GridGain Systems Leadership
Our management team and board of directors includes seasoned executives, leading investors and technologists
Management Team
Eoin O’Connor
President & CEO, GridGain Systems
Eoin O’Connor
Eoin O’Connor
Eoin O’Connor serves as GridGain’s president and CEO and is leading the company’s efforts to drive continued rapid growth, broaden the customer base, and enhance its distributed in-memory computing product offerings. Eoin joined GridGain in 2016 as chief financial officer and was appointed to his current position in 2022. In his previous roles at GridGain, he was responsible for finance & accounting, sales operations, legal, human resources, corporate compliance and IT.
Prior to joining GridGain, Eoin was an executive at a number of public companies, including Oracle and Siebel. He began his career at KPMG, specializing in initial public offerings and audits of hi-tech public companies. He then spent many years in leadership roles across both finance and operations. More recently, at ON24 and Space Time Insight, he was instrumental in managing fast revenue growth in a very short time span. Eoin has facilitated multiple venture capital funding transactions for GridGain and other growth-stage companies.
Eoin holds a Bachelor of Commerce from University College Cork, Ireland, and is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants. He is an avid golfer and enjoys attending concerts.
Nikita Ivanov
Founder & CTO, GridGain Systems
Nikita Ivanov
Nikita Ivanov
Nikita Ivanov is founder and CTO of GridGain Systems, started in 2007 and funded by RTP Ventures and Almaz Capital. Nikita provides the vision and leadership at GridGain to develop the world’s top in-memory computing platform, now used by thousands of organizations around the globe to power business-critical systems and enable digital transformation initiatives.
Nikita has over 20 years of experience in software application development, building HPC and middleware platforms, and contributing to the efforts of other startups and notable companies including Adaptec, Visa and BEA Systems. Nikita was one of the pioneers in using Java technology for server side middleware development while working for one of Europe’s largest system integrators in 1996.
He is an active member of Java middleware community, contributor to the Java specification, and holds a Master’s degree in Electro Mechanics from the Baltic State Technical University, Saint Petersburg, Russia.
Katherine Rincon
Chief Marketing Officer
Katherine Rincon
Katherine Rincon
Katherine Rincon has more than 25 years of technology marketing experience as an executive and manager, and is passionate about real-time data and infrastructure software. Prior to joining GridGain, she served as the CMO at Unit21, a Gradient Ventures- backed startup redefining how risk and compliance teams fight financial crime.
Before Unit21, she held executive management roles at Rapyd, a fintech startup focused on cross-border transactions; Striim, a streaming data integration and intelligence platform for real-time operations and decisioning; and PubNub, a developer API platform that powers the real-time infrastructure in apps. She also held executive management positions at SL Corporation, Embarcadero Technologies, and WebLogic / BEA Systems, and senior management roles at NetDynamics and Visa.
Rincon has Bachelor of Arts degrees in both Quantitative Economics and French Literature from the University of California, San Diego, and an MBA from the University of California, Berkeley, Haas School of Business. She enjoys travel, swimming, rowing, American football, and Formula 1.
Mark Mszanski
EVP of Sales
Mark Mszanski
Mark Mszanski
Mark Mszanski has more than 25 years of executive management experience in sales and operations at both startups and large-scale software companies. Mark specializes in recruiting, developing and leading geographically dispersed sales teams and developing highly effective go-to-market strategies.
Prior to GridGain Systems, he was Vice President of Sales Financial Services and Eastern Region at Akana Software Inc., a leader in the API Management and Application Services Governance space that was purchased by Rogue Wave Software. At Akana, Mark transformed the sales organization for growth and quota attainment, securing Fortune 500 accounts.
Before Akana, Mark was Vice President of Financial Services for Kony America’s Solutions Inc., where he built and managed a team focused on Financial Services in the U.S and Latin America. His sales team accounted for 50 percent of Kony’s total revenue. Prior to Kony, Mark held executive management positions at Evolven Software, Hewlett Packard Company, DataSynapse, BEA Systems, and more.
Mark holds a BS degree in Business from Springfield College.
Lalit Ahuja
SVP of Customer Services
Lalit Ahuja
Lalit Ahuja
Lalit Ahuja is responsible for ensuring customers gain the most value from their GridGain investments. He oversees delivery of vertically-aligned solutions in collaboration with GridGain’s strategic partners and leads a global team of solution architects focused on customer success.
In his career spanning over 20 years, Lalit has led various IT functions including enterprise architecture, product management, large scale program management, IT operations and served as a digital strategy advisor to executives at Fortune 500 enterprises.
Prior to GridGain, Lalit led the global Customer Success team at Akana, a leader in API Management and Application Services Governance space, where he was responsible for increased customer retention and more than 300% growth in Akana’s consulting services business.
