Richard Schwartz, President, CEO, Member, Board of Directors

Richard Schwartz has repeatedly created and led new organizations to innovate and develop software that has had significant market impact. Prior to founding Macheen, Schwartz was senior vice president of strategy and technology for Openwave, responsible for strategic direction and mergers/acquisitions. He joined Openwave when it acquired his former company, SoloMio, where he was CEO. Prior to founding SoloMio, he was senior vice president of technology at Vignette Corporation.

He joined Vignette in June 1999 when it acquired Diffusion, which he founded and led as CEO. Prior to Diffusion, he was chief technology officer and senior vice president of technology for Borland International during the period of revenue growth from $30M to $650M. At Borland, Schwartz was responsible for overall product and technology strategy.

Schwartz joined Borland via the acquisition of his company Ansa Software. He co-founded Ansa Software, where he was the co-creator of Paradox, the first relational database software widely used by business professionals, selling over 10 million licenses.

Schwartz holds a PhD in Computer Science from UCLA. After completing his PhD, he was a visiting professor in Applied Mathematics at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, and then served as senior computer scientist at Stanford Research Institute (SRI International) prior to founding his first company. He has been board member and investor in several companies and high-technology incubators. He holds a number of patents and is the author of numerous publications.

Glenda Akers, Vice President of Products

Glenda brings 30 years of executive leadership in product development for both Fortune 500 companies as well as startups which went on to be acquired or filed IPOs. Her primary focus has been in the telecommunications industry. At Macheen, Glenda leads product initiatives, development and customer support operations.

Before joining Macheen, Akers was worldwide senior vice president for global industry solutions at SAP, where she was responsible for products and acquisitions that expanded that company’s presence in the communications vertical.

From 2001–2007, she was vice president of products for SoloMio, responsible for software development, services and support. Following the acquisition of SoloMio by OpenWave, Akers served as vice president of engineering.

She was also vice president of engineering at Metasolv, which became publicly traded and acquired by Oracle. Previously, as vice president of engineering at Sybase, she managed a worldwide team of engineers in the development, maintenance and testing of in-market and future SQL products. She also has managed the engineering departments at Warpspeed Communications and MCI.

Glenda holds a B.S. in Mathematics from the University of Texas.

James Trotter, Vice President of Sales and Business Development

Trotter’s track record includes more than fifteen years of driving domestic and international sales for companies such as Tivoli Systems, MetaSolv Software, CoManage and Interwise. He has developed extensive relationships with many large enterprises based on his strategic and practical understanding of the role and importance of communications solutions in the modern enterprise.

Prior to joining Macheen Inc., Trotter became vice president at AT&T Unified Communications following that company’s acquisition of Interwise, where he served as VP Sales. At AT&T, he managed a business unit responsible for delivering over $1 billion in annual revenue. He also helped define and execute the successful strategy that merged Interwise into AT&T’s teleconferencing unit.

Before Interwise, he was director of sales at CoManage, acting as sales lead following that company’s acquisition by Syndesis. He secured and managed several multi-million dollar annual accounts for the business.

Trotter was worldwide director of sales for SoloMio prior to joining CoManage, leading all sales and business development activities. His has also held executive leadership positions at Cadtel, Digital Fairway Corporation and MetaSolv (now Oracle).

Jayne Walters, Chief Financial Officer

Walters has over 30 years of financial experience with high-tech companies, responsible for overseeing fiscal policy, forecasting and establishing infrastructure for international operations. Prior to joining Macheen, she was vice president of finance at ReachForce, Inc., a lead generation service provider to marketing organizations worldwide.

Previously, she was the CFO at Jam Technologies, a fabless semiconductor company, where she had fiscal oversight and regulatory reporting responsibilities for dual headquarter operations in Singapore and Austin, Texas. At VirtualCFO, she worked with over 75 high-tech companies including SoloMio, Agere, Convio, Surgient and Nanocoolers.

At Agere she was CFO during their acquisition by Lucent Technologies. Prior to VirtualCFO she was the Controller at IntelliQuest, Inc., responsible for financial and SEC reporting during a period rapid growth and acquisitions.

A CPA, Walters has seven years of public accounting experience working for KPMG and BDO Seidman. She has an MBA from Wayne State University and a BS BA degree from Central Michigan University.

Ned Hill, Member, Board of Directors

Ned Hill has over 20 years of experience as an operator, consultant, and investor in technology companies, with a particular focus on communications, computing, and data center technologies Prior to joining DFJ Mercury, Ned was a Director with Sternhill Partners, a Texas-based early-stage venture capital firm, where he worked closely with pioneering start-ups in several important emerging markets, including WiMAX (Navini Networks, acquired by Cisco); blade servers (RLX Technologies, acquired by Hewlett-Packard); and virtualization (Surgient, acquired by Quest Software). Prior to Sternhill, Ned was with BellSouth Internet Services where he managed broadband operations during the initial deployment and growth of BellSouth’s DSL service.

Ned earned a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from N.C. State University and an MBA from The Amos Tuck School at Dartmouth College where he was named an Edward Tuck Scholar.

In addition to serving on Macheen’s board, Ned serves on the boards of the Texas Venture Capital Association, the Rice Alliance for Technology & Entrepreneurship and the Houston Technology Center’s IT Screening Committee. He is also an Adjunct Professor at the Jones Graduate School of Management at Rice University where he teaches a course on venture capital.

Basil Horangic, Member, Board of Directors

Basil Horangic is a partner at North Bridge Venture Partners. He focuses on innovations in physical devices and technical software. He has started and served as CEO of three companies: Conformative, an XML processor now part of Intel; Copan, an archival storage system now part of SGI; and Raging Mobile, a wireless device idea currently in stealth.

He spent his early years at Goldman and McKinsey, and his initial venture years as a Principal at Oak Investment Partners, and then a Partner at Austin Ventures.

Basil is a graduate of MIT with an SB in Computer Science; an SB in Economics, and an SM in Operations Research. He received an MBA from the University of Chicago, and is still hoping to finish his PhD there in Economics.