About Us
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Executive Management
Penny Herscher
President and CEO
Penny leads FirstRain with a passion for growing companies in new markets. As CEO since 2005, she has transformed FirstRain into the leading provider of solutions that find and transform high-value business Web content into actionable intelligence for sales and marketing professionals around the globe.
Before FirstRain, Penny was CEO of Simplex Solutions, an electronic design automation company serving the global semiconductor industry. As CEO, Penny grew Simplex from just a few engineers to a profitable, high-growth software company. She led the company to a very successful IPO in 2001 and then through its sale to Cadence Design Systems in 2002. At Cadence, Penny was general manager of a major division and also chief marketing officer. From 1988 to 1996, Penny was an early employee and senior executive at Synopsys. She began her career in 1982 as an R&D engineer with Texas Instruments and then Daisy Systems. Penny holds an M.A. with Honors in mathematics from Cambridge University.
Penny serves on the boards of JDSU and Rambus. She is also active in the non-profit world and serves on the board of the Anita Borg Institute. She volunteers teaching business classes at Stanford Business School, the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley, and Santa Clara University, and she is a speaker on leadership and career growth at various industry organizations.
Follow Penny on Twitter @pennyherscher.
YY Lee
Chief Operating Officer
YY brings strong operational leadership and experience to her position at FirstRain, leading engineering, modeling and analytics in the United States and India. Under YY's guidance, FirstRain teams develop the patented technology and analytic algorithms that power the FirstRain solution suite.
YY was most recently vice president of Worldwide Services at Cadence Design Systems, leading that business into profitability. Before Cadence, she co-founded the software company Aqueduct, subsequently acquired by NetManage, which she joined as a director of Engineering. YY began her career at Bell Labs, Integrated Information Technology (IIT) and Synopsys. She earned her A.B. in mathematics from Harvard University.
Daniela Barbosa
Director of Business Development
An information junkie fascinated by trends in information delivery and consumption, Daniela leads Business Development
at FirstRain. Daniela's mission to develop strategic relationships and implement growth opportunities across the FirstRain
platform and partner ecosystem is fueled by her passion for helping companies and users achieve successful information strategies through social software content integration and other Web 2.0+ applications. She also works with large corporations
in deploying information strategies through various parts of the enterprise, and she has worked with many Fortune 500 clients
in the high tech, consumer products, consulting, telecommunications, pharmaceutical and financial industries, as well as with many B2C customers.
Daniela has a master's degree in library and information services from Rutgers University and has been involved in the
semantic community for over seven years, advocating investments in metadata and exploring the use of semantic technologies
in the enterprise.
Follow Daniela on Twitter @danielabarbosa.
Martin Betz, Ph.D.
Vice President, Technology
With over 15 years experience building algorithm-intensive software applications, Marty combines management expertise with a passion for data-intensive analytics. Most recently he was a founding partner of Beon Software, creating systems for the collection and analysis of real-time text-based communication. Marty previously led an EDA software product group at Credence Systems and managed development of software for their EmiScope product line. He's been a partner and associate at several technical consulting firms, delivering software in fields ranging from drug development to document and customer categorization. Before choosing a career in software, Marty was a math professor at the University of Texas, Austin.
Marty holds a Ph.D. in mathematics from Stanford University, and an A.B. from Harvard University, also in math.
David Cooke
Vice President, Analytics
David brings over 25 years of experience growing high-performance global organizations, most recently as an executive in the services organization at Cadence Design Systems. Before Cadence, David co-founded business consultancy MarketSpeed, with additional prior roles at Sun Microsystems and Fairchild Semiconductor.
David holds a B.Sc. in Engineering Science and an M.Eng. in microelectronics and management from the
University of Durham, England.
Aparna Gupta
Managing Director, FirstRain India
Aparna leads FirstRain's India operations, managing several FirstRain engineering and analytics R&D teams. She brings over 15 years of technical experience to her position at FirstRain. Since joining FirstRain in 2001, Aparna has played a variety of technical leadership roles spanning software engineering, content R&D and product and release management. Before FirstRain, Aparna was a research associate at the International Centre for Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology (ICGEB) and was with Logiciel Information System Pvt Limited, a software consultancy affiliated with the United Nations.