Lalit holds a Master’s degree in Engineering and an MBA from UCLA.
Yuri Yudin
VP of Engineering
Yuri Yudin
Yuri Yudin
Yuri Yudin leads the engineering, architecture, and quality assurance teams at GridGain. He has over 25 years of experience in software development, design, and architecture at various large enterprises and startups. He specializes in distributed systems, data analytics, security, networking and performance tuning.
Prior to GridGain, Yury was Director of Engineering at WANdisco where he led development and testing of their Big Data and ALM product lines. Before WANdisco, Yury spent 10 years at Intel managing cross-site engineering teams in the development and performance tuning of managed runtime environments on a wide range of Intel platforms. Prior to Intel, Yury held various engineering and management positions at Sun Microsystems, HyCube, Tepkom, Transas Marine and others.
Yury holds a Master’s degree in Mathematics from the Saint Petersburg State University, Russia where, for a number of years, he also gave lectures on Informatics, programming languages, and modern computer architectures.
Elena Schtein
VP of Finance
Elena Schtein
Elena Schtein
Elena Schtein is GridGain’s senior financial executive managing the company’s accounting activities including annual audits, reporting, M&A, fundraising due diligence, revenue recognition, forecasting, general ledger, consolidations, cash management, risk management, US and international taxes and equity. She is credited with building the company’s finance infrastructure from the ground up, including team recruitment and operational processes. Most recently, she and her team played an instrumental role in facilitating multiple venture capital funding transactions for GridGain.
Elena thrives in fast-paced environments working with early- to mid-stage companies in need of financial processes, corporate infrastructure, and KPIs for growth. Elena’s career spans more than 25 years, working in both privately held and publicly traded companies focused on enterprise software, SaaS, and other banking technology. Before joining GridGain Systems, she served as Corporate Controller for both SpaceTime Insight and Porter Novelli, and as Director of Revenue for ON24.
Elena holds a BS Degree in Accounting with a Minor in Statistics from the State University of Economics and Finance in Saint Petersburg, Russia. She’s a dog-lover, who admits to spoiling her Standard Poodle, Alby.
Timothy Carley
Managing Director, EMEA
Timothy Carley
Timothy Carley
Timothy Carley joined GridGain in 2018. As Managing Director for EMEA, he is responsible for running operations and driving revenue and growth for the region.
Timothy has more than 25 years of management and senior sales executive experience in FinTechs and Infrastructure software, within sectors such as Investment Banking, Insurance, Energy and Logistics. He has been involved in launching and running sales operations in EMEA for cutting-edge start-ups and large-scale global companies.
Prior to GridGain Systems, Timothy was Managing Director, EMEA at Numerix, a leader in pricing and risk management systems. Before Numerix, he held management positions at Wolters Kluwer and DataSynapse, and senior sales roles at Calypso, Sungard, and Reuters.
Timothy holds a Bachelor’s degree in Business & Administration from ESSEC Business School in Cergy, France.
Michelle Costa
Director of Human Resources
Michelle Costa
Michelle Costa
Michelle Costa leads GridGain’s Human Resources efforts. With over 18 years of experience in all aspects of Human Resources including sourcing, staffing, compliance, compensation, employee relations, and benefits, Michelle has a proven record of managing company growth, developing business partnerships, and implementing management best practices.
Her progressive roles in HR have given her the opportunity to drive impact in many different work environments, including smaller start-up organizations as well as large international corporations. Before joining GridGain Michelle held roles in HR in the FinTech and Data Management industries which gave her the opportunity to drive impact in many different work environments, most favorably small to mid-size, start-up organizations.
Michelle holds a Bachelor's degree in Sociology from Chico State University.
Kirill Petrov
General Manager / Director of Development, EMEA
Kirill Petrov
Kirill Petrov
Kirill Petrov is responsible for operational support for the GridGain engineers in EMEA. He oversees infrastructure, compliance, and a wide range of operations-related activities to ensure stable and continuous growth and business continuity. Kirill leads the company’s regional transformations and internal improvement/optimization initiatives. Prior to this current role, he also held positions as GridGain’s Director of Development and Key Projects Director over his 4+ years with the company.
Kirill has close to 20 years’ experience in the industry with various roles in fintech and telecom companies in the areas of Delivery Management for large-scale distributed teams – up to hundreds of people – as well as Account Management in large companies, product and service providers.
He holds a Master’s degree in Computer Science from the Baltic State Technical University, Saint Petersburg, Russia.
Board of Directors
Geoffrey Baehr
Partner, Almaz Capital
Geoffrey Baehr
Geoffrey Baehr
Geoffrey Baehr is a Partner at Almaz Capital, investing in diverse areas ranging from security, to networking, analytics and big data problems.
