STARLEAF - Key Persons
Daren joined StarLeaf's executive management team as Chief Financial Officer in 2011.
He has over twenty five years of experience in senior finance roles at technology and communications companies varying in size from start-up to Fortune 500.
Prior to StarLeaf, Daren was Finance Director of Cisco's Telepresence Business Unit, which he joined after the successful acquisition of Tandberg ASA, where he served as VP Financial Operations. He previously worked in a variety of financial management roles, including at Deloitte, where he qualified as a Chartered Accountant.
He is a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales, and holds a BSc in Management Science from the University of Wales.
Fergus has been involved in the software industry as an executive and advisor for over 30 years. He was an early member of the senior teams at Salesforce and later Marketo, where he was part of developing both companies into internationally successful SaaS businesses.
Fergus is a true SaaS pioneer. He was a founding director of European operations at Salesforce in 2000. He spent nine years at Salesforce, where he held several senior marketing and sales roles. In 2011 he started Marketo's international business and over the next four years he built the region into a key part of the company's global success.
Fergus is a non-executive director of several international B2B SaaS companies and he also provides advice to many organisations grappling with the challenges of sales and marketing in a SaaS business model.
He has a First-Class Honours degree in Applied Mathematics from the University of Limerick. Fergus is also involved in a Dublin based educational charity, CityWise, where he teaches maths.
Job Titles:
- Head of Operations
- Head of Operations With Responsibility for Business / Sales Operations
Frank is Head of Operations with responsibility for Business / Sales Operations and operations infrastructure development at StarLeaf.
Working with the energetic and motivated Sales and Business Operations team at StarLeaf, Frank is focused on continuing to improve operations and processes.
Frank holds an M.B.A. and qualified with a Bachelor of Engineering degree in Production Engineering from the University of Limerick, Ireland.
Kevin Bernitz is Chief Product Officer at StarLeaf. Kevin heads up the StarLeaf business unit and is responsible for the StarLeaf product roadmap.
With a passion for product engineering, Kevin has been a driving force behind StarLeaf innovation.
Kevin has spent his career working at several successful start-ups and was a founding member of video conferencing company Codian in 2002.
Kevin has a Masters Degree in Engineering from the University of Cambridge.
Job Titles:
- Chief Executive Officer
- Co - Founder
Mark Richer has a reputation for success in delivering innovative solutions that solve real-life business challenges. For over 30 years, he has successfully brought to market network, voice and video solutions that have irrevocably improved the way we communicate across the enterprise.
A serial entrepreneur, Mark was the Chairman and founder of Codian, which he established in 2002. Codian delivered a new generation of video conferencing infrastructure solutions, and was acquired by Tandberg in 2007. Prior to this, Mark was the CEO and founder of Calista, a company specializing in Voice over IP products, which was acquired by Cisco Systems in 1999. Calista's products and technology are incorporated into the Cisco IP Communications product range.
At the very beginning of Mark's career, he was a founder and Director of Engineering at Madge Networks, a publicly traded company with a market capitalization of close to $1 billion at the time he left.
Mark has a Masters Degree in Theoretical Physics and Chemistry from Cambridge University and is a graduate of the owner-directors program at INSEAD. Mark is a member of the Cambridge Angels and a Fellow Commoner of St Catharine's College.
Mike joined StarLeaf in February 2021. Having led hi-tech sales teams for over 20 years, he adds a wealth of sales, partnership-building and enablement experience to the StarLeaf leadership team.
Mike's most recent position was as Global VP Sales of Decibel, the leader in digital experience analytics. Prior to Decibel, Mike was Executive Vice President of Global Sales at Panaya, the impact analysis and testing company.
Before then, Mike led the global inside sales team for ServiceNow, at a time when the company experienced rapid growth in revenues and headcount in EMEA, the Americas and AJP. Earlier in his career, he held leadership roles at EMC, Equifax and Sage.
Mike holds a Bachelor's Diploma in Information Technology from Loreto College.
Job Titles:
- Non - Executive Director / Grafton Capital
Sam has a solid tech background, long experience of StarLeaf, and a passion for projects with impact, which makes him exactly the right person to lead StarLeaf's technical teams.
Sam is one of StarLeaf's longest standing employees, joining us as a founder member of the engineering team more than 10 years ago. He combines a solid academic background in computer science with experience working in a variety of tech roles, most recently as our director of engineering.
"I chose to join StarLeaf because after a period in academia, I wanted to work on something meaningful, where I could make a real impact - and in StarLeaf I've found that. It's the mix and breadth of technology we're using, and the challenges we're solving, that all keeps me here," says Sam.
Hailing from New Zealand, Sam earned a PhD in Computer Science, following on from a Bachelor of Computing and Mathematical Sciences from the University of Waikato. Now based in the UK, he worked previously for organizations including Intel Research, Barclays Capital, as well as time spent working for Google, in the California-based Platforms Engineering group.
Job Titles:
- Chief Customer Officer
- Co - Founder
With a well-founded reputation as a major industry influencer and visionary, Will's primary role is to optimize the StarLeaf customer experience. His passion is the realization of continual innovation that delivers groundbreaking solutions aligned to customer needs.
Before founding StarLeaf, he was founder and the General Manager of the Americas for Codian. When Tandberg acquired Codian in 2007, Will was appointed Chief Strategy Officer, which allowed him to help set the strategic vision and direction on a global basis, prior to Cisco acquiring Tandberg in 2010