Management Team

Javed Patel
CEO

Javed is a seasoned hi-tech executive with a proven track record in a variety of roles in large and small, public and VC-backed companies in the semiconductor and networking industries. Most recently he was CEO of Sierra Monolithics, where he led its rapid growth resulting in the acquisition of the company by Semtech Corporation (Nasdaq: SMTC). Prior to that, he held various senior management positions at Anadigics, Tropian, WJ Communications, and Quake Technologies.

Javed holds BSEE and MSEE degrees from University of Kansas and an MBA degree from Drexel University.

Som Sikdar
Founder and CTO

Well known in Silicon Valley as the founder of four venture-funded companies in the networking infrastructure industry, Som Sikdar holds over 20 patents and brings a wealth of network expertise and industry experience to GridIron. Before GridIron, Som was the founder of Shomiti Systems (Finisar), where he pioneered network analysis. He was also the founder of Force10 Networks, the leader in 10 GE networks. Early in his career, Som was a key technology leader at Synoptics, Vitalink, and David Systems.

Som earned an MSEE from Washington State University in Computer Architecture (VLSI) and Compiler Design and a BS in Technology from the Indian Institute of Technology in Kharagpur, India.

Herb Schneider
Founder and Vice President of Engineering

Herb has a successful track record of driving the development of next-generation technology including five generations of custom networking ASICs, two generations of network operating systems (EXTR, EXOS), and three generations of fixed and modular networking platforms. He holds several patents in data networking and security. As founder and VP of engineering at Extreme Networks, he engineered data networking products that generated over $2 billion in revenue and was responsible for the shipment of 20 million Ethernet Ports. At Network Peripherals (FalconStor), he created leading products for the FDDI market and guided the company through its successful IPO. Prior to Network Peripherals, Herb was a key leader in developing network- and storage-related silicon technologies at National Semiconductor.

Herb holds a BSEE from the University of California at Davis.

Prasad Pammidimukkala
Vice President of Marketing

Prasad has over 20 years of experience bringing enterprise-class storage and networking products to market. Prior to GridIron, he led product management at Nishan Systems, a pioneer in IP storage technologies. At McData, he was responsible for the company’s core storage network routers and at Brocade, Prasad ran product management for the company’s core routers and extension products. Before entering the data storage industry, Prasad delivered data networking products at 3Com and Ungermann-Bass.

Prasad holds an MBA from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, an MS in Computer Science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and a BS in Computer Science from the Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University in Hyderabad, India.

Michael Connolly
Vice President of Sales

Michael is an accomplished sales executive with over 20 years of sales management experience in the Enterprise. As Vice President of Sales at Acopia, he tripled the company’s annual revenues within his first year and was instrumental in Acopia’s acquisition by F5 Networks (Nasdaq: FFIV). At Infoblox, Michael built the North American sales team and channel from the ground up and ramped sales from zero to $40M during his tenure there. Michael also held executive sales positions at Copan Systems, Brocade, Storage Networks, and EMC.

Michael earned a BA in Economics from Boston College.

Bill Ferone
Vice President of Services and Support

Bill is a seasoned field operations executive in the high-tech industry.  He has held the position of Senior Vice President of Worldwide Service and Support for Amdahl, Bay Networks and Nortel Networks. He has extensive experience in the startup environment and has held the position of Executive VP of Worldwide Sales and Service for Cosine Communications and also was head of the startup-focused consulting firm WFF Strategic Consulting. Bill has developed support organizations from scratch and also ran service businesses of over 2,000 employees and $800M in revenue.

Bill earned a BS in Business from the University of Cincinnati.