Composite Management Team
Jim Green - Chairman &
CEO
Jim brings to Composite Software more than 20 years of experience in developing products and technology for enterprise computing. Jim joined Composite in 2003 from webMethods where he served as CTO and executive vice president of product development. Prior to joining webMethods, Jim was CEO of Active Software, where he grew the company from a start-up to an industry leader in Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) software. After the merger with webMethods, he spearheaded the integration of the two companies' product lines to create the industry's first comprehensive business integration platform. Before that, during a seven year tenure at Sun Microsystems, he led the development of the Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA) specification, the industry standard for distributed objects. In previous companies, he achieved several industry firsts by developing networking and distributed computing products.
Jim holds an MS in Industrial Engineering and an MS in Computer Science.
David Besemer - Chief Technology Officer
David began his tenure at Composite in 2002 as VP of Engineering, and transitioned to the CTO role in January 2006. He joined Composite from his freelance CTO consulting practice, through which he provided software technology intelligence to venture capital firms. Prior to that he was the CTO of eStyle, an e-commerce retailer serving the lifestyle needs of women and their families. Previously, David ran a successful enterprise software consulting practice, headed software product marketing at NeXT Computer, built program trading systems on Wall Street, and researched natural language processing systems at GE's Corporate R&D center.
David holds a BS in computer science from Michigan State University and an MS in computer science from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
Steve Vattuone - Chief Financial Officer
Steve brings to Composite over 15 years of experience, primarily with enterprise software and consulting companies. Prior to joining Composite, Steve was the Vice President of Finance and Corporate Controller at Micromuse, an enterprise software company which was subsequently acquired by IBM. Micromuse developed and licensed business and service assurance software. Prior to joining Micromuse, Steve served as the Corporate Controller of Macrovision, a developer and licensor of copy protection, electronic licensing and rights management software. Before that, he served as the Vice President, Finance of Organic, Inc., an internet professional services provider. Prior to Organic, Steve was the Corporate Controller of Brio Software, an enterprise software company which developed and licensed query and reporting tools. Before Brio Software, he held several positions at Pricewaterhouse Coopers LLP, most recently as a Business Assurance Manager in their San Jose, California office.
Steve holds an M.B.A. from Santa Clara University and a B.S. in Business Administration from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. He is also a Certified Public Accountant in the State of California.
James Crawford - VP Engineering
James brings to Composite Software 15 years of experience in software research and development in optimization and heuristic analysis. James comes to Composite from Ames Research Center, NASA’s center of excellence for information technology, where he was responsible for almost 100 researchers. In stringent NASA-wide competitions in 2005, his teams won five major new awards totaling over $20 million.
Prior to joining NASA, James led the Optimization team at i2 Technologies where he led a series of significant Joint Development Projects that gave i2 differentiated product capabilities. Before that, he worked at AT&T Bell Laboratories and co-founded the Computational Intelligence Research Laboratory (CIRL) at the University of Oregon. James has authored over fifteen papers in referred journals and conferences, and holds five patents.
James holds PhD and Master’s degrees in Computer Science from the University of Texas at Austin, and a BA in Math and Computer Science from Rice University.
Robert Eve - VP Marketing
Bob's experience includes executive level marketing and business development roles at leading enterprise software companies such as Informatica, Mercury Interactive, PeopleSoft, and Oracle.
Before Composite, Bob served as VP of Marketing at Right Hemisphere, where he created the product graphics management category and doubled revenues. At Informatica and Mercury, he helped penetrate new segments in his role as the VP of Market Development. Previously, Bob ran Marketing and Alliances at Kintana (acquired by Mercury in 2003) where he defined the IT governance category and helped grow revenue from $15 million to $50 million. As VP of Alliances at PeopleSoft, Bob was responsible for over 300 partners and 100 staff members. In his nearly ten years at Oracle, Bob was on the vanguard of ERP. There he held a number of roles including Oracle Manufacturing's first product manager and head of Oracle's revolutionary software integration program, CAI.
Bob holds a MS degree in Management from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a BS degree in Business Administration from the University of California at Berkeley.
Tait Kirkham
-
VP, WW Technical Field Services
Tait has over 20 years of experience in software and sales engineering. In 2003, he joined Composite to build a worldwide technical field organization that spans both sales engineering and professional services. Prior to Composite, Tait was a founding member of the sales organization for Inktomi Corporation, a pioneer in internet infrastructure software solutions. At Inktomi, he built a sales engineering team to support the complex sale of network caching and content distribution solutions to the world's largest carriers and ISPs.
To further support Inktomi's rapid sales growth, Tait moved to Europe and took on the role of Director, European Technical Field Sales. Prior to Inktomi, Tait held senior level software and sales engineering positions at Verity, Veritas and Amdahl.
Tait holds a B.S. degree in Computer Science from San Francisco State University.
Christian Nall - VP Sales
Christian’s career has spanned enterprise software, hardware, outsourcing, and ASPs at some of the largest and most innovative companies. Before joining Composite, Christian served as Vice President of WW Sales at Proofpoint, a messaging security company, where he built the companies sales team into a force that drove sales to over $18 million in subscription based revenue in the first two years.
Prior to Proofpoint, Christian served as the VP of Global Sales at Exigen Group, VP of Field Operations at Portera Systems, and VP of Sales and Business Development at Spyglass, Inc. Prior to this, Christian’s experience included Sales and Product Management experience at Hitachi Data Systems and more than ten years in sales management in IBM's Enterprise Systems Sales Organization.
Christian holds a B.S. degree in Finance and Marketing from the University of California at Berkeley.
Deborah Townsend - VP & General Counsel
Debbie brings to Composite over 18 years of experience of representing technology companies. She joined Composite from a successful legal consulting practice, through which she served as fractional senior counsel advising both private and public technology companies on a wide range of operational legal issues. Prior to this, Debbie served as General Counsel of E.piphany, Inc. (NASDAQ: EPNY), a developer and licensor of customer relationship management software subsequently acquired by Infor Global Solutions AG, and Director of Licensing and Senior Corporate Counsel for Bay Networks (NYSE: BAY), a designer and manufacturer of networking software and equipment, and its acquirer, Nortel Networks, Inc (NYSE: NT). Prior to her in-house experience, Debbie was an attorney at the law firm of Morrison & Foerster, LLP.
Debbie holds a joint JD and AM degree from Stanford University Law and Graduate Schools, and BA from Yale University, and is admitted to practice in California.
Peter Tran - VP Product Marketing
Peter Tran brings over 12 years of software and related business experience to Composite Software. Prior to Composite, Peter was the Director of Industry Solutions Marketing at webMethods, a leading application integration software company. Prior to webMethods, Peter was Vice President of Investment Banking at Robertson Stephens, focusing on the Software Industry. Peter also spent several years as an information technology consultant at PricewaterhouseCoopers.
Peter holds a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from the University of California at Berkeley.
