Management
Ken Lewis
Founder, President and CEO
As chief executive, Ken Lewis focuses on achieving NetSocket’s overarching goal of improving the quality of emerging network services such as voice (VoIP) and video (IPTV) as they are transported over the Internet.
Prior to co-founding NetSocket, Lewis was President and CEO of Chiaro Networks, Ltd., a Richardson, Texas-based start-up company that developed and marketed a high-capacity core router for the service provider industry. Chiaro achieved several industry-firsts in improving the reliability of core routers.
Before Chiaro, Lewis served in a variety of progressive management roles over a 20-year period at Alcatel USA, including Senior Vice President of the Transmission Products division. In that role, Lewis was responsible for the complete transmission product line of the merged Alcatel Network Systems and DSC businesses. His team numbered more than 1,500 members with annual sales in excess of $1 billion. He also held management positions in Product Planning, Product Line Management and Strategic Planning at Alcatel.
Lewis holds a BS in Electrical Engineering from the University of Alabama and an MS in Business from the University of Texas at Dallas. He received the Distinguished Alumni Award from the University of Texas at Dallas in 2000.
Carey Parker
Founder and Vice President, Marketing and Products
Prior to co-founding NetSocket, Carey Parker served as Vice President and General Manager of the Bandwidth Manager Business Unit at Alcatel Systems and Vice President of Products and Marketing at Chiaro Networks.
With more than 15 years in networking and communications, Parker currently focuses on IP services and highly available infrastructure-class IP routing. NetSocket has developed a solution for bandwidth management and application assurance for IP services such as VoIP, video, collaboration and gaming, which are fundamental revenue drivers and the cornerstones for the fixed mobile convergence and next-generation broadband architectures.
At Chiaro Networks, Parker drove product strategy from conception to launch, creating a new product segment of highly available, infrastructure-class IP routing platforms that received multiple industry awards. Beyond market and product strategy, Parker’s experience includes building and driving global marketing and product management functions in EMEA and APAC regions, which lead to successful trials and the company’s first pan-European provider deployments.
Prior to Chiaro, Parker worked as Alcatel Systems’ GM of the Bandwidth Unit, which had revenues of $600 million. He held technical and management positions in Marketing, Product Management and New Product Introduction and played a key role in the introduction of Alcatel's digital cross-connect system product portfolio, which amassed lifetime product revenues approaching $2 billion.
Parker holds a B.S.E.E. from Texas A&M University, where he graduated with honors and was nominated to Eta Nu, the International Honor Society for Electrical Engineers. Additionally, he has completed Strategic Marketing Executive Education classes at California Institute of Technology.
Terry Orosco
Vice President, Worldwide Sales
As Vice President, Worldwide Sales, Terry Orosco provides more than 27 years of global sales, business development and customer service experience. His experience includes driving product demand and managing all domestic and international sales activities, including direct and alternate sales channels.
Orosco is an industry veteran, having participated in multiple IPOs and M&A activities. He leverages his experience from many top-tier technology companies including Nortel, Sun Microsystems, Cisco Systems, where he established and managed its largest IP customer (MCI), Ascend Communications, Netrake/AudioCodes and Aktino. While at NetRake/AudioCodes he served as Vice President of Worldwide Sales and Business Development where he helped shape a new corporate business direction targeted at the International Fixed Mobile Convergence marketplace. The success of this and other activities enabled the AudioCodes acquisition.
Prior to Netrake/AudioCodes, Orosco served as Vice President of Sales and Strategic Accounts for VINA Technologies, which pioneered integrated access technologies, leading the industry in TDM and Packet Voice (VoIP) technology sales. At VINA, Orosco achieved multiple quarters of consecutive sales growth in spite of the telecom industry downturn, ultimately allowing the company to complete its IPO and eventual acquisition by Larscom.
Orosco has been an officer of and held executive-level positions with several industry-leading companies. He holds a BSEE from the University of Texas, attended Harvard’s specialized Advanced Management Program (AMP) and served in the US Air Force for nine years.
Eric Brendel
Founder and Chief Network Architect
Eric Brendel has more than 15 years of experience in the networking industry with expertise in network architecture and design, network security and emerging networking technologies. At NetSocket, he defines next-generation architectures and products that focus on control plane solutions that address the growing number of issues in managing and deploying converged services on IP/MPLS networks. Brendel helped define the original concept that led to Netsocket products and helped bridge the gap between the evolving service control plane and the IP/MPLS network control plane.
