AMBARELLA - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- General Manager at VisLab
- GM, Ambarella Italy
Alberto Broggi is the General Manager at VisLab srl (a spinoff of the University of Parma, acquired by Ambarella, Inc. in 2015) and a professor of computer engineering at the University of Parma in Italy. Widely considered a leading pioneer in the use of machine vision for automotive applications, Broggi has been actively engaged in autonomous driving research and development for over twenty-five years. He is both an IEEE and IAPR Fellow, was awarded two European Research Council (ERC) recognitions for his contributions to the development of perception for autonomous driving, and in 2017 was honored with the IEEE Medal for Environmental and Safety Technologies "for leadership in vehicular environmental perception, and for setting worldwide milestones in safe and reliable intelligent vehicles." In 2018, Popular Mechanics called Broggi's patent for a self-driving car one of the "15 Patents That Changed the World."
Job Titles:
- Vice President of Human Resources
As Vice President of Human Resources, Amee is responsible for leading and enhancing Ambarella's global HR team and function organization-wide. Prior to joining Ambarella, Amee led the global HR operations and services as Vice President of Worldwide Human Resources at ISSI. Before that, Amee also served as the Director of Human Resources at both ESI and ModusLink. Amee brings extensive human resources leadership experience to Ambarella, and serves as a strategic partner to the executive team and all employees.
Job Titles:
- Independent Director
- Director General Partner, Matrix Partners.
Andrew Verhalen began his career at Intel in 1981 as the product-line manager for their flagship microprocessor, the 8086. He joined 3Com Corporation in 1986, and built a new division that generated a majority of 3Com's revenue and profits. In 1992, he joined Matrix Partners where he has invested in and advised dozens of companies, including Alteon WebSystems, which went public and eventually sold to Nortel; Arroyo Video Solutions, which sold to Cisco; SiTera, which sold to Vitesse Semiconductor; Unwired Planet (a.k.a. Openwave Systems - IPO); and Watchguard Technologies (IPO). Andrew has approximately 25 years of experience as a public board director and significantly more experience on private boards. He earned BSEE, MEng and MBA degrees from Cornell University.
Job Titles:
- Director
- Independent Director / Compensation Committee / Nominating and Governance Committee
- Member of the Board of Directors of Benchmark Electronics
Since December 2019, Ms. De Greef-Safft has served as a member of the Board of Directors of Benchmark Electronics (NYSE: BHE), a global provider of product design, engineering services, technology solutions and advanced manufacturing services, where she serves on the Committees for Human Capital & Compensation, and Nomination, Sustainability & Governance. Since 2018, she has also served on the Board of Directors for Ag Growth International Inc. ("AGI") (TSX:AFN), a provider of solutions for global food infrastructure, including seed, fertilizer, grain, feed and food processing systems. She chairs AGI's Environmental, Health & Safety Committee, and is a member of the Human Resources & Compensation, and the Governance, Sustainability & Social Responsibility Committees. In addition to her Board roles, Ms. De Greef-Safft provides strategic and operational consulting services to private equity firms and their portfolio companies. From 2015 until her retirement in 2017, Ms. De Greef-Safft was Group President of Standex International Corporation's (NYSE: SXI) Food Service Equipment business with operations in the U.S., Mexico and Europe. Prior to that, from 2002 to 2014, she held successive positions at Danaher Corporation (NYSE: DHR), a global science and technology innovator, as the President of increasingly complex operating companies with locations in the Americas, Europe, Australia and Asia. Before joining Danaher, she held various technical, marketing and sales management positions for manufacturing companies in both the U.S. and Europe. Ms. De Greef-Safft received her MBA from Babson College in Wellesley, Massachusetts, and her BSEE and MSEE degrees from the Catholic University of Louvain (KU Leuven) in Belgium.
Job Titles:
- Chief Financial Officer
- Member of the Executive Team
Brian C. White brings more than 30 years of experience in finance, corporate strategy, business development, and business line management to Ambarella. Prior to joining Ambarella, he was CFO at Maxim Integrated Products and Integrated Device Technology (IDT). White has also held a variety of financial and operational management positions at companies including Nvidia, Hitachi GST, and IBM. He began his career in public accounting with Arthur Andersen and Deloitte. White earned a BA in Business Administration from Seattle University and an MBA from the University of Notre Dame. He maintains credentials as both a CPA and a CFP.
Job Titles:
- Chief Operating Officer
- Member of the Executive Team
Prior to Ambarella, Chan Lee was the director of VLSI at Afara, responsible for managing both the design and verification team, and driving key design and verification methodologies. Lee spent a significant part of his career at Intel, including: manager of the silicon debug team, design manager of the first-generation Pentium 4, and manager and technical lead on the P6 (Pentium Pro).
