Skyfire is dedicated to leveraging the power of cloud computing to radically improve the mobile Internet experience for both operators and their consumers. Skyfire's innovative, next-generation carrier cloud approach to mobile video and data optimization provides wireless operators with huge cost savings, elastic capacity, and the ability to surgically enhance quality of experience on a per-stream level.

Executive Team

Jeffrey Glueck

Chief Executive Officer

Jeff Glueck has served as CEO of Skyfire since July of 2009. Glueck has grown Skyfire to win multiple Tier One wireless operator infrastructure and CMS customers, and led Skyfire to develop carrier-grade optimization solutions that elastically boost bandwidth capacity by 60% across smartphones, tablets and laptops. Skyfire's Rocket Optimizer and Skyfire Horizon products are deployed or are in deployment with Tier One North American carriers, both leveraging cloud technology.

He has also grown Skyfire’s consumer apps as a laboratory and showcase for its carrier-grade technology, including launching two apps which reached #1 top selling positions on the Apple App Store. Skyfire apps have been downloaded by over 20 million users across multiple platforms.

Glueck is an entrepreneur whose first start-up, site59.com in 1999, grew to over $125 million in travel ecommerce sales in two years before being acquired by Travelocity in 2002. Glueck was named CMO at Travelocity in 2003 where he helped grow sales from $3 billion to $11 billion globally

Jeff was named to Advertising Age’s 40 Under 40 list in 2007 and as one of the top 13 Customer Champions by 1to1 Magazine. He also served in the Clinton Administration as a White House Fellow. Jeff holds degrees from Harvard University and Oxford University, where he was honored as a Marshall Scholar.

Nitin Bhandari

Chief Product Officer, Co-Founder

Nitin Bhandari has over a decade of business and technology development expertise in the computer networking, wireless communications and multimedia marketplace. Before co-founding Skyfire, Nitin was a senior management member responsible for the advanced development group at Extreme Networks, an industry-leading pioneer of Gigabit Ethernet systems and technology.

At Extreme Networks, Nitin was responsible for the design, product lifecycle and general management of all power supply systems. His efforts resulted in a product line that generated more than $60 million in annual revenue. Nitin earned his B.E. degree in industrial electronics from Bharati Vidyapeeth University in Pune, Maharashtra, India, and earned his M.S. degree in electrical engineering from CalTech in Pasadena, Calif.

Erik Swenson

Chief Technology Officer, Co-Founder

Erik Swenson is the technology visionary and chief architect at Skyfire, with more than 15 years of experience in ASIC development and systems design. Prior to co-founding Skyfire, Erik was the director of ASIC design and an original member of the ASIC design team at Extreme Networks, which developed a succession of chipsets that increased the performance and functionality of the company's high-speed Ethernet switches.

Before Extreme, Erik was as a staff engineer in the advanced development group at National Semiconductor. The holder of six U.S. patents and 20 more pending, Erik holds a B.S. degree in physics from California State Polytechnic University in Pomona, Calif. and an M.S. in computational physics from San Jose State University in San Jose, Calif.

Jason Guesman

Senior Vice President of Sales and Business Development

Jason Guesman brings over 15 years of wireless industry expertise to Skyfire spanning the carrier, device manufacturer, and software development businesses. Prior to joining Skyfire, Guesman served as SVP and GM Americas and APAC at SEVEN Networks. At SEVEN, Guesman built a highly successful SAAS business leveraging strategic partnerships with tier one wireless carriers and email service providers that dramatically accelerated revenue growth for SEVEN and directly led to the achievement of profitability. Guesman was also responsible for architecting and leading SEVEN's device OEM business including a landmark, global deal with Samsung Electronics.

Prior to SEVEN, Guesman held several executive roles at Sprint PCS in the areas of sales and marketing, product management, and business development. A veteran of the 2G and 3G wireless data launches, Guesman helped drive Sprint PCS to a leading position in the data services market through the development, launch and marketing of new products and services, including an industry-leading portfolio of smartphones, wireless PC cards and innovative wireless email and messaging solutions. Prior to Sprint he worked for the Federal Communications Commission in the areas of broadband communication, cable television and wireless spectrum auctions.

Guesman holds an M.B.A. from Darden School of Business, University of Virginia, and a B.A. in economics from Miami University of Ohio.

John Metzger

Vice President of Engineering and Operations

John Metzger has over 25 years of entrepreneurial, management and technology experience.   John was a co-founder of Software Decisions, a leading developer of factory automation protocols, which was sold to Ungermann-Bass, Inc. in 1986.   He has since held the VP of Engineering position for three other early stage companies providing products and services in the areas of web 2.0, networking and systems management.   His strong contribution led to all three of them being acquired by public companies.  First, NCI, offering proactive server management on Unix/Windows and Netware which was acquired by Seagate in 1990.  Subsequently Apptitude, an OEM licensor of network traffic analysis was acquired by Hifn in 1999.  Most recently Netli, a dynamic website acceleration company, was acquired by Akamai Technologies in 2007.  These situations have provided him with tremendous expertise in building and growing successful development organizations.  John obtained a B.A. degree in Computer and Communication Sciences from the University of Michigan.

