Management Team

Ron Benson, PhD - CEO: Founded several companies. Raised $10+ MM as CEO at VocalPoint - sold to Telecom Italia. PhD from Caltech.

Ron founded several companies, the most notable being Vocalpoint, Inc. where he raised $10+ MM and grew the team to 40 employees as CEO and successfully sold the company to the Telecom Italia spin-off, Loquendo. He worked as a Senior Staff Engineer at BEA Systems and as a Senior Technologist at Critical Point, a natural language search company.

He holds a PhD from Caltech in Computational and Neural Systems and a BS in Electrical Engineering/Computer Science and a double BA in Math and German from the University of Colorado, Boulder. He enjoys hiking, biking, learning new languages and trying out these new found languages in foreign lands.

Ron recently moved back to Boulder from San Francisco where he spent the last 10 years.

Kurt Hoppe – VP Business Development: Signed retail, OEM, content, technology deals at Paul Allen’s Digeo. Held leadership roles at 2Wire & Amdocs, working with global telcos, including AT&T for U-Verse.

Kurt most recently filled the role of Senior Director of Business Development for Paul Allen's STB-DVR company, Digeo. As primary point of contact for key partner relationships he led the push into a broader platform strategy, developing relationships with key technology partners, content providers, retailers and global service providers. Kurt succeeded in driving the development and execution of a wide variety of agreements, including the first OEM licensing deal for the company.

Prior to Digeo, Kurt served as Director of Product Marketing and Management at 2Wire,  responsible for product, partner and release management as well as internal and external communications activities. Before that, Kurt held management positions at Amdocs, working with partners to create and sell innovative triple/quadruple-play solutions for large communication service providers around the world, including AT&T U-Verse. Kurt was a founding member of a system integrator's e-commerce practice and was also a communications officer in the military.

Kurt graduated Summa Cum Laude from the Royal Military College of Canada with an Honors Degree in Computer Science.

Gary Siemer – CFO: Led i2's Field Operations team, enabling the company's growth to over $1B in sales. Helped raise over $700 million in his career and involved with numerous M&A deals.

Gary has a very diverse career background, including stints with DSC Communications Corporation and i2 Technologies. Gary started up the international accounting department for DSC and managed eight subsidiaries worldwide. He managed the SEC reporting function for DSC and i2 Technologies, both Fortune 500 companies. At i2, he built the Field Operations team which helped enable revenue growth to over one billion dollars. He has extensive M&A experience on the buy and sell side. He has also held roles in business development and software sales. For the last five years, he has been the CFO at two different companies.

Gary holds a degree in accounting from Baylor University and has been a CPA for 15 years.

Outside of work, Gary enjoys spending time with his family, traveling, hiking and fly fishing.

David Erikson – VP Engineering: System Architect for Advanced Micro Devices and National Semiconductor embedded processor and chipset products.

David has over ten year experience in system architecture, hardware development, management, and team leadership on products ranging from embedded silicon SOCs and platforms to server systems at AMD, Intel and National Semiconductor.

David holds a degree in Electrical Engineering from Dartmouth College.

Doug Young – VP Software: System and embedded software – OpenTV, OnCommand, IBM, Dept of Energy.

Doug's expertise includes contributions to OnCommand Video Corporation, a leader in the hospitality in-room video market, helping them retain and monetize their existing technology while simultaneously defining, architecting and implementing their next-generation technology. He developmed software for XVT and Solbourne Computer for 10 years, then established himself as a successful software consultant in 1995 - including projects such as an embedded in-flight communications for Ball Aerospace, the Clinical Information System for Kaiser Colorado and as the embedded software and communications contractor to the Department of Energy for a major atmospheric research study from 2001 to 2006.

Doug holds a degree in Computer Science from Cornell University.

He describes himself as a husband, father, entrepreneur, and technologist.

Matthew Scott Musser – VP Web Architecture: Chief Architect for two start-ups, Senior Manager for BEA Workshop, Software Architect for IBM.

Scott's career includes successful development of enterprise class distributed and/or web-based software applications for British Airways, IBM Global Services, IBM Managed Security Services Delivery, DigiGlobe and BEA Systems.

Scott holds a degree in Computer Science from Michigan Technological University and a Masters Degree in Computer Science from the University of Illinois.

Domonkos Tikk – Offshore development team leader: Expert in recommendation engines & fuzzy logic.

Brad Hunt – Content security and studio expert: Former Chief Technology Officer for the Motion Picture Association of America.

Jeff Lotspiech – Encryption expert: Co-inventor of AACS Blu-ray encryption.