Leadership
Dedicated to transforming data management with next-generation solutions, the company is staffed and led by a team of individuals with strong domain expertise in the storage industry with a track record of successfully creating valuable solutions widely used today in the market.
Ash Ashutosh, Founder & CEO
Ash Ashutosh brings more than 25 years of storage industry and entrepreneurship experience to his role of CEO at Actifio. Ashutosh is a recognized leader and architect in the storage industry where he has spearheaded several major industry initiatives, including iSCSI and storage virtualization, and led the authoring of numerous storage industry standards. Ashutosh was most recently a Partner with Greylock Partners where he focused on making investments in enterprise IT companies. Prior to Greylock, he was Vice President and Chief Technologist for HP Storage.
Ashutosh founded and led AppIQ, a market leader of Storage Resource Management (SRM) solutions, which was acquired by HP in 2005. He was also the founder of Serano Systems, a Fibre Channel controller solutions provider, acquired by Vitesse Semiconductor in 1999. Prior to Serano, Ashutosh was Senior Vice President at StorageNetworks, the industry’s first Storage Service Provider. He previously worked as an architect and engineer at LSI and Intergraph.
Ashutosh remains an avid supporter of entrepreneurship and is an advisor and board member for several commercial and non-profit organizations. He holds a degree in Electrical Engineering and a Masters degree in Computer Science from Penn State University.
Jim Sullivan, President
As President, Jim Sullivan brings 23 years of storage industry experience and a stellar track record in positioning companies for growth. Sullivan was most recently the President of XIV, a pioneer and market leader of next generation storage arrays, which was acquired by IBM.
As Vice President, Worldwide Sales, IBM System Storage, Sullivan spearheaded explosive triple-digit sales growth of XIV storage resulting in more than $500M in revenues in three years. Previously, during an outstanding 12-year tenure at EMC, Sullivan executed one of the storage industry’s fastest growths in sales, holding numerous leadership positions and culminating in the role of Senior Vice President of Sales.
Sullivan was a board member at AppIQ (acquired by HP) and Diligent (acquired by IBM), and is a member of the Young President’s Organization devoted to the professional and personal growth of business leaders around the world. Sullivan holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in English from Boston College and is a Board Member of the Technology Council.
David Chang, VP Products
- As Vice President of Products, David Chang brings more than 20 years of experience in successfully developing and managing system-wide solutions for the storage industry. Chang was most recently the Director of Engineering and Product Management at HP software and was an AppIQ co-founder.
Prior to AppIQ, Chang was the director of advanced network storage at StorageNetworks where he was responsible for driving key strategic initiatives and new products and services. Previously, as a product line manager for LSI Logic, Chang was responsible for directing research and development investments in storage-related semiconductor, RAID, software and system technologies. While at LSI Logic, Chang also held a variety of engineering, management, sales and marketing positions, and was responsible for building LSI’s first offshore regional software design center.
Chang holds a Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering from University of Minnesota – Minneapolis and a Master of Science degree from National Technological University.
John Pearce, CFO
As CFO, John Pearce brings more than 30 years of executive and operations experience in the technology industry. He was most recently the President and CEO of Demandware, a global leader in on-demand ecommerce.
Prior to Demandware, Pearce served as CFO at AppIQ where he led all business model and financial matters and facilitated the company’s acquisition by HP in 2005. He also co-founded SilverStream Software (SSSW, NASDAQ) and served as the CFO, Vice President of International Operations, and Senior Vice President of Worldwide Sales. Previously, as the CFO and Vice President of International Business at Watermark Software, Pearce grew the business through to its acquisition by FileNet Corporation in 1995. Earlier in his career, Pearce held various operational and finance positions.
Pearce holds a Bachelor of Business degree from Curtin University, Perth, Australia.
Mike Troiano, CMO
As Chief Marketing Officer, Mike Troiano brings 25 years of experience building brands and businesses across a wide spectrum of household names, publicly-traded companies, and venture-funded startups. He was most recently a Principal of Holland-Mark, a leading independent Boston-based advertising and strategic marketing firm.
An early executive at mobile marketing pioneer m-Qube, Troiano was GM of that company’s Interactive division when it was acquired by VeriSign in one of the largest Boston-based venture capital exits of 2006. Prior to that he served as the President of NASDAQ-listed Primix Solutions, and the founding CEO of Ogilvy & Mather Interactive.
Troiano spent his early career at top adverting agencies including McCann-Erickson and Foote, Cone & Belding, on brands including AT&T, Coca-Cola, and Taco Bell. He holds a BS in Public Communication from Cornell University, and an MBA from the Harvard Business School. Troiano serves on the boards of several Boston-area startups, and is an award-winning blogger (miketrap.com) counted among the top 1% of the most influential people on Twitter (@miketrap.)