Aparna holds a master's degree in engineering sciences from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Mumbai.
Follow Aparna on Twitter @guptaaparna.
Thomas Lai
Vice President, Sales
Thomas leads FirstRain's global sales team, bringing more than 20 years of enterprise sales and leadership experience, strong domain expertise in analytics and workflow-based solutions and a history of success helping lead companies in fast-growing environments. Thomas previously served as FirstRain's western regional sales director. Before FirstRain, Thomas led sales at PSC and at a number of high-growth companies such as Valchemy, where he led western region sales; E.piphany, building their top-performing channel partners; Hyperion, where he was a top-five seller; and Atel, where he was a vice president running their software business. Thomas holds a B.S. in management from The School of Business, San Francisco State University.
Nima Niakan
Director of Customer Solutions
With more than a decade of software experience designing solutions that meet the everyday information challenges of business users, Nima brings a combination of leadership, creativity and analysis to organizational adoption and customer success at FirstRain. He is currently the director of customer solutions, leading FirstRain Customer Support, Sales Engineering and Customer Engagement teams. Before FirstRain, Nima was a part of the Cadence Design Systems worldwide business development team responsible for developing new ways of utilizing Web technologies and for driving a more flexible license and purchasing business model to help customers adapt and respond to business needs in real time.
Nima holds a B.S. from the College of Architecture & Environmental Design from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, and an M.B.A. from Pepperdine University.
Follow Nima on Twitter @nniakan.
Eugene Tighe
Corporate Controller
Eugene has more than 15 years of finance and accounting experience in the high-tech industry, growing emerging companies through successful IPOs. Before joining FirstRain, Eugene worked in financial leadership positions with mBlox, Astoria Software, Trintech and Quickturn Design Systems. He is a certified chartered accountant and previously worked at Ernst & Young.
Eugene holds a B.B.S. in accounting and finance from the University of Limerick.
Ryan Warren
Vice President, Marketing
With more than a decade of experience selling, launching and marketing B2B information solutions, Ryan brings FirstRain a mix of industry experience, customer focus and personal passion. Before FirstRain, Ryan was executive director, Product Strategy, in the Dow Jones Corporate Markets business, overseeing product management and strategy for the global Factiva product line. Before that, Ryan spent more than a decade in a variety of leadership roles for Dow Jones and Factiva, including global sales operations, global pricing and commercial policy, and as managing director of the Dow Jones private equity and venture capital business. Ryan leads all FirstRain marketing activities.
Ryan holds a B.A. in journalism from the University of Alaska Anchorage, and an M.B.A. from Rider University.
Follow Ryan on Twitter @ryanpwarren.
Back to TopBoard Of Directors
Bandel Carano
Chairman
Bandel L. Carano, managing partner, joined Oak Investment Partners in 1985 and became a general partner in 1987. Mr. Carano has invested in companies with emphasis on wireless and rich-media communications (2Wire, Airspan, Avici, CommVerge, CoreTek, Endwave, FiberTower, General Bandwidth, Kratos Defense and Security Solutions, MobiTV, NeoPhotonics, Netopia, PictureTel, Plastic Logic, Polycom, Presidio, PulsePoint, Qtera, Sentient Networks, SmartDrive Systems, Tegic, Trapeze and Wellfleet); advanced software systems (Entropic, FirstRain, Illustra/Informix, Sybase, Tele Atlas and Visto); advanced semiconductors (Actel, Airgo, CommQuest, Kenet, Level 5, NemeriX, Newport Media, nLight, Qpixel, Resonext, SMIC, Solarflare, Stretch, Synaptics and Virata); design automation (Centric Software, Interconnectix, Parametric, Synopsys and Tensilica) and clean energy technologies (Aurora BioFuels, Boston-Power, eSolar, GreenVolts, NanoH2O, PML, ReliOn and Sundrop Fuels). Prior to Oak, Mr. Carano joined Morgan Stanley's Venture Capital Group in 1983. He was responsible for advising Morgan Stanley on high-tech new business development as well as sponsoring venture investments. Mr. Carano received B.S. and M.S. degrees in electrical engineering from Stanford University. He currently serves on the Investment Advisory Board of the Stanford Engineering Venture Fund.
