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Nagesh Challa

[Founder] Director, President & CEO of Ecrio Inc.　

Nagesh Challa is co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Ecrio.

Prior to Ecrio, he founded Nexcom Technology Inc., a Silicon Valley start-up that pioneered the concept of mass storage for mobile devices. Challa assembled and managed a team of 30 professionals and negotiated several license agreements with large global OEM's. He successfully sold Nexcom to ISSI (Nasdaq:ISSI) in December 1997.
During his 20 year career, he held various engineering and management positions with National Semiconductor, Exel Microelectronics and Catalyst Semiconductor.

Challa received a BS in Physics from Andhra University, India, an MS in Physics from Western Michigan University and was a graduate student at Purdue University pursuing his Ph.D. before starting his career in the Silicon Valley. He has been granted 21 patents in semiconductors, software and mobile technologies.

Michel Gannage

[Founder] Vice President of Business Development, Ecrio Inc.

Michel Gannage is responsible for managing all of Ecrio's OEM, ODM relationships and partnerships in the mobile wireless arena including overall sales strategy, and product marketing. He is directly responsible for key customers and strategic partners and is actively involved in product planning.

Gannage started his career in Silicon Valley in 1981 when he joined Intel as a Data Communications Engineer. He then held various engineering and management positions with Catalyst Semiconductor and Exel Microelectronics.
Most recently, he co-founded Nexcom Technology Inc. with Nagesh Challa and was Vice President of Engineering. At Nexcom, he developed the Serial Flash product line and MediaStick product, and managed the system development for Flash Data Storage in the form of SIM cards. He also directed the development of Flash based Media Storage solutions for consumer wireless devices.

Gannage received an engineering degree from Ecole Centrale de Paris and an MS in EECS from Princeton University, and holds 9 patents.

Rao Gobburu

[Founder] Director, Vice President of Engineering, Ecrio inc.

Rao Gobburu is responsible for the technology, product development and engineering. In this role he participates actively in product planning. He has setup and managed the relationships with offshore development partners.

Gobburu is an industry veteran in the areas of information appliances and microcontrollers. Prior to founding Ecrio, he co-founded Silicon Works Inc., a startup aimed at Connected Information Appliances, where he developed fully functional Motorola DragonBall based handheld PDA/Information Appliances.
Prior, he managed for Vadem the single chip X86 microcontrollers and PCMCIA controller business.
Prior to Vadem, he was at Tritech Microelectronics where he defined and developed chip set solutions for pen computing. He started his career at National Semiconductor in 1981 in the Microcontroller group.

Gobburu holds a B.E in Electrical Engineering from MS University, Baroda, India and an MS degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Florida. He holds 4 patents.

Richard Banks

Vice President of Sales, Communications, North America & EMEA

Banks is responsible for the development of sales channels for Ecrio's Real Time Communications platform in North America and EMEA. He will continue with  sales support for ODM's and further expand sales campaigns to Mobile Network Operators, leveraging Ecrio's position as the IMS Client market leader.

Prior to joining Ecrio, Banks served as VP of Sales at Online Insight and as Director of North American Sales at SmartTrust, where his focus on a modular product-line mix delivered proven results, exceeding business model projections from mobile operator customers. His career also includes global account sales responsibility at Quintus (Avaya), as well as executive sales positions with Clarify and Intergraph Corporation.

Banks received his BS from the Florida State University. He is a member of the Mobile Payments Committee of the Financial Services Technology Consortium and is also a member of the Wireless Technology Forum.

Vikram Karmarkar

Vice President of Technology Strategy and Alliances, Ecrio inc.

Vikram Karmarkar is primarily responsible for setting up key technology and product alliances with infrastructure partners from the wireless domain.