Previously, Brendel held lead technical architecture and engineering positions with various service providers and equipment vendors, including AT&T and Chiaro Networks. At AT&T, he was an integral part of the architecture team that was responsible for the design of their IP/MPLS backbone. At Chiaro, Brendel evaluated the impact of next-generation network technologies on core routing to further the advancement of Chiaro's Enstara IP/MPLS routing platform. He also worked as a network architect at a metro-service provider and served as a network security consultant for Bellcore and Booz, Allen, and Hamilton.
He holds a Masters of Science in Electrical Engineering from The Pennsylvania State University specializing in Communications. He has completed his coursework and is currently working on his dissertation toward a PhD in Electrical Engineering from Rutgers University.
Lance Visser
Chief Software Architect
Lance Visser has 17 years of experience in routing protocol software and operating systems. Visser served as IP/MPLS software architect for Fujitsu Network Systems, where he helped define a new generation of products. From 1999-2005, he was responsible for taking the Chiaro Networks core router and its software from high-level design to customer production deployments. He architected an innovative high-availability system for the Chiaro router and was awarded several patents. Prior to 1999, he worked for Hewlett Packard and Alcatel in the areas of high-performance computing, high-performance networking and high availability.
John Curreri
Chief Financial Officer and VP of Business Operations
With more than 16 years in finance and operations, John Curreri brings extensive CFO experience to NetSocket. While consulting for several small- to mid-market companies at vcfo, a provider of financial, human resources and systems implementation services, his CFO duties included establishing accounting and operations policies and procedures, creating financial models, managing accounting departments and presenting findings/recommendations to the board of directors.
Previously, Curreri was CFO for Metreos, a telecommunications software firm acquired by Cisco Systems. As a certified public accountant, he also served as a senior audit manager at KPMG, a CFO for Calpont Corporation and a vice president of finance for Netrake Corporation.
Shashi Kanth
Vice President, Technology Operations
Shashi Kanth, vice president of Technology Operations, brings to Netsocket more than 15 years of customer facing operational experience. Kanth focuses on managing the NetSocket support teams and oversees the operating budgets and schedules for the technical operations team. He also works with NetSocket customers to better understand their changing needs implement that knowledge in future strategic planning. Before joining NetSocket, Kanth was vice president of Product Management and Support Operations at AudioCodes for its SBC and Security Gateway business. Additionally, he held several engineering and operations roles at Netrake, Fujitsu, Nortel and Telesat Canada (a subsidiary of BCE).
Kanth holds a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering and a master’s degree in engineering management from the University of Ottawa, Canada.
Swapan Nandi
Director, Product Management
Swapan Nandi is responsible for the strategy and management of NetSocket’s product portfolio. He defines the evolution, product lifecycle, pricing and roadmap of the products and helps drive the marketing strategy and implementation.
Nandi has more than 18 years of experience in global product development, management and strategy. He has worked with Nortel, Raze Technologies, Xybridge (acquired by Zhone), Cable & Wireless and Siemens. His experience includes detailed design and implementation, driving product architecture in standards bodies and with Tier 1 customers, managing domestic and international product management activities, developing product strategy and conducting due diligence on potential partnership and M&A opportunities. At Nortel, he was responsible for product management and strategy for Nortel’s CDMA, IMS and VoIP products.
Nandi holds a BS degree in Electrical Engineering from West Virginia University and an MBA from Southern Methodist University.
Steve Yao
Director, Engineering
Steve Yao is responsible for the overall product architecture and development at NetSocket. He brings more than 17 years of experience in the networking and software industries to the company.
Most recently, Yao worked as a Senior Manager with Huawei Technologies, USA, where he led a US-based architecture team and made significant contributions to the overall architecture and technology development for Huawei’s next-generation core router product (VRPv8). Prior to Huawei, Yao was an Architect and Team Lead at Chiaro Networks, Inc., where he led the development of MPLS software for Chiaro’s Enstara core router. Prior to Chiaro, Steve held Principal Engineer and Manager positions in System Engineering with NEC America, Inc. At NEC, he developed solutions for NEC’s M10 and NetNex ATM product families. Earlier in his career, he worked for Nortel Networks/BNR in Ottawa, Canada in software development for DMS100 ISDN and CornerStone ATM Residential Broadband products.
Yao has 5 patent applications pending in both the US and China. He holds a B. Sc. degree in Computer Science from Peking University, China, an M. Sc. degree in Computer Engineering from the Institute of Computing Technologies, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and an M. Sc. degree in Computing Science from Simon Fraser University, Canada.