Alok Kulkarni CEO, Chairman, Co-Founder
Alok founded Cyara with the vision that an easy-to-use CX Assurance platform could help enterprises be confident that they were delivering great customer experiences each and every time, even in a world with rapidly changing customer expectations and an ever increasingly complex technology ecosystem.
Prior to Cyara, he was Director, Solutions Engineering, at Genesys where he led the team that architected contact center solutions for the Asia Pacific market, driving Genesys to the top position in that market. He also held various engineering roles at National Australia Bank, NEC, Lincolne Scott, and Boral Building Technologies.
Alok has an MBA in Entrepreneurship and Technology from Melbourne Business School and a Bachelor’s Degree in Electrical and Computer Systems Engineering from Monash University, Australia. Alok is married with two boys and his passions include all things technology, travelling, spirituality, and playing golf.
Bonny Malik Executive Director, Co-Founder
Bonny began his career in accounting and finance as a Chartered Accountant with Price Waterhouse Coopers. Prior to that, he was with GlaxoSmithKline in a finance role evaluating new projects. Interests in information technology and management led Bonny to pursue an MBA at Melbourne Business School.
After completing his MBA, Bonny worked as a consultant at QAD, helping companies implement ERP systems. Bonny then moved to presales and sales roles at SalesLogix (CRM) and Descartes (supply chain management) where his broad business background helped him partner with customers to achieve success with software.
Bonny enjoys playing rugby and cricket and has an interest in behavioral economics.
Luan Tran CTO, Co-Founder
Luan is responsible for the development of the Cyara CX Assurance platform and related solutions. He is passionate about innovation, technology and getting a team together to create the impossible.
Prior to founding Cyara, Luan was with Genesys Professional Services for 8 years, working with all of its major clients in the Australia and New Zealand market. He was also in software product engineering for National Australia Bank, NEC, and IRESS.
Luan is married with two children and is a keen follower of Australian Rules Football, particularly when his Carlton Blues are playing.
James Isaacs President
James is responsible for all customer-facing, operational aspects of the company on a global basis including marketing, business development, sales and pre-sales, professional services, domain consulting, customer success, education and training, support, channels, and customer satisfaction. He is based out of Cyara’s Redwood City office in the heart of Silicon Valley.
James has 25+ years of leadership experience in building Enterprise software companies with a career background in operations, sales, product management, and business development. Starting his career at Apple, he later moved on to Concentric Network, a company he helped grow from $2M to $300M per year revenue run rate as both Product Management VP and Corporate Development VP, and which had a successful IPO and then a successful public company merger for $2.9 Billion. Following the acquisition of Concentric, James moved to Danger, Inc., a SaaS-based mobile platform for mobile operators, where he led the sales effort which grew revenue from $0 to $100M per year run rate before it was acquired by Microsoft in a $500M acquisition. James then joined 41st Parameter as the EVP Sales, Business Development, and Customer Operations, growing revenue at 40% per year before a successful sale to Experian for $325M. Prior to joining Cyara, he was the CEO of IoT security firm Mocana.
James has a BA in International Relations with an emphasis in Economics from Stanford University, and an MBA from the University of California, Berkeley. He lives in the Silicon Valley with his wife Page and has three children. When James isn’t at the office you will find him cycling the foothills around the San Francisco Bay area.
Linda Chen CMO
Linda brings 20 years of marketing and leadership experience across a variety of top-tier multinational branded companies and B2B enterprise SaaS companies. She has blended experience working as a marketing leader in both large and small organizations. Prior to joining Cyara, Linda was the EVP of Marketing and Strategy at Equilar, the leading executive compensation and governance solutions provider, where she led marketing, events, content, branding, marketing operations, pre-sales/sales, and client success. She was also VP/GM at Deem, Inc.
Linda also spent more than 10 years at Intuit, where she led marketing and customer support for the company’s Small Business mobile and SaaS solutions, QuickBooks, and Quicken. Earlier in her career, she drove global marketing for Crest toothbrushes at Procter & Gamble and graduated from the Technical Leadership Program at GE. She has a MBA from University of Michigan and a Bachelors degree in Chemical Engineering from University of California Berkeley.
Linda lives in Silicon Valley with her husband Bryan and their two daughters. In between driving to girls’ soccer tournaments, they enjoy helping out at local nonprofits (Friends for Youth & Sustainable San Mateo County) and exploring the California coastline.
