Executive Leadership

Debashis (Dev) Ghoshal brings over 20 years of experience in technology, business, and management consulting to the CipherCloud executive team. He plays a critical role in guiding the organization's field strategy, building the global partner eco-system, and driving customer success. Dev began his career at McKinsey & Company, a global strategic consulting company serving Fortune 100 customers. He then joined i2 Technologies where he served for six years as Vice President, Europe and SVP of Global Solution Delivery and Business Development. In these roles, he was instrumental in the company’s growth from $50 million in annual revenue to over $1 billion. He then joined Sun Microsystems as a Vice President, where he ran Asia-Pacific services, and later as Vice President of Sun’s Global Software Practice. Dev has also served as General Manager of Microsoft's Global Services Division, SVP of Services at Saba Software, and COO and Board Advisor at Agiliance.

Paige Leidig has 20 years of experience in technology, marketing, and selling enterprise application solutions and managing trusted customer relationships. As SVP of Marketing, he is responsible for all aspects of marketing at CipherCloud. Paige was previously in the Office of the CEO at SAP, where he was responsible for leading and coordinating SAP’s acquisition and integration activities on a global basis. He has managed a number of marketing initiatives at SAP, including responsibility for all go-to-market activities for SAP’s Cloud applications portfolio. Preceding his SAP career, Paige held senior management positions with Ariba, Elance, and E*Trade. 

Shri Chickerur brings nearly 20 years of technology, professional services, and business management experience to CipherCloud. Shri is responsible for Customer Success—including Professional Services, Customer Support, and Partner Enablement. Prior to joining CipherCloud, Shri led Professional Services at Exafort, where he established the company as a leader in innovative cloud services. Prior to that, he was the co-founder and CEO of FedCast, which offered identity and entitlement management solutions. Before FedCast, Shri led technology programs and operational initiatives at McGraw-Hill. He also worked in several divisions of General Electric, where he led global initiatives and technology programs, as well as with Infosys Technologies, where he was responsible for various technical projects and deployments. Shri holds an MBA from Santa Clara University.

Mike Kochanik is responsible for sales strategy and revenue generation at CipherCloud. Mike brings to CipherCloud a distinguished 20-year track record in enterprise sales, SaaS, and cloud computing, building companies, defining markets, and creating value for shareholders. Prior to joining CipherCloud, Mike was a founding business team member at CollabNet, where he started the company’s Cloud Computing and Virtualization practice and brought to market the industry’s first Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) offering for Software Build and Test. Prior to that, he was a key contributor in growing two early stage firms to successful liquidity events, IKOS Systems and Geodesic Systems. Mike started his career in technology with Lockheed Martin Corporation, where he worked on the Trident Missile programs and FAA programs. 

Varun Badhwar is a founding executive of CipherCloud where he is responsible for product strategy, product marketing, evangelism, and sales enablement. As a subject matter expert on cloud security, he is regularly invited to speak at a number of global industry conferences. Prior to joining CipherCloud, Varun was responsible for ensuring the security of the Force.com ecosystem at salesforce.com, which included over 1,500 partner applications. Prior to salesforce.com, he was a Consultant within the Risk Advisory Services group at KPMG, where he advised Fortune 500 Clients on managing IT security and privacy, operational risks, and alignment with overall business strategy. Varun earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science from the University of Southern California, and is a Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP), Certified Information Systems Auditor (CISA), and a Licensed Penetration Tester (LPT). 

Pravin Kothari is the founder and CEO of CipherCloud. He founded CipherCloud in 2010 when he recognized that while the cloud was disrupting enterprise IT with explosive growth, the security technologies had not kept pace and enterprises were losing control over their sensitive data. Pravin is driving the rapid growth of CipherCloud by managing its business, strategy, and operations. Pravin is a security visionary with more than 20 years of experience building industry-leading companies and bringing innovative products to market. Pravin was the Founder & CTO of Agiliance, a leading Security Risk Management company, and Co-founder & VP Engineering of ArcSight, a leading security company, which was acquired by HP for $1.6 billion. Previously, Pravin was Co-founder & Chief Architect at Impresse Corporation and also held technical leadership positions at Verity, Attachmate, and Tata Consultancy Services. Pravin holds over a dozen patents in security technologies and is the inventor behind CipherCloud’s groundbreaking cloud encryption technology.

