettaCom (acquired by IDT).
Prior to Norwest Venture Partners, Promod spent 18 years in various operational roles ranging from product development, marketing, Chief Operating Officer and Chief Executive Officer at various public and private companies - Siemens International, Thorn EMI, Emergent Technologies and Dimensional Medicine, Inc.
He received a bachelor of science in electrical engineering from the University of Delhi, India. He holds a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Northwestern University and an MBA from Northwestern's Kellogg Graduate School of Management, where he serves on the advisory board.
Co-Founder, President and CEO
Michael Hatfield is a veteran of three successful communications systems start-ups. Most recently Michael was founder and CEO of Calix, a privately held communication systems company. Calix is a leading producer of high-speed access systems for Communications Service Providers.
Prior to Calix, Michael was co-founder and COO of Cerent, a leading provider of high-speed fiber-optics systems acquired by Cisco Systems for $7B. Michael's initial start-up success came as an early team member and vice-president of marketing for Advanced Fibre Communications (AFC). During his tenure, AFC went from start-up to a publicly traded enterprise.
He has also served in management roles at DSC Communications and Ameritech. Michael has a BSEE in Electrical Engineering and Mathematical Economics from Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology and an MBA in Finance from Indiana University.
Dr. Ransom is principal of Ransomshire Associates, an advisory firm he founded in 2005. Previously, as worldwide CTO of Alcatel and member of its Executive Committee, he was responsible for research, corporate strategy, intellectual property and R&D investment. Prior to that, he directed Alcatel’s access and metro optical business in North America. Earlier in his career, he directed the Advanced Technology Systems Center at BellSouth and various development and applied research organizations in voice and data switching at Bell Laboratories. He is the Chairman of Teknovus, Inc., and serves on the boards of directors of CoreOptics, Polatis, and kbro (the leading CATV operator in Taiwan). He holds a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from the University of Notre Dame, BSEE and MSEE degrees from Old Dominion University, and an MBA from the University of Chicago.