George Skaryak Executive Vice President, Worldwide Sales
George leads Cyara’s sales efforts across all geographies. George brings over 25 years of experience in enterprise software sales and sales leadership at companies including IBM, 41st Parameter, Tibco, Candle Corp, Siebel and DWL. At IBM, George was the North America Business Unit Executive for Information Governance and was responsible a $350M+ software business with a team of over 100 sales personnel. More recently, George led North America and EMEA Sales at 41st Parameter, a SaaS cybersecurity and fraud detection company, where he drove 50%+ revenue growth.
George grew up in Southern California and studied at California State Polytechnic University in Pomona. He now resides in Pittsburgh PA with his wife and two daughters. He is an avid Steelers and Penguins fan as well as a season ticket holder, and at times shouts himself hoarse in the NFL season.
Mark Verbeck CFO
Mark is an experienced strategic and operational CFO who has played a critical role in the growth of several successful companies, including Coupa Software, the leading SaaS spend management company, and Blade Network Technologies, a leader in high-speed Ethernet networking which was acquired by IBM. Mark’s prior experience also includes many years working as an equity research analyst, covering the enterprise and SasS software industries, for firms such as Citibank and Cantor Fitzgerald.
Geoff Willshire Chief Innovation Officer
Geoff leads the formulation of strategies and new technologies to develop new capabilities, and works closely with the product management, marketing, and sales organizations.
Geoff’s career has been focused on developing innovative new software products for the contact center market.
Geoff’s experience bridging mainstream software development and the highly tailored mission of professional services allows him to design and deliver creative and high-performing new products driven by dynamic market requirements.
Previously, Geoff was with Genesys for 13 years, where he held key development roles across the company and led the software development group in providing uniquely tailored solutions for customers adapting Genesys to their specific needs. He was also lead developer at HP in their telephony integration software business.
Geoff, his wife, and their daughter live in Brisbane and spend as much spare time as possible at their getaway on the beach in Queensland.
Mike Monegan VP Product Management
Mike leads the Product Management function at Cyara, leading a global team that drives product strategy, actively seeks customer input, and facilitates the prioritization process for the many engineering investments Cyara makes for each 2-month release cycle. He is based out of Cyara’s Redwood City headquarters office in Silicon Valley, but travels regularly to visit customers and the Australia-based engineering team.
Mike is a 25-year veteran of technology and leadership roles. Prior to Cyara, Mike was VP Applications, leading the global application design and development functions at [24]7, where he oversaw increasingly sophisticated customer service speech and web applications for a wide variety of industries.
Prior to helping make [24]7 the leader in multimodal customer service applications, Mike managed the application design and development teams at Voxify from 2003 through successful acquisition by [24]7. Mike’s Voxify team led the industry in intelligent speech applications, predictive IVR, new deployment models, and managed application services.
Mike previously managed R&D at IQ Commerce, ran his own consulting company, and held technical leadership positions at NeXT, Apple, Symantec and HP. Mike holds both a BS and MS in Computer Science from MIT.
Ian Ng VP Customer Experience
Ian is responsible for the onboarding, installation and continued success of our customers. Ian’s Cyara experience is deep as he has held multiple positions within the company including global responsibility for the Solution Engineering organization as well as starting the Professional Services practice, successfully growing the group and delivering on its largest projects. He also worked on application development where he successfully produced Cyara’s first agent automation product.
Prior to joining Cyara, Ian held various roles as part of Telstra’s contact center engineering team. He holds Bachelors degrees in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the University of Melbourne. Ian is married and loves all things food and Formula 1.
Kathy Sosnow VP People and Culture
Kathy leads all people and HR functions across Cyara’s global organization including HR strategies and processes, talent acquisition and analytics, organizational development, policy and HR systems. Kathy has a passion for developing Human Resources and building strong company cultures. Kathy brings over 20 years of HR leadership experience for high tech companies, including in the design and development of global HR strategies and processes, talent acquisition, organizational development, policy and HR systems.
