Cyara Leadership

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 General Manager and CMO

Linda brings 25 years of general management and leadership experience across a variety of top-tier multinational branded companies and B2B enterprise SaaS companies. She has blended experience working as a cross-functional 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 products, 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 go-to-market 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.

Dennis Reno SVP Customer Experience

With 30+ years of experience discovering, designing, and delivering perfect customer journeys, Dennis Reno has turned his passion into his profession. At Cyara, Dennis serves as General, coaching and empowering our CX troops to provide the highest level of customer satisfaction and retention, and leads us on our path to go above and beyond industry standards, meeting and exceeding customer expectations.

With experience in areas like client engagement, technical support and training, and account management, and a resume that includes leadership roles at companies, such OneLogin Inc., Arxan Technologies, Oracle, and Microsoft, Dennis brings an impressive level of CX knowledge to Cyara.

In his free time, when he’s not working on historic home improvement projects or playing with his rescue dogs, Dennis can usually be found fundraising for nonprofit organizations and enjoying the San Francisco beaches and skyline.

Ajay Dawar SVP of Product

Ajay leads the global Product Development team at Cyara, which drives product strategy and constantly strives to innovate and improve product capabilities and user experiences. He is based in San Mateo, California.

Ajay holds over two decades of experience in product development at companies ranging from early stage startups to public enterprises, including Conga, EverString, Model N, Pivotlink, SpringCM, LucidEra, Venturi Wireless, and more. Throughout his career, he developed specializations in artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), Customer Resource Management (CRM), Conversational AI, natural language processing (NLP), quality assurance, and customer service – making him a natural fit to further innovate and improve on Cyara’s Automated CX Assurance Platform and solutions.

Ajay holds an MBA in Finance and Marketing from the University of Michigan, as well as a Bachelor of Engineering from the University of Mumbai.