Management
Find out everything you need to know about Active Endpoints’ management team. We have assembled a team of experienced industry leaders who come from a long list of successful enterprise software companies. Our management team understands the market place, our customers and what it takes to be successful in driving the mass adoption of services-based applications.
Management Team
Mark Taber, CEO
Mark brings
to Active Endpoints more than 25 years of experience driving sales and
operations results for businesses that provide cutting-edge middleware,
security, networking, and storage technology.
Before joining Active Endpoints, Mark served as IBM’s Worldwide Business
Unit Executive for their SOA Appliance Division, a part of IBM's Application
Infrastructure Middleware Group. He joined IBM through its 2005 acquisition
of DataPower, where he was Vice President of Sales. While at IBM/DataPower
(before and after the acquisition), Mark provided mission-critical web
services infrastructure to more than 300 large enterprise and government
customers around the world, helping them to simplify, manage and secure
scalable web services communications in heterogeneous environments.
Before
DataPower, Mark served as Vice President of Sales at AEP Systems, where
he focused on increasing security in financial and government networks
and enabling secure remote access for small and medium-sized businesses. Prior
to AEP, Mark was Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Chrysalis-ITS,
where he worked with computing and networking OEMs to remove security-related
performance bottlenecks. Mark also served as Regional Vice President
at Toshiba America Information Systems-Storage Division.
Mark holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from
the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.
Chris Keller, Founder and Vice President - Product Development
In his career spanning over 25 years, Chris
has led the development of award-winning software products. His expertise
spans a broad spectrum of infrastructure technologies including integration
brokers, transaction/messaging systems, and services-oriented computing
models.
Prior to Active Endpoints, Chris was Vice President,
Product Development of Novell, Inc.'s eBusiness Integration Products division. Chris
was the co-founder of two prior software ventures - GemLogic, Inc. (acquired
by Novell/SilverStream), and LexiBridge Corporation (acquired by Level3
Communications). Chris has also held senior level R&D positions at
DataEase International, Reuters North America and Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.
He
is a graduate of Long Island University with Bachelor of Science degrees
in physics and mathematics.
Eric Egertson, Vice President - Sales
Eric
joined Active Endpoints from DataDirect Technologies, an operating company
of Progress Software Corporation. In his seven-year tenure
as Vice President, Sales with DataDirect, Eric led the company's OEM partnerships
with IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, Sun and other leading independent software
vendors, with over 200 new OEM relationships with ISVs formed during the
last three years. Eric also led DataDirect’s move into new corporate
and government markets with products ranging from XML query processors
to mainframe integration. Eric was a member of the management team
that spun off DataDirect from MERANT in the fall of 2001, during which
time DataDirect sharpened its focus on its most profitable markets, positioning
DataDirect for acquisition by Progress Software in December 2003.
Prior
to Eric's Vice President responsibilities with DataDirect, Eric held OEM
field sales and sales management positions at MERANT and INTERSOLV, was
Director of Marketing and Business Development at TechGnosis, and held
product marketing positions at Trinzic Corporation.
Eric received a Bachelor
of Arts in Physics from Middlebury College in Middlebury, VT.
Alex Neihaus, Vice President - Marketing
Prior
to joining Active Endpoints, Alex was a marketing consultant to numerous venture-backed
software start-ups. Before serving as a marketing
consultant, Alex was VP of Marketing at Ipswitch, Inc., a leading developer
of file transfer, network management and messaging products for small and
medium businesses. He also led the marketing effort for AccuRev, Inc.,
a provider of software configuration management systems. At Revit Technology,
the developer of a revolutionary system for the design of buildings, Alex
was VP of Marketing from launch until the company was acquired by Autodesk,
Inc.
Earlier in his career, Alex had multiple assignments
at Lotus Development Corp. While on an overseas assignment in Singapore,
Alex served as Director of Marketing for the 16-country Asia-Pacific region.
Also at Lotus, Alex marketed the Notes and Domino application development
environment, launched the LotusScript programming language, managed Lotus’s
database integration product line and led the company’s entry into the
distance learning market. Prior to Lotus, Alex was a systems engineer at
IBM Corporation. Also at IBM, Alex was a technology architect in the IBM
Consulting Group and a regional sales representative for database and application
development software.
Alex graduated from the College of Communications
at Boston University, magna cum laude, with a degree in Broadcasting and
Film.
Luc Clement, Senior Director - Product Management
Luc has more than 20 years of experience driving product
direction, with proven ability to develop and execute product plans, and
releasing marking-leading products. Prior to Active Endpoints, Luc held
the position of Director Product Management where he defined HP’s SOA Governance
product roadmap and steered product release iterations. At Systinet, acquired
by Mercury Interactive and subsequently acquired by HP, Luc was a key
contributor to the company’s vision and success with its SOA Governance
and Registry market-leading products, establishing SOA Governance as
a newly defined market
segment.
Before Systinet, Luc held a senior program management
position in Microsoft’s Windows Server group responsible for the Windows
Server 2003 registry offering, driving cross-group product integration
and representing Microsoft on UDDI standardization activities. During
this period, Luc also held a number of external positions including Co-chair
of the OASIS UDDI Spec Technical Committee, General Program Manager for
UDDI.org, and Managing Director of the UDDI Business Registry. Prior to
this, Luc directed the product development activities at Zoomit, producing
the first and market-leading meta-directory product resulting in Microsoft’s
decision to acquire the company. Prior to joining the software industry,
Luc was an officer of the Canadian Forces.