Chenming Hu held the position of Chief Technology Officer of TSMC, the world's largest IC foundry from 2001-2004. He currently serves as the TSMC Distinguished Chair Professor in the Graduate School of Microelectronics in Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences at University of California, Berkeley, where he has been a professor since 1976. He serves on the board of Fortinet Inc., Sandisk Corporation and Inphi Corporation and was the founding board chairman of Celestry Design Solutions. He is known for his IC reliability prediction methods, industry standard BSIM transistor model for IC simulation, and 3D FinFET.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Executive Team
- VP, Marketing & Business Development
Prior to joining Ambarella, Chris Day was president and CEO of Mobilygen, which was acquired by Maxim Integrated Products. Before Mobilygen, Day was general manager of media processing at NXP (formerly Philips Semiconductor), where he led TriMedia DSP efforts into video-over-IP, automotive, security, and display markets. Day has also held senior sales and marketing positions at C-Cube, AuraVision, Motorola, and Hitachi.
Job Titles:
- Director
- Independent Director / Audit Committee
Mr. Paisley has served as the Dean's Executive Professor of Accounting at the Leavey School of Business at Santa Clara University since January 2001. Prior to his position at Santa Clara University, Mr. Paisley served as Senior Vice President of Finance and Chief Financial Officer for 3Com Corporation. Mr. Paisley has 15 years of outside board experience, which includes serving as audit committee chairman, at public and private companies. Mr. Paisley also currently serves on the board of directors of Equinix, Inc., Fitbit, Inc., Fortinet, Inc., and YuMe, Inc. Mr. Paisley holds a B.A. in business economics from the University of California at Santa Barbara and an M.B.A. from the Anderson School at the University of California at Los Angeles.
Job Titles:
- Corporate Vice President, Asia - Pacific R & D Group Chairman of Microsoft Corporation
- Director / Corporate Vice President, Asia - Pacific R & D Group Chairman of Microsoft Corporation
- Independent Director / Compensation Committee
Dr. Hon has served as Corporate Vice President, Asia-Pacific R&D Group Chairman of Microsoft Corporation since October 2015, and has served in various positions with Microsoft since 1995, including Managing Director of Microsoft Research Asia, Deputy Managing Director of Microsoft Research Asia, and Chief Architect, Natural Interaction Service Division. Prior to joining Microsoft, Dr. Hon served as Technology Director of the Apple-ISS Research Center of Apple Corporation. Dr. Hon is an internationally recognized expert in speech technology and has published more than 100 technical papers in international journals and at conferences. Dr. Hon received a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon University and a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from National Taiwan University.
Job Titles:
- Director / Former Vice President, Electronic Controls for Delphi Corporation ( Now Aptiv ) .
- Independent Director / Audit Committee
Beth Schwarting served as Vice President of the Electronic Controls business unit for Delphi Corporation (now Aptiv) from 2009-2015. As a member of the Executive Committee, she led a global team responsible for the Automotive ADAS and Safety Electronics product lines, the Body Electronics and Security product lines as well Power Electronics (for Hybrid and Electric Vehicles). Prior to that assignment, she held several other leadership positions at Delphi including Vice President, Safety Systems, Global Director, Sales and Marketing and General Motors Global Customer Director. Before joining Delphi in 1999, she held the position of General Manager and Vice President, Strategic Accounts for Eastman Kodak within the Consumer Imaging Division. Since October 2015, Schwarting has been the Principal Member of DBS Ventures, LLC. where she served as a subject matter expert for various audiences in the areas of automotive technology (with a special emphasis on ADAS/Automated Driving), automotive market and regulatory trends as well as business development.
Job Titles:
- Chief Executive Officer
- Co - Founder
- Leader
- Member of the Board of Directors
- Member of the Executive Team
Fermi Wang is a seasoned leader, a serial entrepreneur, and a video compression technology expert. He holds several digital video-related patents, including one of MPEGLA's core MPEG-2 and MPEG-4/AVC patents.
Prior to Ambarella, Wang was CEO and co-founder of Afara Websystems, which pioneered server throughput computing. Afara was acquired by Sun Microsystems in July 2002. Afara's multi-core, multi-thread CPU is the critical technology in Sun's UltraSPARC roadmap. Before founding Afara, Wang served in senior engineering and business management roles at C-Cube Microsystems. Wang's team was responsible for developing the world's first MPEG CODEC chip.
Job Titles:
- Director / Former Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of LSI Corporation.
- Independent Director / Audit Committee
Mr. Richardson served as the Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of LSI Corporation from April 2011 until LSI's acquisition by Avago Technologies Company in May 2014. He had served as a senior executive at LSI Corp. since 2005, including serving as its Executive Vice President and General Manager of the Semiconductor Solutions Group, Executive Vice President of the Networking and Storage Products Group, Executive Vice President and General Manager of the Custom Solutions Group and as Executive Vice President of Worldwide Strategic Planning. Prior to joining LSI, Mr. Richardson served in several capacities at Intel Corporation. Mr. Richardson also serves on the board of directors of Lattice Semiconductor Corporation.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Executive Team
- Expert
- Senior VP, Systems & GM, Asia Design Centers
John Ju is an expert practitioner in system-on-a-chip (SOC) development with over 20 years of experience. Ju applies this experience to ensure customer success.
