Actian Bolsters Executive Team Adding New Leaders in Finance, R&D and HR

PALO ALTO, Calif. – November 16, 2018 – Actian, the hybrid data management, analytics and integration company, today announced the appointment of three new executive team members: Lewis Black as Chief Financial Officer (CFO), Raghu Chakravarthi as Senior Vice President of Research and Development (R&D) and Support Services and Melissa Ribeiro as Chief People Officer (CPO).

“I’m pleased with the level of talent and expertise that Lewis, Raghu and Melissa bring to our executive team during this exciting phase of our journey, as we continue to grow our revenue and deliver new hybrid data innovation solutions to our customers. Each of them will undoubtedly make a significant impact on Actian’s business immediately,” said Rohit de Souza, CEO & President of Actian. In April 2018, the company announced it was acquired by HCL Technologies and Sumeru Equity Partners, with the charter to operate as an independent company within the HCL ecosystem with the mission of developing and delivering industry-leading hybrid data solutions for data analytics, management and integration on a global basis.

Joining as CFO, Lewis Black brings more than 30 years of industry experience in the communications technology space with expertise in enterprise software, cloud and SaaS businesses. In this role, Black will be responsible for driving Actian’s financial growth and oversee the company’s financial operations, including budgeting and planning, treasury, accounting, tax, reporting and investor relations functions. Prior to joining Actian, Black was the General Manager of Nexmo, where he successfully scaled the business while navigating the integration of Nexmo into Vonage Corporation. He has deep finance and operational leadership experience working with past companies such as AT&T, Lucent Technologies, Avaya and Citrix. Black is a certified accountant in the U.K. and holds a B.A. in Business Administration, Finance and Business Law from Strathclyde University in Glasgow.

“I am delighted to join Actian. The company’s vision is clear and there is a great opportunity to reposition the business in a growing market undergoing significant change,” said Black. “I look forward to being part of the team that will deliver on the vision backed by the powerhouse combination of HCL and Sumeru.”

Joining as SVP of R&D and Support Services, Raghu Chakravarthi comes to Actian following more than three years at Teradata, where he was GM/VP for the company’s Data and Analytics Platform in the cloud and on-premises. Previously, he served in executive level engineering roles at Jolata, Oracle, Hyperion and Sabre. Chakravarthi holds a Master’s in Engineering from Tennessee Technological University and a B.E. in Engineering.

“I am really excited to join Actian and its executive leadership team,” said Chakravarthi. “Actian is ideally positioned to deliver on the promises of the hybrid cloud. I am inspired by Actian’s vision to democratize data and provide the best performance-to-cost data platform in the cloud as well as in the data center.”

Joining as CPO, Melissa Ribeiro’s 20-year career includes leading global HR organizations in information technology, entertainment and the news industry through tenures with Thomson Reuters, Yahoo!, Opera Mediaworks and Deluxe Entertainment Group. She also brings extensive experience in managing M&A activities worldwide. Before joining Actian, Ribeiro served as the EVP of Human Resources at Deluxe Entertainment Group and as Global Vice President of HR at Opera Mediaworks. Ribeiro has also earned accolades for revamping HR operations for Yahoo! Latin America. She holds a Master’s in Management, Business Administration and a B.A. in Psychology, and is currently pursuing her Ph.D. in Professional Psychology from Argosy University in Georgia.

About Actian – Activate your Data™

Actian, the hybrid data management, analytics and integration company, delivers data as a competitive advantage to thousands of customers worldwide. Through the deployment of innovative hybrid data technologies and solutions Actian ensures that business critical systems can transact and integrate at their very best – on-premises, in the cloud or both. Thousands of forward-thinking organizations around the globe trust Actian to help them solve the toughest data challenges to transform how they run their businesses, today and in the future. For more, visit https://www.actian.com.

“Actian” and “Activate your Data” are trademarks of Actian Corporation and its subsidiaries. All other trademarks, trade names, service marks, and logos referenced herein belong to their respective companies.

 

Actian Corporation

Jeff Veis
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