Oren Michels, CEO
Mashery's co-founder and CEO has a record of success in a variety of executive positions spanning multiple industries. Oren co-founded and managed WiFinder, an international provider of directory services for public access wi-fi hotspots. He has served as president for two companies: Colt HR, a leading provider of mid-market benefits administration software and services; and Winebid.com, a leading online wine auction service. He also served as president and CEO of The Groundlings, a Hollywood-based entertainment production company, and has held COO positions at manufacturing companies. Prior to joining Mashery, Oren worked as vice president of business development at Feedster, where he managed the company's activities in China and negotiated partnerships with AOL, Real Networks, and Mitsui.
Oren began his career as a software designer for Hughes Aircraft. He holds a BS in Electrical Engineering from MIT and an MBA in finance and entrepreneurial studies from UCLA's Anderson School.
Ajay K. Arora, Vice President, Products and Services
Ajay Arora is Vice President of Products and Services. Prior to Mashery, Ajay served as Vice President of Products and Solutions at newScale, Inc. where he was responsible for driving new products and strategy, including spearheading newScale's SaaS and Open Source initiatives. Ajay's core expertise is in software product management, marketing and strategy with a heavy focus on execution and operations.
Prior to joining newScale, Ajay led Product Management and Marketing for Centrata (Lontra) and was a key architect of Centrata's Service Delivery Management Suite. Prior to Centrata, Ajay led Product Management at Euclid (Metrikus). Ajay has also held key product management, software engineering and consulting roles at Corio (acquired by IBM), Oracle and Lockheed Martin. Ajay holds a Masters Degree in Computer Science from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and a Bachelors Degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
Roque Versace, Vice President, Sales
Roque Versace, our Vice President of Sales, brings to his work strong SaaS and Internet experience and the ability to evangelize new technologies. He spent six years at salesforce.com, most recently managing a $20M territory as VP of Corporate Sales. Working in professional services and sales at BroadVision, Roque provided Internet strategy assistance to Hallmark, Wal-Mart, Xerox and other clients. As VP of Product Marketing & Product Management he led the company's $45M Commerce Applications team.
As VP of Sales at EchoSign, a SaaS provider of electronic signature solutions, Roque tripled the subscriber base in one year. As a Senior Consultant at Accenture, he managed successful projects for Alex. Brown and Freddie Mac. Roque served as a US Army officer and is a Gulf War Veteran. He holds an MBA from the University of Maryland, and a BA in Computer Science from Gettysburg College.
Clay Loveless, Chief Architect
Mashery co-founder and Chief Architect Clay Loveless has been programming online applications since 1995. As Senior Software Engineer at Feedster, he played a key role in API and application development for Feedster partners. Prior to his work at Feedster, Clay served as Vice President of Technology for Eruptor Entertainment, a Los Angeles-based entertainment production company.
Clay also led the enterprise web application consulting firm Killersoft, and in the early days of the Web, he developed frontend code for America Online. He has written numerous articles devoted to PHP development, and was responsible for four chapters in the PHP Cookbook, 2nd Edition (2006) from O'Reilly. Clay holds a BA from New York University's Gallatin Division.
Kirsten Spoljaric, Co-Founder
As co-founder and director of human resources for Mashery, Kirsten Spoljaric brings strong operational experience and a proven track record of success in staffing organizations. Before joining Mashery, Spoljaric was director of human resources for Feedster where she created a human resources department and implemented an aggressive hiring plan that tripled the staff size within the first quarter. Previously, Spoljaric was a human resources manager for Spear Technologies where she managed staffing plans for both the U.S. and the U.K.
Spoljaric holds a Bachelor of Science in psychology with a minor in business administration from the University of Oregon. She also holds a PHR (Professional in Human Resources) credential through the HRCI.