Agiliance Board of Directors
 | Nina Saberi |
| Cliff Higgerson |
| Kip Myers |
| Robert Steinkrauss |
| Joe Fantuzzi |
| Sean Cunningham |
| Pravin Kothari |
Nina Saberi
Board Member - Founder and General Partner, Castile Ventures
Nina Saberi is the Founder and Managing General partner of early stage venture capital firm Castile Ventures. An industry veteran with extensive investment and operational experience, Ms. Saberi entered the venture community as a General Partner of OneLiberty. Prior to OneLiberty Ventures, Ms. Saberi was president and CEO of venture-backed Netlink, acquired by Cabletron as one of the top three acquisitions of its year. During her operating career, she successfully led Amnet to its acquisition, managed an international joint venture for Data General and Singapore Telecom and held executive marketing and engineering positions at BBN and Avanti Communications.
In addition to Agiliance, Ms. Saberi's investments include companies such as Ahura Scientific (acquired by Thermo Fisher), ChosenSecurity (acquired by PGP/Symantec), and Quantiva (acquired by NetScout). She also led Castile's investments in Sonus (NASDAQ: SONS), Network Intelligence (acquired by EMC), and Trapeze Networks (acquired by Belden) and was an investor and director at Brix Networks (acquired by EXFO), GeoTrust (acquired by VeriSign), and Stargus (acquired by C-COR), where she was also the chair.
Ms. Saberi is the Chair of the Advisory Council at the University of Rhode Island's College of Engineering where she received her BS in Electrical Engineering.
Cliff Higgerson
Board Member - Venture Partner, Walden International
Cliff Higgerson has more than 35 years of experience in research, consulting, planning, and venture investing. Combining the market insight of an analyst with a keen ability to identify blockbuster technologies early in their development, Mr. Higgerson has backed some of the most successful companies in the communications industry.
Recent investments and board seats include Astute Networks, Hatteras Networks, Kotura, Lambda OpticalSystems, Ygnition, and Xtera Communications. Prior investments include industry leaders such as Advanced Fibre Communications (NASDAQ: AFCI); America Online; Ciena (NASDAQ: CIEN); Digital Island (acquired by Cable & Wireless); Digital Microwave, now Stralex Networks (NASDAQ: STXN); Tellabs (NASDAQ: TLAB); MCI (NASDAQ: MCIP); Octel (NYSE: OTL); and Tut Systems (NASDAQ: TUTS).
Prior to Walden International, Mr. Higgerson was a Founding Partner of ComVentures and a General Partner with Vanguard Venture Partners. He has also served as a Managing Partner and Director of Research for Hambrecht & Quist, and as a Special Limited Partner and Director of the Communications Group for L.F. Rothschild, Unterberg, Towbin.
Mr. Higgerson holds an MBA from the University of California at Berkeley and a BS from the University of Illinois.
Kip Myers
Board Member - Partner, Red Rock Ventures
Kip Myers is a successful venture investor and entrepreneur.
Prior to Red Rock, Mr. Myers was a Partner in Vanguard III, IV and V over a fourteen year period. Previously, he was Founder and Vice President of Engineering and Marketing of Plexus Computers. Mr. Myers also co-founded Onyx Systems. Earlier he served as an Engineering Manager at Zilog.
Kip earned an M.B.A. and a B.S.E.E. from U.C. Berkeley.
Robert Steinkrauss
Independent Board Member
Robert Steinkrauss is a consultant to IT security-focused companies and currently serves on the board of Core Security Technologies, Inc. and Whaleback Managed Services. Mr. Steinkrauss recently served on the board of Q1 Labs, acquired by IBM in 2011; was chairman of the board of Authentica, acquired by EMC in 2006; and was a director of GeoTrust, acquired by VeriSign in 2006. He has held numerous senior executive positions including chairman, president, and CEO of Chosen Security, Inc., a leading specialist in identity verification and security services, acquired by PGP (SYMC) in 2010; president, chairman, and CEO of encryption vendor Ingrian Networks, acquired by SafeNet; president and CEO of Xedia Corporation, acquired by Lucent; and chairman, president, and CEO of Raptor Systems (RAPT), which merged with Axent Technologies and subsequently was acquired by Symantec. Mr. Steinkrauss has been recognized twice as an Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Finalist.
