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.
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.
Bill Aston General Manager, North and Latin America
Bill is responsible for the company’s fastest growing markets – North and Latin America. In his role, Bill is responsible for market growth and the operational team to ensure Cyara customers are successful.
Bill joined Cyara after a long career in the customer care industry where he led top teams and organizations at Avaya, Genesys, Voxify, and Remedy Corporation. In all of his previous roles, he successfully built highly productive teams that produced superior results from both customer and company perspectives.
Bill attended California Polytechnic State University where he graduated with honors from their business program specializing in Accounting. He started his career as a CPA with KPMG and has also spent significant time in the Supply Chain Software Industry.
Bill lives in Pleasanton, California with his two children. He has spent much of his free time coaching women’s lacrosse and soccer and is now in the process of learning rugby.
Bill Bryant Director, Global Alliances
Bill is responsible for the ongoing development and execution of Cyara alliance programs and partner revenue-generating business initiatives.
Prior to his current role, Bill led North American Sales for Wacom, the worldwide leader of intuitive and natural user interface technologies widely used in smartphones and tablets. During his tenure at Wacom, he oversaw double-digit sales growth while guiding the organization through significant restructuring. He started his career as a Technical Sales Representative with Dialogic/Intel, rising through the ranks over 14 years to direct global Channel Sales and Marketing living and working in the United States and Europe.
Bill attended the Stillman School of Business at Seton Hall University and earned a Bachelor of Science degree in psychology from Rutgers University.
Bill lives in Portland, OR where he spends his free time cycling and volunteering with the National Ski Patrol providing general assistance and emergency medical care to snow enthusiasts at several Mount Hood ski areas.
Nick Duggan General Manager, Europe, Middle East, and Africa
In this role, Nick is responsible for establishing and growing the business throughout the EMEA region. Nick is focused on ensuring success for Cyara’s European customers and in delivering business value to help them drive quality customer experiences.
Prior to joining Cyara in 2011, Nick was responsible for Business Development and GTM strategy for Telstra’s Contact Centre Software as Service offerings to the Enterprise and Government sector throughout Australia. This role built upon a solid foundation in IT acquired in Project Management and Consulting roles with Computershare in Australia, and at ATOS in the UK.
Nick is married with two children, and is a keen rugby union supporter.
Cameron Esposito General Manager, Education and Training
Cameron is responsible for developing and overseeing a training program for Cyara customers and partners. As the former global leader of Cyara Professional Services, Cameron strives to put students in the shoes of the PS engineers by including real-life, practical experiences that come from his years in PS in every course he develops.
Prior to joining Cyara, Cameron was a team lead within Telstra’s Contact Solutions group and responsible for the infrastructure architecture of Telstra’s VoIP platform. He also held positions at Dimension Data Australia as a senior certified Genesys engineer before moving into a Telephony/CTI pre-sales role.
He obtained a degree in Science at Melbourne University before successfully completing an Advanced Diploma in Computer Science at Latrobe University. Cameron is married with two children and enjoys the entire triathlon – swimming, cycling, and running.
Amy Hudson Global Head, Domain Consulting
In building out the Domain Consulting practice at Cyara, Amy is hoping to help customers see the impact of taking a holistic approach to CX Assurance and crafting a strategic vision for quality, efficiency, and innovation agility.
Amy has spent her career in technology. Starting at Accenture, she was trained in both strategic and implementation technology consulting and grew quickly into leadership roles. She returned to business school to broaden her skill set and explore working with smaller technology companies to stay close to innovation. Since business school she has held multiple roles at technology startups, including most recently in the contact center industry as the Director of Strategic Planning, where she led the company’s expansion into Asia and played a role in the company’s first acquisition.
Amy hold a B.S. from Cornell University and an MBA from Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth. She spends as much time as she can outside (mostly with her husband and troublemaker dogs), loves traveling to obscure parts of the world, and cooks as often as possible.
Mike Monegan Vice President, 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.
Yogendra Segar Manager, Cloud Operations
Yogendra is responsible for delivering SaaS products to customers globally. He joined Cyara in July of 2013. In this role, he manages data center and carrier infrastructure to ensure high-quality delivery to Cyara customers and has a globally distributed team. He also heads up the Technical Support and IT teams.
Prior to joining Cyara, he was Project/Customer Services Director for Mobixell Networks responsible for Western Europe and Africa. Among other responsibilities in that role, he managed customers across nine countries, working with mobile operators such as Vodafone, Orange, Swisscom, and Safaricom. Yogendra has also held roles with Siemens and Commercial Interactive Media.
Yogendra earned a Master’s of Applied Science from RMIT University and a Bachelor’s Degree from Monash University. Yogendra is married with two children, and enjoys tennis, cycling, and football. He lives in Melbourne.
Josephine Vizzari General Manager, Australia and New Zealand
Josephine (“Josie”) Vizzari has over 20 years of experience in the contact center industry and was most recently Director of Mid-Market & Cloud – ANZ for Genesys. Her broad experience includes creating a channel structure from vendor to distributor to reseller, presenting complex solutions to C-level management and helping organizations create efficiencies by introducing streamlined business processes.
Josie, who lives in Melbourne, is the mom of two adult sons. When she isn’t working, Josie loves to travel – “any beach, anywhere”. She also enjoys entertaining, cooking and golf and is learning to garden.
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.
