Christopher Keene  [ Chief Executive Officer and Chairman ]

Chris is a seasoned entrepreneur with more than 15 years of experience running public and private enterprise software companies. He was the founder of Persistence Software, a NASDAQ-listed company that pioneered the field of data transformation and caching for high transaction systems. Persistence investors included Cisco, Intel, Reuters Morgan Stanley and Sun Microsystems. Chris is also the chairman of Reportive SA, a business intelligence company. Previous work experience includes McKinsey & Company, Hewlett Packard and Medaid. Chris is an accomplished speaker and educator and has served on the entrepreneurship faculty at INSEAD University and at the Berkeley Haas School of Business. Chris earned an MBA from the Wharton School of Business, and holds a Bachelors Degree with honors in math sciences from Stanford University.

Derek Henninger  [ VP, Engineering ]

Derek has spent 22 years as a tech industry executive. In 1991, Derek was a co-founder of Persistence Software with WaveMaker CEO Christopher Keene. At Persistence, Derek's roles included leading engineering, customer care, and worldwide field operations. After Persistence went public in 1999 on the NASDAQ exchange and was sold in 2004 to Progress Software, Derek served as Progress' Vice President of Product Development and was responsible for the engineering organization and all products within Real Time Data Services division of Progress. Derek earned Bachelor Degrees in economics, computer science, and mathematics from the University of California-Davis.

Cal Ball  [ VP, Alliances ]

Cal brings more than 15 years of executive experience to WaveMaker. Previously, Cal served as VP of Sales and Marketing at Panoratio Database Images, Inc., launching U.S. operations at the prestigious DEMO Conference, winning a coveted DEMOGod award, and signing flagship customers in the healthcare and online sectors.  Before Panoratio, Cal served as VP of North American Sales for First Virtual Communications where his team doubled the sales volume.  Later, he led a highly-successful partnering strategy with large systems integrators as Director of Strategic Alliances at Persistence Software, which was successfully sold to Progress Software.

Rick Saletta  [ Marketing and Product Management ]

Rick spent 8 years at Sun Microsystems where he managed the Ultra Workstations, a $1B UNIX hardware line, Netra Server Software and Java Software. Rick is best known for leading the marketing and business strategy behind the Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition (J2EE) where he directed the product management and product marketing organizations, growing J2EE into globally recognized enterprise software brand with more than 90% market share in 3 years. Rick has also driven marketing for Macromedia Flash, Adobe Reader, the PDF file format. Prior to Sun Microsystems, Rick worked as international operations strategy consultant.

Irwin Gross  [ Board Member and Partner, Worldview Technology Partners ]

Irwin Gross has more than a decade of experience working with high technology enterprises as an advisor, strategist, and investor. He focuses on investments in software, systems, and services companies. Irwin joined Worldview from Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, where he co-founded the firm's nationally recognized intellectual property counseling practice and served as a manager of the firm's venture capital fund. As part of this practice, Irwin leveraged his extensive intellectual property expertise to assist companies in developing new market strategies, products, and revenue streams. Companies for whom Irwin has worked include a host of successful venture-backed firms, such as Brocade, Avanex, VMware, RealNetworks, and Netscape, as well as large technology enterprises such as EMC, Broadcom, and Hewlett-Packard. Irwin received a B.S. in Computer Science from Stanford University and a J.D. from Harvard Law School.

Mitchell Kertzman  [ Board Member and Partner, Hummer Winblad Venture Partners ]

Mitchell Kertzman is a Partner at Hummer Winblad Venture Partners. He has over 30 years of experience as CEO of public and private software companies. Most recently, Mitchell was chairman and CEO of Liberate Technologies, a provider of platform software for the delivery of digital services by cable television companies. Before joining Liberate, he was chairman of the board and CEO of Sybase, Inc. Mitchell was founder and CEO of Powersoft, which merged with Sybase in February 1995 (at that time, the most valuable merger in the history of the software industry). Mitchell was awarded an honorary doctorate of humane letters from the University of Massachusetts, Lowell. He is currently a director of CNET.

James Sutter  [ Board Member and Partner, The Peer Consulting Group ]

Jim Sutter is a management consultant specializing in Information Technology, focusing on technical evaluation and its advanced application. He has worked with companies such as Xerox, Chrysler, and Rockwell in the development of information technology plans and architecture. He has advised companies such as IBM, Oracle, Digital Equipment, and Berkeley Networks in areas of customer requirements and product planning. Before joining the Peer Consulting Group, Jim Sutter had twenty years experience as a top chief information officer in several Fortune 50 companies. Mr. Sutter received his B.S. in Finance from the University of Notre Dame, and an MBA from Marquette University. He recently taught Information Technology Strategy to MBA candidates in the Graduate School of Management at the University of California, Irvine.

Roger Sippl  [ Sippl Macdonald Ventures ]

Roger Sippl has a rich history of both starting companies and investing in the winning efforts of other entrepreneurs in the data management enterprise software industry, and currently invests though his own investment entity, Sippl Investments, LLC. Previously Roger was founder and CEO of Informix Software, where under his direction Informix pioneered SQL relational databases, 4GL application development tools and OLTP database technology before being acquired by IBM. Sippl was also co-founder of The Vantive Corporation, founder and CEO of Visigenic Software, Chairman and CEO of Above All Software and currently serves on the boards of Interwoven and Demand Reports. Other notable investments in this area include Illustra, Versata, BroadVision, SupportSoft and Rearden Commerce. He earned a B.S. in computer science from the University of California at Berkeley.