Luc holds a Bachelor’s degree
in Electrical Engineering and a Master’s in Computer Engineering from Royal
Military College of Canada.
David Collard, Vice President - Finance & Administration
David provides
a wealth of leadership experience in all aspects of Active Endpoints' financial
management and administrative operations. His financial management experience
spans thirty years and multiple public and private companies, including
extensive senior level experience at a Fortune 150 NYSE-listed company,
as VP Finance & Administration at
Revit Technology, Oberon Software Inc., and World Wide Direct, and in senior-level
financial management positions at Zymark Corporation, Interleaf, Inc.
and Prime Computer. David has been involved in numerous financings
and is very active in the Boston financial and VC community.
David
holds an MBA from State University of New York (Buffalo) and a BA - Accounting
from Syracuse University.
Board of Directors
Mark Taber, CEO
Please see Mark's bio above.
Michael J. Skok, General Partner, North Bridge Venture Partners
Michael has been an entrepreneur and CEO
in the enterprise software business for over 20 years. Michael founded,
led and attracted over $100m in private equity to his investments in several
successful software companies ranging from CAD/CAM, Document Management,
Workflow, Imaging and Collaboration to Security and spanning the Mini Computer,
Workstation, PC, Client Server and Internet eras. Michael founded European
Software Publishing (ESP), where he pioneered the first off balance sheet
model for building software companies in Europe. Four of these were successfully
acquired by Siebel, Platinum, Filenet and Banyan and two went public independently.
This included building Symantec UK into Symantec's most profitable international
business while managing the many acquisitions made along the way to Symantec's
IPO and enduring status in the industry. Most recently he founded Alphablox
where he envisioned and defined the market for Analytical Applications,
now a multi billion dollar market. IBM acquired AlphaBlox, selling the
product as DB2 AlphaBlox and is also integrating it into their WebSphere
and Rational product lines.
Michael is a graduate of Nottingham University
in the United Kingdom (awarded joint honors in Management Sciences and
Engineering).
Eric Hjerpe, Partner, Atlas Venture
Eric brings
more than fifteen years of information technology experience, with a particular
expertise in enterprise software, software provided as a service, and software-related
start-ups. Eric has been a Partner in the Information Technology Sector
at Atlas Venture since 2003. Previously, he served as an executive and
as a charter member of the "Founder's
Circle" at Siebel Systems. Prior to joining Siebel, Eric served as
Chief Information Officer, Sales and Marketing North America, for Digital
Equipment Corporation. He also worked for Silicon Graphics and Arthur D.
Little.
Eric holds a Master of Science in Management
from MIT Sloan School of Management and a bachelor's degree from Brown
University.
Robert J. Potter
Bob has spent 27 years in the enterprise software industry in leadership roles ranging from venture backed start-ups to large public companies. He is currently CEO of expressor software, a leading data integration software company. Formerly as CEO of Kalido, Bob took this data warehousing and master data management software company from $5M to $20M in two and half years. As EVP of software integration company IONA, he took the company to $181M in sales and a $2B market cap over a multi-year period. In his role as SVP worldwide operations, Bob was critical in Object Design, the leading object database company, going public in 1995. Object Design was the fastest growing company on the Inc 500 in 1994. He serves on the boards of Tailwind Strategies, Hamilton Thorne Biosciences, expressor software and Active Endpoints.
Bob has a BS, Marketing from Providence College and a MBA, International Marketing from the University of Rhode Island.
Eugene Kuznetsov
Eugene was most recently an executive at IBM, with responsibility for product management and marketing of SOA appliances. In addition to his P&L management duties, Eugene was also a member of IBM Software Group Architecture Board and IBM AIM (WebSphere) Strategy Council.
Eugene joined IBM through the acquisition of DataPower in October 2005, with substantial returns for all shareholders. Eugene founded DataPower in 1999 based on his idea of combining dynamic compilation and network hardware technology to simplify the process of connecting disparate applications. The company developed the first "XML-aware networking" hardware, then unique in delivering message-level processing functions within a secure network device. Eugene served as President, VP of Marketing, CTO and Chairman at various points in the company's six year history as it grew from one to 75 employees, raising over $20M from investors and building a customer list of household names.
Prior to DataPower, Eugene worked or consulted for a number of companies, including Analogic and Microsoft. Both Eugene’s business and technical leadership has received recognition, including the prestigious InfoWorld Top 25 CTOs of 2005 and the regional Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year 2006 award. Eugene's articles have appeared in ZDNet, EETimes, XML Journal, Network World, Java Report, eBizQ and SC Magazine. He is a well regarded speaker at numerous conferences and events including NetSec, JavaOne, Networld+Interop, NATO C3 Agency, HPWorld, CIO Council XML.gov Working Group, Web Services DevCon, MITRE XML Day, NECINA, Web Services Edge, Gartner's Application Integration and Web Services Summit, the IT Security & Privacy Conference and ITTC 2004.
Eugene holds a Bachelor of Science, Electrical Engineering from MIT.

