Board of Directors
Jon S. Castor, Chairman
Jon S. Castor has served as a member of the board of directors since December 2006 and as Chairman since April 2007. Since June 2004, Mr. Castor has been a private investor and a member of public and private boards of directors. Previously, from 2003 to 2004, Mr. Castor was an executive with Zoran Corporation, a provider of digital solutions for applications in the home entertainment and imaging markets, as the Senior Vice President and General Manager of Zoran's DTV Division and then as a post-acquisition advisor to the CEO. From 2002 to 2003, Mr. Castor was the Senior Vice President and General Manager of the TeraLogic Group at Oak Technology Inc., a developer of integrated circuits and software for digital televisions and printers, which was acquired by Zoran. In 1996, Mr. Castor co-founded TeraLogic, Inc., a developer of digital television integrated circuits, software and systems, where he served in several capacities, including as its Chief Executive Officer and director from 2000 to 2002, when it was acquired, first by Oak Technology in 2002 and then indirectly in 2003 by Zoran when Zoran acquired Oak Technology.
In addition to Omneon, Mr. Castor currently serves on the boards of directors of Adaptec, Inc., California Micro Devices, and a privately-held company. Previously he was a director of publicly-traded Genesis Microchip from 2004 until its sale to ST Microelectronics in 2008. Mr. Castor holds an M.B.A. from the Stanford Graduate School of Business and a B.A. from Northwestern University.
Lawrence Kaplan, Vice-Chairman
Lawrence R. Kaplan is Vice Chairman of the Board and co-founder of the company. He served as President and Chief Executive Officer from our inception in May 1998 to June 2003. Since June 2003 Kaplan was Executive Chairman and then Vice Chairman of the Board. He also reassumed the position of President and Chief Executive Officer on an interim basis for the period May 2008 through January 2009.
Prior to co-founding Omneon, Kaplan served as Senior Vice President – Sony Broadcast at Sony Electronics Inc., from 1995 to 1998. From 1989 to 1992 he was Vice President and General Manager of the Computer Graphics and Television Groups at Tektronix, Inc. At that time, these operations included the Tektronix color printer division and the Grass Valley Group subsidiary.
Kaplan holds an M.B.A. from Rutgers University and a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Wisconsin and is a fellow of the Society of Motion Picture & Television Engineers.
Suresh Vasudevan, President and CEO, Omneon, Inc.
Suresh Vasudevan is president and CEO of Omneon Inc. Vasudevan joined Omneon in January 2009 from NetApp, where he held senior executive positions during a tenure spanning nearly a decade. He most recently served as senior vice president of product operations and also as a member of the company's executive team, overseeing all product management and engineering for the NetApp product portfolio.
Vasudevan started his NetApp career in corporate development, moved on to lead product management, and eventually headed up all product management and technical marketing for the company. In 2005, NetApp acquired Decru, with Vasudevan leading the business unit – including sales, marketing, product development, and support. Before joining NetApp, Vasudevan worked at the management consulting firm McKinsey & Co. in New Delhi, Mumbai, and Chicago as a senior engagement manager, focusing on product marketing, operations, and marketing strategy.
Vausdevan holds an M.B.A. from the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) in Calcutta, India and a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS) in Pilani, India.
J. Peter Wagner, Accel Partners
J. Peter Wagner has served as a member of the Omneon board of directors since May 1998. Since 1996, Mr. Wagner has been a General Partner of Accel Venture Partners, a venture capital firm. In addition to Omneon, Mr. Wagner currently serves on the boards of directors of several privately-held companies. Mr. Wagner holds an M.B.A. from the Harvard Business School and an A.B. in Physics from Harvard College.
Steve Baloff, Advanced Technology Ventures
Steve Baloff has served as a member of the board of directors since April 2009. Steve is a general partner at ATV which he joined in 1996 and focuses on investments in the software and internet services markets in the firm's Palo Alto, CA office. He is also on the board at Cenzic, Host Analytics, Integrated Media Measurement Inc., Nominum, Tripwire, and WildTangent. Prior investments include UpShot (acquired by Siebel Systems), Striva (acquired by Informatica NASDAQ: INFA), ViryaNet (NASDAQ: VRYA), Velogic (acquired by Keynote NASDAQ: KEYN), Seeker Software (acquired by Concur NASDAQ: CNQR), and Epigram (acquired by Broadcom NASDAQ: BRCM).