Corrie Johnson

Vice President Finance and Administration

Corrie arrived at Skyfire in May of 2011 with over 15 years of experience in finance, operations and engineering. Prior to Skyfire, she was a Director of Finance at Infinera, a leading provider of digital optical networking, managing through high growth and a successful IPO. Her previous experience includes Director of Finance at Maxtor, Finance and Commodity Management positions at Quantum, and Operations Manager at the retail start-up Garden.com. Corrie started her career as an Industrial Engineer at Hershey Foods and a Peace Corps volunteer in Dapaong, Togo, West Africa.

Corrie holds a B.S. Degree in Industrial Engineering from West Virginia University and a Master of International Management from Thunderbird, The American Graduate School of International Management.

Board of Directors

Larry Orr

GENERAL PARTNER, TRINITY VENTURES

Larry Orr has been with Trinity Ventures since 1989. Previously, he worked for five years at Hewlett- Packard, where he held a wide range of key marketing and management positions within the company's Information Network Group. Earlier in his career, Larry worked with New York investment firm Niederhoffer, Cross & Zeckhauser on mergers and acquisitions, and with Bain & Company, a leading management consulting firm. His past investments include Aruba Networks, Extreme Networks, and Crescendo Communications.

Peter Nieh (Observer)

MANAGING DIRECTOR, LIGHTSPEED VENTURE PARTNERS

Peter is a founder of Lightspeed, covering the areas of cleantech, software and the Internet. He has fourteen years of venture capital experience and seven years of operating experience. Prior to Lightspeed, Peter worked in business development and product marketing at General Magic. He also managed Acer's portable PC business in North America, where he launched the company's first laptop PCs. Before Acer, Peter was a strategy consultant at Bain & Company. Peter holds a BS in Electrical Engineering, an AB in Economics and an MBA from Stanford University. His past investments include OpenWave, DoubleClick, Kiva, BlueNile, Kiva, and Informatica.

Gordon L. Stitt

CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD AND CO-FOUNDER, EXTREME NETWORKS

Gordon Stitt is chairman of the board of directors at Extreme Networks, a company he co-founded in 1996. Before Extreme, he co-founded Network Peripherals, a manufacturer of high-speed computer network hubs and adapter cards. Gordon is currently a board member at several other privately held companies and is chairman of the Industry Advisory Board for the Computer Engineering Department at Santa Clara University.

Andrew W. Verhalen

GENERAL PARTNER, MATRIX PARTNERS

Andrew Verhalen joined Matrix Partners in 1992. Before that, he was a division vice president at 3Com, where he led the division responsible for network adapters and hubs to over $250 million in sales. Prior to 3Com, he held marketing management and strategic planning roles in the microprocessor group at Intel. Andrew also helped start and led Matrix's investment in Grand Junction Networks, now a major division of Cisco Systems. Past investments he led include Grand Junction Networks, Openwave, SiTera, and Alteon WebSystems.

Dan Keoppel (Observer)

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, STRATEGIC INVESTMENTS, VERIZON COMMUNICATIONS

Dan Keoppel is Executive Director, Strategic Investments for Verizon Communications. He leads the venture investing program for Verizon. In this capacity he evaluates startup companies and is point person for contacting the venture capital community, keeping abreast of major technology and business trends in search of relevant venture prospects for the Verizon wireline, wireless, and enterprise business units. Mr Keoppel has been with Verizon and its predecessor companies, Bell Atlantic and Nynex, for 12 years where he has held a variety of corporate development and merger & acquisition positions. Prior to Verizon, Mr. Keoppel worked at AT&T in their mergers and acquisitions department, was controller to AT&T Ventures Corporation, and held various finance positions with Lucent (then AT&T) Consumer Products.

Advisory Board

Angie Wiskocil

Angie Wiskocil has joined the newly-created Skyfire service provider advisory board. Angie was most recently a President and SVP of AT&T Wi-Fi Services. Her leadership responsibilities included overseeing acquisition of AT&T's Wayport. Angie was previously the SVP, Consumer IT within AT&T's CIO office, overseeing U-Verse development; AT&T's SVP Corporate Network Operations, including wireline strategy & capital management; and AT&T's SVP of the SBC-Yahoo! strategic alliance. Angie was named to Hispanic Business magazine’s Top 100 Most Influential list in '09, and splits her time between Austin, TX and Reno, NV.

Ronny Haraldsvik

Ronny Haraldsvik has joined the newly-created Skyfire service provider advisory board. Ronny rejoined SpiderCloud Wireless in June 2012 as Sr. Vice President and CMO, having formerly served as VP Marketing July 2008 through mid December, 2010. Ronny joined SpiderCloud Wireless from BelAir Networks, where he was Senior Vice President/Chief Marketing Officer (BelAir Networks acquired by Ericsson in April, 2012).

A Silicon Valley veteran, Ronny has more than 23 years of global strategic marketing and industry experience from a range of technology segments including Radio Access Networks, Small Cells, Wi-Fi, web and video optimization, wireline networking and IP services, RFID, personal computing, wafer fabrication, software, and consumer devices. Ronny first became vice president of marketing in 2000 while at Nortel Networks IP Services BU where he led worldwide marketing of the Shasta 5000 BSN. Prior to BelAir Networks, Ronny was the VP of Global Marketing at Bytemobile, Inc., the most widely-known provider of inline video and data optimization solutions (acquired by Citrix). At Bytemobile, he led the launch of the company's new Adaptive Traffic Management. Previous roles include vice president of strategy and market development and vice president of marketing for mobile broadband at Qualcomm. Mr. Haraldsvik holds a BA from the University of San Francisco.