Nikita Ivanov

Founder & CEO

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As a founder of GridGain Systems Mr. Ivanov provides technological direction and vision for GridGain. Mr. Ivanov brings almost 20 years of experience in software development, a vision and pragmatic view of where development technology is going, and high quality standards in software engineering.

In 1996, Mr. Ivanov was one of the pioneers in using Java technology for server side middleware development while working at T-Systems GmbH, one of the largest European System Integrator.

Nikita has held various positions architecting and leading software product development for start-up companies and working with well-established companies such as Adaptec, Visa and BEA Systems. Mr. Ivanov is an active member of Java middleware community and is a contributor to Java specifications.

Mr. Ivanov holds a Master’s degree in Electro Mechanics from Baltic State Technical University, Saint Petersburg, Russia.

Kirill Sheynkman

Managing Director at RTP Ventures

Kirill Sheynkman is the Managing Director of RTP Ventures, the U.S. arm of a $750M international Venture Capital fund. Kirill is 20-year software industry veteran, who has spent 10 of those years as a CEO of software companies. He is a three-time founder of venture-backed enterprise software companies, including an early relational OLAP vendor acquired by IBM in 1995 and Plumtree Software (NASDAQ: PLUM), the creator of the corporate portal market, acquired by BEA/Oracle in 2005. Kirill’s companies were twice backed by Sequoia Capital where he was also an Entrepreneur in Residence.Kirill also held sales, product management, and business development positions at Oracle and Microsoft. Kirill is a passionate technologist, writes code in his spare time, and is fascinated by breakthrough software that can revolutionize or create big markets.

Kirill was born in Russia and had a chance to leverage his background when he was part of the first team that took Oracle’s technology to the former USSR in the early 1990′s.

David Lichtblau

Global Head of Products at Thomson Reuters

David Lichtblau is a software entrepreneur and product management executive. He co-founded his first start-up, Stanford Technology Group, a pioneer in relational On-line Analytical Processing (OLAP) for data warehouses. As chairman and head of products and marketing, David delivered a 3x return to venture investors Sequoia Capital and Hummer Winblad in the acquisition by Informix Software, now part of IBM.

After STG, he was the first executive hire at StarMine, a provider of equity analytics to institutional investment firms and investment banks. He founded and led the product management, marketing, and media relations teams. He also hired and led a team of “quants” that developed advanced mathematical models for stock selection, and was awarded multiple patents. Thomson Reuters acquired StarMine delivering a 6x return to venture investors Hummer Winblad.

David was most recently the global head of products for portfolio managers and analysts at Thomson Reuters. David earned his B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University.