Steve has 20 years of entrepreneurial, operating and venture experience. He founded and served as CEO of Worldview Systems, a venture-backed start-up. Through a joint venture with Sabre Interactive, Worldview Systems created and launched Travelocity, the award-winning travel site. Steve also held executive positions in sales, marketing and general management with Covalent Systems, a venture-backed computer systems vendor focused on the graphic arts industry. During his tenure, the company grew from pre-revenue to over $20M in revenue. His career originated in Booz, Allen & Hamilton's San Francisco and London offices, where he focused on strategy engagements for a variety of technology companies in the U.S. and Europe.
Steve holds an M.B.A. from Stanford Graduate School of Business and a B.A. from Harvard College.
Esfandiar Lohrasbpour, Invesco Private Capital
Since joining INVESCO in 1998, Esfandiar Lohrasbpour has led investments in AccountNow, Cortina, ConSentry, Touchdown Technologies, Chelsio, Omneon, ONI Systems, Resonext and Sigmatel. He is a member of the Board of Directors of Chelsio, ConSentry, AccountNow, Omneon and Cortina.
Prior to joining INVESCO, Esfandiar was with AT&T. He was a member of the technical staff in Bell Labs, where he worked in the semiconductor devices area. He later joined the parent company, AT&T, and worked in Finance, Marketing and Corporate Development. Esfandiar also co-founded a startup within AT&T called Pixel Machines, which was in the business of making and selling a hardware plus software solution for image processing and 3D graphics applications. In his Corporate Development role he helped AT&T focus on new growth opportunities most notably Wireless (through the acquisition of McCaw Cellular) and Online Services (through the starting up of WorldNet).
Esfandiar received a Ph.D. in Operations Research from the UCLA School of Engineering. He received a M.S. in Operations Research from the University of North Carolina and a B.A. in Mathematics from Berea College (Kentucky). He is registered with the NASD as a General Securities Representative (Series 7) and Uniform Securities Agent (Series 63).
Matt Howard, Norwest Venture Partners
Matthew D. Howard has served as a member of the Omneon board of directors since November 2002. Since August 2000, Mr. Howard has been with Norwest Venture Partners, a venture capital firm, and is currently a General Partner. In addition to Omneon, Mr. Howard currently serves on the boards of directors of several privately-held companies. Mr. Howard holds a bachelor of business administration with an emphasis in information systems from Chaminade University of Honolulu and an M.S. in telecommunications management from Golden Gate University.
Prior to joining the firm in 2000, Matt held a number of senior positions with Cisco's IOS organization and the Internet Business Unit. He established Cisco's security and VPN strategy, situated Cisco as the leading firewall appliance manufacturer, and launched the first load-balancing product.
Previously, Matt was vice president of marketing at Vertical Communications, where he focused on voice over IP and launched the first MGCP enabled media gateway. In addition, Matt has held various positions at Digital Equipment Corporation, BDM International, and Bolt, Beranek and Newman (BBN) Communications Corporation. He began his career as a cryptological analyst with the U.S. Naval Security Group.
Basil Alwan
Basil H. Alwan has served as a member of the board since September 2005. Since July 2003, Mr. Alwan has served as President of the IP Division at Alcatel-Lucent, a provider of communications solutions to telecommunication carriers, Internet service providers and enterprises for delivery of voice, data and video applications. Prior to that Mr. Alwan was a founder and President and Chief Executive Officer of TiMetra Networks, a provider of service routing technology, from January 2000 until the acquisition of TiMetra by Alcatel in July 2003. In addition to Omneon, Mr. Alwan currently serves on the boards of directors of several privately-held companies. Mr. Alwan holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Illinois.
Bill Schroeder
William J. Schroeder has served as a member of the Omneon board of directors since November 2001 and as Chairman of the Board from November 2001 until June 2003. From February 2002 until his retirement from full-time employment in October 2004, Mr. Schroeder served as President and Chief Executive Officer of Vormetric, Inc., an enterprise data storage security company. Prior to that, Mr. Schroeder served as a consultant to various technology companies from January 2001 to February 2002. In addition to Omneon, Mr. Schroeder currently serves on the boards of directors of Con-way Inc., a provider of transportation and supply chain management services, and several privately-held companies. Mr. Schroeder holds an M.B.A. from the Harvard Business School and an M.S.E.E. and a BEE, from Marquette University.
