Brad Peters is the CEO of Birst. Through his years of work helping to lead the Analytics group at Siebel Systems and his early work on on-demand software delivery, Brad became intensely aware of the limitations of current enterprise analytics offerings and the revolutionary power of the Software-as-a-Service model. Brad is excited to be bringing the power of advanced analytics to small and medium businesses that never had access before, as well as easing the reporting and analytics pain of managers everywhere.
Brad received an MS in electrical engineering and computer science from UC Berkeley, where he was a National Science Foundation Fellow and a California Microelectronics Fellow. He received his MBA from Harvard Business School.
Paul Staelin is Vice President of Customer Operations for Birst and a co-founder of the company. He is responsible for ensuring customer success and manages Birst’s professional services, support, training and operations teams to that goal. Due to his experience in companies both large and small, Paul knows how important it is to have the right data at your fingertips and get real value from your technology investments. Previously, Paul built and managed Siebel's Sales Analytics product line, overseeing its growth from start to over $40 million in annual license revenue.
Before Siebel, Paul co-founded emPower Corporation and served as its President for several years prior to its sale in 1999.
Paul holds an BS from Yale and an MS from MIT in Electrical Engineering and an MBA from Stanford University, where he was an Arjay Miller scholar.
Ryan Ried is Vice President of Worldwide Sales. Ryan joins Birst from Adobe Systems where he was Area Sales Director for Major Accounts. Prior to this, he served as Vice President of Healthcare Sales and Vice President of Global Strategic Business Users at SAP Business Objects. Before its acquisition by SAP, Ryan led Business Object’s Northeast sales teams. During his tenure Ryan was instrumental in building a team that helped make the firm among the fastest growing enterprise software companies of the past decade. Previously he held additional sales and leadership positions at Oracle, Akamai and Siebel Systems.
Ryan holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Missouri.
Chris Polishuk is Vice President of North American Sales for Birst. In this role, Chris is responsible for all North American direct revenue channels. Chris has a successful 15 year history of building profitable relationships in the analytics software space, with extensive experience in information management / Business Intelligence initiatives for Marketing, Sales, CRM, and Operational aspects of both SMB and large enterprises. Prior to joining Birst, Chris held sales, sales leadership, and business development roles at companies such as the SAS Institute, Protagona (acquired by DoubleClick), and Nimblefish Technologies (acquired by R.R. Donnelley & Co.). Chris was an early evangelist in the industry-wide move to the Cloud computing / SaaS delivery model having been a member of leadership teams in the space since 2005.
Chris received his BA in Political Science from the University of Dayton.
Stefan Schmitz is the Vice President of Products, responsible for ensuring that Birst reflects customer's needs and desires. Stefan was previously Director of Product Management at Oracle and Siebel, where he managed the Siebel advanced analytics and real-time decision product line. Stefan managed two OEM partnerships that led to the acquisition of one of the partners by Oracle in 2006. Stefan started his career as a data mining consultant and later worked for IBM, where he managed CRM implementation projects for major financial services organizations in Europe.
Stefan received an MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management and holds a MS in Computer Science from the University of Karlsruhe in Germany.
Rick Spickelmier, CTO/VP Engineering, is responsible for engineering, security, and big ideas for Birst. Rick brings over 17 years of wide-ranging software development experience, including experience in enterprise architecture, databases, and on-demand applications. Rick has been Senior Director of Technology at Geac, CTO and Chief Architect at Extensity, and has also worked in a number of management, architecture and development roles at Objectivity. Rick has participated as a panelist and presenter at numerous conferences and industry events and has authored several books and publications.
Rick holds a Ph.D. and an MS in Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences from the University of California, Berkeley.
Wynn White is Birst's Vice President of Worldwide Marketing. Wynn joined Birst from Dell where he was Vice President of Dell KACE Worldwide Marketing, overseeing the marketing of the industry’s fastest growing system management solution. Prior to its acquisition by Dell, he led KACE's marketing, product management, and lead qualification and was instrumental in driving the company's growth from 300 to more than 3,000 customers. With over 19 years of marketing and product management experience in the areas of applications, system management, security, and networking, Wynn knows how important data-based decisions are for fueling growth in mid-market organizations. Previously he was Vice President of Marketing at Oracle and has held senior marketing roles at Oblix and BEA.
Wynn holds both a BA and MBA from the University of California, Berkeley.
Manish Jani is the Managing Director of Birst India Private Limited; he is responsible for Birst's India operations located in Ahmedabad, India. He has over 18 years of experience in wide array of technologies working on several consulting projects as well as product development. He previously held engineering and management positions in Extensity, Enherent and Tata Consultancy Services.
Manish received his Bachelors in Computer Science from Gujarat University, India.
