SOASTA's Founding Team
Ken Gardner
Founder and Executive Chairman
Tom Lounibos
President and CEO
Kenneth C. Holcomb
Founder and CFO
Lisa Bergamo
Founder and Vice President of Marketing
Mike Hemmert
Founder and Vice President of Engineering
Craig Powers
Founder and Lead Architect
Ken Gardner, founder and executive chairman for SOASTA, is an industry veteran with more than 30 years in the enterprise software industry. Ken is a six-time entrepreneur having previously been the founder and CEO of Istante (acquired by Oracle in December 2004); Sagent Technology (IPO in April 1999); ReportSmith (acquired by Borland in March 1994); and ViewPoint Systems (acquired by Knowledgeware in June 1992).
His first startup, in 1985, was Tesseract Corporation where he was senior vice president of Technology. From 1978 to 1985, he worked in R&D at Tymshare, Inc. Ken’s extensive experience in creating winning enterprise software products has resulted in numerous industry awards including:
Ken sits on the board of directors for Everdream Corporation and Accept Software, Inc. Ken is a 1972 graduate of the University of Louisville and holds a BSC degree in Finance. In 2000, he was named an alumni fellow by the University of Louisville, College of Business.
Tom Lounibos oversees SOASTA’s operations, sales and marketing arms and is responsible for the company’s go-to-market strategy. Tom brings more than 30 years of experience in building early stage software companies, leading two companies to successful IPO¹s. Most recently, Tom was CEO of Dorado Corporation. Previous to Dorado, he was EVP for Sagent Technology through its 1999 IPO, entrepreneur-in-residence at Crosspoint Venture Partners, and held executive positions at Digitalk Corporation, Knowledgeware (KWI), and Encore Financial Services. Tom has also served on several Boards in the Silicon Valley.
Ken Holcomb, founder and CFO for SOASTA, has over 34 years of experience in enterprise software and computer services. In his previous position as Istante’s CFO and senior vice president of Operations, Ken was responsible for Finance, IT, QA and the worldwide support of Istante's product line. During his tenure at Istante, he was also CIO and managed sales operations. Prior to joining Istante, Ken served as Sagent's vice president of Technical Support. In this role he was responsible for worldwide support of Sagent's platform products. He also served as vice pesident of Network Operations at Pilot Network Services, a secure Internet Service Provider. In his prior position with MFS Datanet, he was the senior vice president of Customer Service and Operations responsible for the operation and deployment of the global ATM backbone, network engineering, field operations and MIS development and operations, as well as all customer service functions. Ken has held similar positions at ViewPoint Systems, British Telecom, North America and Tymshare with Ken Gardner. Ken is a 1972 graduate of the University of Notre Dame and holds a Bachelors degree in Business Administration, majoring in Finance.
Lisa Bergamo, founder and vice president of Marketing for SOASTA, brings more than 20 years experience in marketing business-to-business computer software solutions to the company. Most recently, she ran Bergamo Communications, a strategic marketing and public relations firm for enterprise software and services clients. Prior to that, Lisa served as senior vice president for Neale May & Partners, a leading perception management firm. Previously, she was vice president of marketing for Istante where she was responsible for all marketing strategy and programs. She has held management positions at Sagent Technology, CyberSource, and Silicon Graphics as well as at leading public relations firms including Miller/Shandwick, Cunningham Communication, and Blanc & Otus. Her broad experience includes developing and executing successful marketing, public relations and lead generation campaigns for dozens of Fortune 500 and start-up companies including Arena Software, A.T. Kearney, BusinessObjects, Genesys, Goodmail Systems, IBM, ILOG, Interlace Systems, KACE, Philips Semiconductors, Sony, Taligent, Transmeta and Visto among others. Lisa is a graduate of the University of California at Santa Barbara and holds a Bachelors degree in English.
Mike Hemmert, founder and vice president of Engineering for SOASTA, brings over 20 years of experience in enterprise software development to the company. Before SOASTA, Mike was vice president of Development for Sagent Technology, a leading business intelligence vendor, which was acquired by Group 1 Software in 2003. Prior to Sagent, Mike was a senior development manager at Borland International where he led the ReportSmith development team. From 1989 to 1994 he was co-founder of International Systems Development-Japan, an ISV specializing in direct marketing systems for the Japanese market, which was acquired by McCann Erickson in 1996. Mike held various development and management positions at Tesseract Corp. and Trans System Corp, and spent two years as a Peace Corps volunteer teaching mathematics and physics in Ghana, West Africa. Mike is a 1981 graduate of the University of New Hampshire and holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science.
Craig Powers, founder and lead architect for SOASTA, has over 28 years experience in software engineering, software architecture, systems design, and programming. Before joining SOASTA, Craig was a founder and lead architect at Istante where he co-invented 6 software patents. Prior to Istante, Craig was a founder and lead architect for Sagent, where he co-invented 7 patents (6 have been granted; one is pending). Prior to Sagent, he was a principal engineer at Borland. From June 1992 to March 1994 he was a principal software engineer at ReportSmith. From June 1989 to June 1992 he was a senior software engineer for Viewpoint Systems. From June 1978 to June 1989, he held various R&D positions at Four-Phase Systems/Motorola with his final position that of project manager. Craig is a 1978 graduate of Purdue University and holds a Bachelors degree in Computer Science.
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©2008 SOASTA, Inc