Mr. Steinkrauss holds a BS in Accounting from Boston College.
Joe Fantuzzi
Board Member - President and CEO, Agiliance
Joe Fantuzzi drives Agiliance's overall business direction, strategy, and execution. He reports to the Agiliance Board of Directors. He is an expert in creating high-growth, venture-backed businesses in emerging technology markets, and has helped building over $3 billion in market valuation as an executive for industry leading companies throughout his career.
Bringing 25 years of software experience to Agiliance, Mr. Fantuzzi was CEO at Workshare™ (security software) for nearly 5 years, growing new sales by 400% and customers from 3,500 to 11,000, including 62% of the Fortune 1000, establishing a household name in the content security space. Previous to Workshare, he was CEO at Liquid Engines™ (financial management software), now a division of Thomson Reuters™ (TRI). Here Mr. Fantuzzi created a strategic cash and tax planning solution for global enterprises. Prior, he was co-founder and CEO at NetDialog™ (software-as-a-service-based Customer Relationship Management), and sold it to KANA™ for $100 million in 1999. Prior to NetDialog, Mr. Fantuzzi was General Manager at Autodesk® (ADSK) Discreet™ (3-D graphics software), growing that business unit market share from 20% to 65% over 3 years. He was also Vice President of Worldwide Marketing at Macromedia® (ADBE) from inception, to private-private merger, through its public offering, and Director of International Sales and Marketing at Interleaf™ (BVSN), then Inc's 7th fastest growing company in America.
Mr. Fantuzzi holds a Master's degree in Computer Engineering from Tufts University in Boston, MA and a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from Bucknell University in Lewisburg, PA.
Sean Cunningham
Board Observer - Director of Strategic Investments, Intel Capital
Mr. Cunningham serves as the Intel Capital Board of Director Observer on Agiliance, Cloakware, Credant Technologies, Crossbeam Systems, Tricipher, Lockdown Networks, Signacert, and Lifemasters. He previously was Board of Director Observer for Zone Labs (acquired by Checkpoint Software), Musicmatch (acquired by Yahoo), and Trymedia (acquired by Macrovision).
Prior to Intel, Mr. Cunningham was responsible for marketing and service management functions for over five years with Sequent Computers. He also held numerous finance management and marketing positions during his seven years at ISC Systems.
Mr. Cunningham graduated from Gonzaga University with a BBA in Finance and Management. He earned his MBA from Gonzaga University.
Pravin Kothari
Board Observer - Founder and Chief Executive Officer, CipherCloud
Pravin Kothari is a security visionary and serial entrepreneur with over 20 years of experience in successfully bringing new products to market in information security.
Mr. Kothari is Chief Executive Officer at CipherCloud, a leader in cloud encryption that is removing the data privacy, residency, security, and compliance barriers to cloud adoption for enterprises worldwide. Prior to founding CipherCloud in 2010, he was founder, Chief Technology Officer, and Interim-CEO of Agiliance. Previously, Mr. Kothari was co-founder and Vice President of Engineering of ArcSight, a leading security company, where he led product development for five years from inception to market dominance. ArcSight was acquired by HP in 2010 for over $1.5 Billion. Prior to ArcSight, Mr. Kothari was co-founder and Chief Architect at Impresse Corporation. He has also held technical leadership positions at Verity, Attachmate, and Tata Consultancy Services.
Mr. Kothari holds a Master of Science degree in Computer Science from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in Bombay. He is a certified information systems auditor (CISA), certified information systems security professional (CISSP), and charter member of TiE, a global organization dedicated to the advancement of entrepreneurship.