Nora Denzel
Director
Nora Denzel was senior vice president for Big Data, Social Design and Marketing at Intuit, where she was responsible for establishing, directing and implementing Intuit's data strategy and central marketing programs. Prior to Intuit, she was senior vice president of Hewlett-Packard's global software business, served as senior vice president of product operations at Legato Systems (acquired by EMC) and held several engineering, marketing and executive positions during 13 years at IBM. Ms. Denzel also serves on the board of directors for Overland Storage Inc., Saba Software and the Anita Borg Institute, which provides resources and programs to help industry, academia and government recruit, retain and develop women leaders in technology fields. Ms. Denzel earned a bachelor's degree in computer science from the State University of New York and a master's degree in business administration from Santa Clara University.
Charles Frumberg
Director
Charles Frumberg is the founder and managing partner of Emancipation Capital, an activist hedge fund focused on publicly traded enterprise IT companies. He brings more than 28 years of well-recognized experience with capital markets and research to the FirstRain board. Before founding Emancipation Capital, Charles was the co-head of equities for SG Cowen Securities Corp., a leading investment bank specializing in technology and health care. Prior to joining SG Cowen, Charles was the director of United States equity research and co-head of global research at UBS Securities. Under Charles' leadership, “Institutional Investor” magazine selected UBS as a top-four global research firm. Charles started his career at Mabon, Nugent and Co. In addition to the FirstRain board, Mr. Frumberg also sits on the boards of Trilogy Software and nSight Software.
Mary Henry
Director
Mary Henry was a partner and managing director of Goldman Sachs for over 18 years. Over the course of her tenure, primarily in the firm's Investment Research Division, Ms. Henry became one of the top-ranked analysts on Wall Street and was named an Institutional Investor All-Star analyst. She was personally involved in financings that totaled tens of billions of dollars and spanned a variety of technologies, initial public offerings and strategic advisory work. Ms. Henry started her career at Centel Corporation and Washington National Corporation before joining Goldman Sachs, and she received a B.A. in economics and an M.S. in journalism from Northwestern University.
Steven Walske
Director
Steve Walske led Parametric Technology Corporation (NASDAQ: PMTC) as the CEO from 1986 to 2000. Under his guidance, Parametric—a supplier of mechanical design and manufacturing software—established itself as one of the largest software-only companies in the world with revenues in excess of $1 billion. He guided the company from its start-up phase through its initial public offering in December 1989 to its position as market leader in mechanical design automation software. He holds an undergraduate degree from Princeton University and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.
Raman Khanna
Observer of the Board
Raman Khanna has 20 years of operating experience and 15 years of investment experience in information technology. Raman was named on the Forbes Midas List as a top 100 dealmaker in 2008 and 2009. He has been involved in many startups that had exits valued at over $1 billion.
At ONSET, Raman is focused on software, internet infrastructure and digital media sectors. He currently serves on the boards of Mixercast, Permuto, Serus, FirstRain and Nitronex.
Prior to becoming a managing director of ONSET, Raman co-founded Diamondhead Ventures in June 2000, where he led the firm's investments in Cavium Networks (IPO: CAVM), Reactivity (acquired by Cisco Systems), PassMark Security (acquired by RSA Security/EMC), Orative (acquired by Cisco Systems), Intraspect (acquired by Vignette), Serus, FirstRain and Nitronex.
Prior to Diamondhead Ventures, Raman worked at Stanford University for 16 years in various roles, including chief information officer (CIO) and chief technology officer (CTO). Raman also served on advisory boards of many global technology companies. During his Stanford tenure, Raman was actively involved with many high-technology startups as an angel investor, advisor and board member. His portfolio included Berkeley Networks (acquired by Fore Systems), Postini (acquired by Google), Siara Networks (acquired by Redback), SupportSoft (IPO), Shopping.com (IPO), Selectica (IPO) and Entercept Security Technologies (acquired by McAfee).
Raman is one of the early charter members of The Indus Entrepreneur (TiE), the world's largest non-profit organization for entrepreneurs. Raman currently serves on the board of TiE Silicon Valley.
Raman received a B.S. in electrical engineering from Delhi University, an M.S. in computer science from Virginia Tech and an M.B.A. from
Golden Gate University.