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Prasad Akella
Prasad brings to Optessa entrepreneurial experience in manufacturing and enterprise software as well as in creating new product categories. As Advisor, Business Development, Prasad works with the Optessa executive team to grow the customer base. He has played an instrumental role in developing new and potential business for Optessa with large, global companies.
Prasad is CTO of Cydelity, an online fraud detection company and was co-founder and Vice-President at Spoke Software, a pioneer in social networking for business applications. Prior to Spoke, Prasad directed product management at Commerce One. In his first career in robotics and manufacturing, Prasad managed the development of new technologies for in-house robotic production systems at General Motors and conducted research in Robotics at Japan's MITI Mechanical Engineering Laboratory and at Stanford University. The Intelligent Assist Devices Prasad developed at GM created a new market that generated over ~$15M in sales by suppliers in 2004.
Prasad's work has been recognized with awards from General Motors, IEEE, ASME, National Science Foundation, Lincoln Foundation, Stanford University and the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras. He received Ph.D. and MS degrees from Stanford University, an MBA (with highest honors) from the University of Michigan Business School, and a BS from the Indian Institute of Technology.
Prasad's personal web site is at www.akellas.org/prasad.
Tsuyoshi Taira (Taira San)
Tsuyoshi Taira is the CEO of Tazan International Inc, a Venture Capital and
Management Consultancy Firm. Mr. Taira has been involved with a number of Silicon
Valley startup companies as founding investor/director including Atmel Semiconductor
(NASDAQ: ATML), Pico Power Technology Inc (acquired by Cirrus Logic), Junglee
Corporation (acquired by Amazon.com, NASDAQ: AMZN), Armedia (acquired by Broadcom,
NASDAQ: BRCM), Apptivity (acquired by Progress Software, NASDAQ: PRGS) and many
others. He has been instrumental in providing seed stage financing, management
and marketing advice, especially for the Far Eastern market to the startup
companies. Currently he serves on the boards of Silicon Storage Technology Inc.
(flash memory company), Nayna Networks, Inc. (networking products and services),
Ureach.Com (unified e-mail and voice mail messaging company), Asia-Links Media
(Semiconductor components e-commerce) and Teleweb (Call Center in China). In
addition, he is on the advisory board of Silicon Motion (Graphic Controller IC),
CLCEO (Polarizer), Reveo (Revolutionary Electro Optics Technology Company) and
several other companies. Previously, Mr. Taira was Chairman of Sanyo Semiconductor
directing Sanyo's US marketing strategy. Most of his career was spent at Sanyo
Corporation except for five years when he worked at Fairchild Semiconductor. Mr.
Taira graduated from Tokyo Metropolitan University with a BSEE. He also received an
Honorary Doctor of Humanities from Newport Asia Pacific University in March 2000.
He has published a number of books including "Audio Amplifier", "Transistor
Physics And Application" as a co-author and most recently a book on
entrepreneurship, "My fellow engineer, let's challenge" from Nikkei BP.
Stephen I. Rodgers - President, GS Global Solutions
A 22 year career with leading automotive parts supplier Magna International, and a 7 year career with General Motors of Canada has provided Steve Rodgers with a very comprehensive and wide-ranging insight into the global automotive industry. GS Global Solutions is focused on finding solutions to deal with the rapidly changing automotive industry including such things as global integration, supply chain transformation and changing technology including hybrid technologies and powertrain evolution. Steve served as the Chairman of the Automotive Parts Manufacturers Association (APMA) from 2005-2007 and is a member of the Board of Directors of both Exco Technologies and the ZENN Motor Company.
At the time of his departure from Magna, Steve was Vice President, Global Business Development covering the Asia-Pacific region focused on the countries of Japan, Korea, China, India and Thailand. Steve joined the Magna Corporate Office in August 2003 as Vice-President, Marketing and was appointed to the Asia focused position in September 2006. Prior to his appointment to the Magna Corporate Office, Mr. Rodgers served as Senior Vice-President, Marketing for Intier Automotive and Vice-President, Sales and Marketing at both Tesma and later, Atoma. He also served as the Assistant General Manager at Karmax Heavy Stamping within the Cosma Group. Steve joined Magna when their sales were $400 Million and was an active member of management as they morphed into the world's third largest Tier 1 Automotive supplier with sales exceeding $24 Billion.
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