From 2000-2012, Geoffrey was a General Partner and later Venture Partner at US Venture Partners in Menlo Park CA. He remains an Advisor to USVP.
From 1988-2000, Geoffrey Baehr served as Chief Network Officer for Sun Microsystems responsible for technical and strategic network directions. During his tenure at Sun, he developed advanced technical products and, with his team, obtained more than one dozen patents. Over the past several years, Mr. Baehr has worked as an advisor to the Skolkovo Foundation and is on the panel of reviewers for Computer science related proposal reviews.
Mr. Baehr earned a BA in Biochemistry and Natural Sciences from Fordham University.
Andrew Jackson
CEO, Talos Investments Limited
Andrew Jackson
Andrew Jackson
Andrew Jackson, Ph.D. has more than 20 years’ experience within artificial intelligence and data analytics. Most recently was the CEO of a leading artificial intelligence company within the Middle East.
Wide experience in organically growing commercial businesses to scale and identifying acquisition opportunities for inorganic growth.
Prior experience within research commercialization within a network of top EU Universities, partnering with multinational technology leaders.
Academic background in ubiquitous computing, software engineering and machine learning.
Eoin O’Connor
President & CEO, GridGain Systems
Eoin O’Connor
Eoin O’Connor
Eoin O’Connor serves as GridGain’s president and CEO and is leading the company’s efforts to drive continued rapid growth, broaden the customer base, and enhance its distributed in-memory computing product offerings. Eoin joined GridGain in 2016 as chief financial officer and was appointed to his current position in 2022. In his previous roles at GridGain, he was responsible for finance & accounting, sales operations, legal, human resources, corporate compliance and IT.
Prior to joining GridGain, Eoin was an executive at a number of public companies, including Oracle and Siebel. He began his career at KPMG, specializing in initial public offerings and audits of hi-tech public companies. He then spent many years in leadership roles across both finance and operations. More recently, at ON24 and Space Time Insight, he was instrumental in managing fast revenue growth in a very short time span. Eoin has facilitated multiple venture capital funding transactions for GridGain and other growth-stage companies.
Eoin holds a Bachelor of Commerce from University College Cork, Ireland, and is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants. He is an avid golfer and enjoys attending concerts.
Nikita Ivanov
Founder & CTO, GridGain Systems
Nikita Ivanov
Nikita Ivanov
Nikita Ivanov is founder and CTO of GridGain Systems, started in 2007 and funded by RTP Ventures and Almaz Capital. Nikita provides the vision and leadership at GridGain to develop the world’s top in-memory computing platform, now used by thousands of organizations around the globe to power business-critical systems and enable digital transformation initiatives.
Nikita has over 20 years of experience in software application development, building HPC and middleware platforms, and contributing to the efforts of other startups and notable companies including Adaptec, Visa and BEA Systems. Nikita was one of the pioneers in using Java technology for server side middleware development while working for one of Europe’s largest system integrators in 1996.
He is an active member of Java middleware community, contributor to the Java specification, and holds a Master’s degree in Electro Mechanics from the Baltic State Technical University, Saint Petersburg, Russia.
Sundi Sundaresh
President & CEO, Cinarra Systems, Inc.
Sundi Sundaresh
Sundi Sundaresh
Sundi Sundaresh is currently the President & CEO of Cinarra Systems, Inc., a private, Softbank Corp/venture-funded startup focused on enabling location-based campaigns and measurement for marketeers while monetizing data for telco carriers. A former president, CEO and board member of Adaptec, Sundi brings a wealth of industry experience to GridGain Systems.
Sundi has more than 20 years of experience in managing high-growth companies in the tech industry. Before becoming a board member of GridGain, SandForce (sold to LSI) and Sureline Systems, Sundi was the president and CEO of Adaptec, Inc [Nasdaq: ADPT, sold to PMC-Sierra]. During the course of his career, Sundi has also led multiple startups as President & CEO, including Xangati, Inc. (IT Operations Analytics, sold to Virtual Instruments), Candera Inc. (the industry’s first network storage controller) and Jetstream Communications (market-leading voice over broadband solution). During a previous tenure at Adaptec, Sundi served in a number of positions, including corporate Vice-President and General Manager for the Personal I/O division and corporate Vice President of worldwide marketing. He has also held various positions at Hewlett-Packard and National Semiconductor.
Mr. Sundaresh holds a
Bachelor of
Technology degree in
Electrical
Engineering from the
Indian Institute of
Technology, Madras,
a Master of
Engineering degree
in Electrical
Engineering from
Cornell University,
and an MBA from The
Wharton School at
the University of
Pennsylvania.
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