Travis Patterson brings more than 18 years of technology sales and management experience to CipherCloud. As CipherCloud’s SVP of Worldwide Sales, Travis oversees global sales and sales engineering. Prior to CipherCloud, Travis was SVP of Worldwide Sales at Marble, where he led global sales, channels, sales engineering, and consulting services. Previously, he was Vice President of Americas Software & Solutions Strategic Accounts organization at Hewlett-Packard (NASDAQ: HPQ). Travis has also served as Senior Vice President of Sales for the Western and Southern United States and Latin America at Opsware (NASDAQ: OPSW), which was acquired by HP. During his tenure with Opsware, the sales organization more than tripled their annual revenue. Prior to joining Opsware, Travis spent seven years in sales management at PTC, where he was the AVP of the high-tech vertical.

Sudhir Kolli has extensive experience in software development, global team management and entrepreneurship. He has over 20 years of industry experience with several senior management positions in startups and consulting roles in Fortune 500 companies. As CipherCloud's Vice President of Engineering, he is responsible for software processes, quality management, design, and delivery of the company’s entire line of product offerings. Prior to CipherCloud, Sudhir was VP and Head of Java Enterprise Solutions Practice at Marlabs, Inc. Previously, he founded and served as the CTO & VP of Engineering at Compariv, a provider of TCO-based marketing tools. Prior to that, he was the VP of Engineering at Citadon, Inc., providing one of the industry’s first SaaS solutions. Sudhir has consulted at large financial services companies such as Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Mellon Bank, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac, providing architecture and design solutions, and delivering mission critical systems. His main interests include utilization of software frameworks for rapid product development, agile methodologies, developer productivity, start-ups, and global development. 

Patrick Zanoni brings more than 20 years of experience in technology, finance and accounting to CipherCloud. As VP of Finance, he is responsible for all aspects of accounting and finance for the Company. Patrick was previously the CFO of Fusion Systems, where he was responsible for leading and coordinating finance, accounting and M&A activities across multiple countries and entities. Prior to Fusion, Patrick was a VP of Software Investment Banking at Credit Suisse and Merrill Lynch. As an investment banker, Patrick assisted clients in the software industry in raising capital and conducting M&A worth more than $4 billion. His experience also includes working at Telephone & Data Systems, Andersen Consulting and Yokogawa Engineering Service Corp. Patrick earned an MBA from The University of Chicago, a BBA with distinction from The University of Wisconsin at Madison, and is also a licensed Certified Public Accountant (CPA) and Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) charter holder..

Dr. Debabrata Dash has been involved with CipherCloud since the founding of the company - initially in a technology advisory capacity and then joining full-time as the Chief Scientist and Architect to define the technical vision and architecture, design new technologies to solve complex technical problems, and collaborate with academia and industry forums such as the CSA. He brings with him a combination of core academic research capability and a wealth of experience in building innovative internet-scale systems. He is the author of more than 25 technical papers and patents on Network Security, Database Management, and Cloud Computing. Before joining CipherCloud, Debabrata was a Distinguished Technologist in Hewlett-Packard’s Enterprise Security/ArcSight division. At HP, he led their technical effort to provide real-time analytic capabilities on their enterprise security management platform. Prior to that, he was a key architect in early days of ArcSight, where he built their market leading technologies in event correlation, event management, and analytics. Debabrata started his career at Sun Microsystems, and worked with researchers at IBM’s Almaden Research Center, AT&T Labs, and Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (Lausanne).

Dash holds a B. Tech. degree in Computer Science & Engineering from IIT, and a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon University.

Narsi Kodukula is a passionate technologist with extensive experience in bringing leading edge enterprise solutions to market. As VP of Product Management, he is responsible for the entire portfolio of solutions at CipherCloud. Narsi was previously at Trend Micro, where he held a variety of roles in corporate development, strategic alliances, and product incubation. He was a key member of the team that launched Trend Micro's Data Center & Cloud Security business unit, and was the lead inventor in multiple patents. Prior to Trend Micro, Narsi held senior roles in product management and software development at Vina Technologies and Lucent Technologies (Bell Labs).