Karmarkar has 21 years of experience in the computer and telecommunications industry, spanning key leadership positions in hardware and software technology R&D, product realization, product management and business development primarily within the carrier market segment.
He was one of the founding R&D members of HCL (now HCL Technologies). Moving to AT&T Bell Labs, he pioneered the application of robust design techniques to realize quality optimization of high reliability SS7 message switching systems. Also at Bell Labs, he lead the team that developed the industry's first carrier-grade LDAP internet directory product.
At Lucent Technologies, as Director of IP Networking Products, he was a member of the team that launched the company's first multi-gigabit IP Switch product. Most recently, within Lucent Technologies' wireless business unit, he has served successive roles as Director of Mobility Customer (UMTS) Solutions; Director of the Wireless Competency Center in Milan, Italy; and Director of UMTS and GPRS Applications and Services global Offers.

Karmarkar holds a B.Tech degree in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology and a Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Iowa with specialization in fault-tolerant packet switching systems.

Larry Loper

Vice President of Marketing, Ecrio inc.

Larry Loper joined Ecrio as VP Marketing in November 2006. At Ecrio, his responsibilities include all global product and brand marketing. He also leads business development efforts for Ecrio's patented MoBeam technology, which "beams" barcodes (for coupons, gift cards and more) from mobile phones to industry standard point-of-sale scanners.

Prior to Ecrio, Loper served as VP Marketing at Mobile 365; there he rebranded the merger of Inphomatch and Mobileway into Mobile 365, a global data network that was sold to Sybase for over $400 million.
Prior to Mobile 365, Loper held senior marketing positions with several leading technology firms. As part of the ONI Systems executive team, he helped launch the company's successful June 2000 IPO.
Loper also led corporate marketing efforts for 3Com Corporation (Santa Clara, CA) and Mentor Graphics (Wilsonville, OR). His consulting experience includes Cisco and Riverhead Networks (now part of Cisco).

Loper holds a B.A. from the University of California, Berkeley, and a M.S. from the University of Oregon.

LINA MARTIN

Vice President of FINANCE, Ecrio inc.

Lina Martin manages all aspects of finance, accounting, and operations for the company.  Other duties include overseeing facilities, human resources, and office management functions.
Martin also plays a vital role in fund-raising activities, including recent significant investments by Aplix, CSK, JAIC, Nomura Securities, NTT DoCoMo and Visa.  She works closely with Challa and the board of directors on analysis for budgets, cash flow, and operating results.

Prior to Ecrio, Martin served as Corporate Controller for gForce Systems and Decisive Technology. She also served in various finance/accounting capacities with Micro Focus, Varian Associates, and Capcom U.S.A.

She holds a B.B.A. in Accounting from Iowa State University and pursued graduate studies (MBA program) at Drake University.

ROBERT THOMAS

Vice President of SALES, commerce, NORTH AMERICA AND EUROPE

Robert Thomas is responsible for establishing the North America and Europe sales presence for Ecrio, with a focus on the company's IMS framework and applications software.  His sales portfolio includes relationships with leading wireless carriers, handset manufacturers, chipset providers, and other application providers who wish to build on Ecrio's industry-leading, standards-based framework.

Prior to joining Ecrio, Thomas was employed by over-the-air mobile provisioning leader Bitfone Corporation as Vice President, Worldwide Sales & Americas Sales. At Bitfone, he led commercial launch activities in 2003, and subsequently doubled sales from 2004 to 2005.  Thomas' ability to forge agreements with Motorola, Qualcomm, LG, Sony Ericsson, and UT Starcom were key to Bitfone's success.  He also championed Bitfone's global expansion by opening sales/support offices in Tokyo, Seoul, Beijing, and Europe.
Prior to Bitfone, Thomas served from 2001 – 03 with UbiNetics, Inc. as Vice President, Business Development, Americas. He also held strategic marketing and program management roles with Cisco Systems, Ericsson, AMPS and Harris Corporation.

He earned a B.S. in Industrial Engineering from West Virginia University, and pursued graduate studies toward his M.S. in Engineering Management from Old Dominion University.