Prior to Ambarella, Ju led the system team for multi-core, multi-thread processors at Afara, which was acquired by Sun in 2002. Before Afara, Ju held multiple senior management positions at C-Cube, where he was responsible for software development for multiple generations of C-Cube video processors. Prior to C-Cube, Ju pioneered MPEG video algorithm development at Sarnoff Research Lab.
Job Titles:
- Chief Technology Officer
- Member of the Board
- Member of the Board of Directors
- Member of the Executive Team
- Fellow at Sun
Les Kohn is well regarded in Silicon Valley as one of the leading chip architects in the industry. Kohn combines his wealth of experience as a silicon architect with a talent for creating innovative solutions to complex problems.
Prior to Ambarella, Kohn was CTO and co-founder at Afara. After Afara was acquired by Sun, Kohn became a fellow at Sun and continued to develop Afara's throughput computing technology that would become the primary focus of Sun's UltraSPARC roadmap.
Kohn was also chief architect at C-Cube, where he led the development of three generations of digital video CODECs, including the first single-chip MPEG-2 and HD/multi-stream CODECs. Prior to C-Cube, Kohn was a distinguished engineer at Sun where he was the chief architect of UltraSPARC I and II, Sun's first 64-bit microprocessors. Before Sun, Kohn was chief architect of the Intel i860 and co-architected the National 32000 microprocessor family.
Job Titles:
- VP, Corporate Development
Louis draws on 30 years of semiconductor industry strategic finance experience bridging both the industry as well as Wall Street. Prior to Ambarella, Louis was responsible for Corporate Development & Strategy at Freescale (formerly Motorola) until its acquisition by NXP. At Freescale, Louis developed and executed 13 acquisitions and strategic investments.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Executive Team
- VP, Business Development
Prior to Ambarella, Michael Chen was Director of Sales for Marvell Technology, a supplier of semiconductor devices. Prior to working at Marvell, Chen served as Director of Sales for Wintech Microelectronics, a distributor of a broad range of semiconductor and electronic component devices.
Prior to joining Ambarella, Michael Morehead was vice president and general counsel of Leadis Technology, a supplier of semiconductor devices for consumer electronic products. Before joining Leadis, Morehead was a corporate and securities attorney with Cooley Godward LLP, where he represented technology companies on a broad spectrum of issues and transactions.
Job Titles:
- Vice President of Automotive Business Development
As Vice President of Automotive Business Development, Robert Bloomquist is responsible for driving the growth of Ambarella's automotive business across Europe and the US.
Bloomquist has over 20 years of experience in the semiconductor industry where he has held a variety of senior management positions with Maxim Integrated, Xilinx and Texas Instruments. Primarily focused on the automotive industry, these roles covered sales, marketing and business development.
Bloomquist brings to Ambarella a blend of core semiconductor experience and a proven record of driving large-scale, organic business development in the automotive market. He has a passion for technology and is excited to be driving our charter in automotive, putting this to work making a real impact on people's lives globally.
Bloomquist was most recently Director Automotive Marketing at Xilinx. There, he led Xilinx's efforts with OEM customers globally as well as all of automotive in North America. Prior to that, he was at Texas Instruments where he developed and grew an OEM-focused sales organization, rapidly accelerating TI's overall revenue growth in both analog and embedded. Bloomquist also played a key role at Maxim Integrated as a founding member of the Automotive Business Unit.
Bloomquist holds a bachelor's degree in economics from the University of Michigan.
Job Titles:
- VP & GM, Radar Technology
- VP and General Manager of Radar Technology
Steven Hong is the VP and General Manager of Radar Technology at Ambarella. He joined Ambarella through its acquisition of Oculii, where he was the CEO and Co-Founder, growing the company to become the leading provider of AI software for radar perception. Prior to the acquisition, Oculii raised more than $80 million from top-tier VC investors and secured commercial partnerships with leading Tier-1, OEM, and AV companies globally.
Prior to founding Oculii, Hong was a partner at Kleiner Perkins where he invested in early stage (seed/series A) HardTech companies pioneering autonomous systems, AI and machine learning, space, IoT, 3D printing, robotics, and cloud infrastructure. Before KP, Hong co-founded Kumu Networks (Self Interference Cancellation for Full Duplex Wireless - $65M from NEA, Khosla Ventures, Third Point, Cisco, and Verizon) where he was responsible for product management, fundraising, IP strategy, business development, and marketing. He started his career as a management/strategy consultant at McKinsey and Uber, where he specialized in M&A diligence and expansion strategy.
Hong holds a PhD and an MS in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University, where he won several best paper awards for his research and graduated at age 23, completing both degrees in three years. Prior to Stanford, he earned a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Michigan.
Prior to joining Ambarella, Zemo Yang was senior manager of operations at S3 Graphics, which was acquired by VIA Technology. After the acquisition, Yang led S3's operations transition from the U.S. to Taiwan. Before S3, Yang was a section head of packaging technology at Philips and represented Philips on the JEDEC JC15 committee for three years. Before Philips, Yang worked at National Semiconductor, where he was chosen as Semiconductor Research Corporation industry mentor.