Kathy was most recently Senior Vice President of Prysm, Inc. where she directed all HR initiatives worldwide and played a pivotal role in the company’s ability to scale headcount, while also drove a corporate focus on leadership and talent development. Previous to Prysm she was Vice President of Human Resources at MIPS Technologies, Inc. (acquired by Imagination Technologies Group) where she also ran the Board Compensation and Nominating Committee. She also served as Vice President of Human Resources at Catapult Communications Corporation (acquired by Ixia) where she established the human resources function and played an integral role in leading its growth through an IPO and acquisition.
Kathy holds a BS in Human Resources from California State University, Sacramento. She lives in Redwood Shores, CA with her husband and teenage daughter. Kathy enjoys biking and hiking, and spends her weekends outdoors keeping fit!
Alok Kulkarni CEO, Chairman, Co-Founder
Alok founded Cyara with the vision that an easy-to-use CX Assurance platform could help enterprises be confident that they were delivering great customer experiences each and every time, even in a world with rapidly changing customer expectations and an ever increasingly complex technology ecosystem.
Prior to Cyara, he was Director, Solutions Engineering, at Genesys where he led the team that architected contact center solutions for the Asia Pacific market, driving Genesys to the top position in that market. He also held various engineering roles at National Australia Bank, NEC, Lincolne Scott, and Boral Building Technologies.
Alok has an MBA in Entrepreneurship and Technology from Melbourne Business School and a Bachelor’s Degree in Electrical and Computer Systems Engineering from Monash University, Australia. Alok is married with two boys and his passions include all things technology, travelling, spirituality, and playing golf.
Bonny Malik Executive Director, Co-Founder
Bonny began his career in accounting and finance as a Chartered Accountant with Price Waterhouse Coopers. Prior to that, he was with GlaxoSmithKline in a finance role evaluating new projects. Interests in information technology and management led Bonny to pursue an MBA at Melbourne Business School.
After completing his MBA, Bonny worked as a consultant at QAD, helping companies implement ERP systems. Bonny then moved to presales and sales roles at SalesLogix (CRM) and Descartes (supply chain management) where his broad business background helped him partner with customers to achieve success with software.
Bonny enjoys playing rugby and cricket and has an interest in behavioral economics.
Luan Tran CTO, Co-Founder
Luan is responsible for the development of the Cyara CX Assurance platform and related solutions. He is passionate about innovation, technology and getting a team together to create the impossible.
Prior to founding Cyara, Luan was with Genesys Professional Services for 8 years, working with all of its major clients in the Australia and New Zealand market. He was also in software product engineering for National Australia Bank, NEC, and IRESS.
Luan is married with two children and is a keen follower of Australian Rules Football, particularly when his Carlton Blues are playing.
Phil Dur Co-Founder and Managing Partner, PeakSpan Capital
Phil has been a software investor for 15 years and has served on the boards of over twenty growth stage companies in his career. Before co-founding PeakSpan, Phil worked at Investor Growth Capital for ten years as a leader in the software investment team. Prior to joining IGC, Phil also worked at Morgan Stanley Venture Partners (the firm’s expansion and growth stage fund) as part of the technology investment team and started his career at Morgan Stanley Capital Partners (the firm’s private equity fund) focusing on, among other things, investments in software and other technology areas. Phil is a graduate of Princeton University and the Stanford University Graduate School of Business and also served as an officer in the U.S. Army Reserve for seven years. Phil enjoys cooking (a graduate of the Peter Kump School and L’Escoffier de Gastronomie but still a very humble student), tennis, running, and spending time with his wife and two children enjoying everything Northern California has to offer.
Matt Melymuka Co-Founder and Vice President, PeakSpan Capital
Matt has been working with growth-stage technology businesses his whole career. Before co-founding PeakSpan, Matt worked for Greycroft Partners’ Growth Fund, where he focused on emerging growth-stage software investments. Prior to Greycroft, Matt worked with Phil and Brian for three years on Investor Growth Capital’s software investment team, where he was involved with seven software portfolio companies. Prior to joining IGC, Matt was a team member in the Technology, Media and Telecommunications Investment Banking Group at Piper Jaffray & Co., where he worked with expansion-stage businesses on a variety of advisory and capital markets transactions. He holds a B.S. in Finance from Georgetown University, where he graduated cum laude. Matt enjoys snowboarding, tennis and is an avid traveler. He now lives in New York City with his wife, where they face the constant struggle of being die-hard Boston sports fans living behind enemy lines.
