Board of Directors (also see our Leadership Team)

• Izhar Armony. Izhar joined Charles River Ventures in 1997. His investment focus is on the enterprise software and services areas. In addition to Optaros, he is currently a director of iPhrase, July Systems, Proficiency, ThinkFire, ThinQ and Virtusa. He is also a member of the Advisory Board of the Invention Science Fund. Previously, he served as a director of Guardent (acquired by VeriSign, Nasdaq: VRSN), iBasis (IPO in 1999, OTC:IBAS), Yantra (acquired by Sterling Commerce), Global Food Exchange (acquired by Instill Corporation), and Celarix (acquired by GXS). He also invested in Oberon, which was acquired by OnDisplay (then Nasdaq:ONDS). More »

  Prior to joining Charles River Ventures, Izhar was with Onyx Interactive, an interactive training company based in Tel Aviv where he served as vice president of marketing and business development. Izhar also served as an officer in the Israeli Army for four years prior to Onyx.

  Izhar earned an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and an MA in Cognitive Psychology from the University of Tel Aviv in Israel.

• Larry Begley. Larry Begley is a Managing Director of .406 Ventures where he focuses on investments in IT infrastructure, technology-enabled services, and next generation software companies. In addition to Optaros, Larry serves on the board of Chosen Security Inc., Ratepoint Inc., AWS Convergence, and MTI Technology Corporation. More »

  Prior to co-founding .406 Ventures in 2005, Larry had over 25 years of financial experience in both public and private companies. He served for seven years as CFO & Treasurer of The Boston Consulting Group. Larry also served as Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer of CCBN.com, Razorfish Inc. and i-Cube Inc., a company he helped take public in 1998.

  Larry earned an undergraduate degree in Accounting from Boston College and an MBA in finance from Boston College.

• Larry Bohn. As a Managing Director of General Catalyst Partners, Larry Bohn focuses on identifying new investment opportunities within the software infrastructure, enterprise software applications and information technology sectors. In addition to Optaros, Larry currently is a board member of Venetica Corporation, Ping Identity Corporation, Black Duck Software, OzVision Global, and Demandware, Inc., which all are active General Catalyst investments. More »

  Prior to joining General Catalyst, Larry was the chairman, president and CEO of NetGenesis, a market leading software and analytic solutions provider. In February 2000, Larry took the company public (NTGX) and in December 2001, NetGenesis was acquired by SPSS, Inc. (SPSS). Larry was also president of PC DOCS, Inc., a leading developer of document management software for enterprise networks and was senior vice president of marketing and business development at Interleaf, Inc.

  An acknowledged thought leader, Larry has spoken at leading industry events such as Comdex and Seybold, and has been a guest lecturer at Harvard, Stanford, and the Amos Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth. Larry has been a board member and advisor to a number of private technology companies, including Enigma Inc., Metreo, and Bidder´s Edge. He is also a founder and the first president of OASIS, the industry consortium promoting XML adoption.

  Larry is an honors graduate of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and holds a masters of arts degree in Structural Linguistics from Clark University.

• Bob Gett. Bob Gett is the former President and CEO of Optaors, Inc. and now serves as chairman of the board. Having served as Chief Information Officer of two major financial services companies and as an executive in two large IT services firms, Bob has more than 30 years of IT leadership and experience . More »

  Previously, Bob was the Chairman and CEO of Viant Corporation, which he grew to $125 million in annual revenue in four years. Viant was an early innovator in the development of internet-based business, serving clients such as Sony, Bank of America, JP Morgan and Turner Broadcasting.

  Previously, as President of Cambridge Technology Partners North America, Bob developed CTP´s business strategy, methodology and execution ability. CTP became the leading IT consulting and systems integration firm focused on the deployment of client-server based business applications for Fortune 500 clients. Under his operations leadership, CTP's revenue grew to $120MM in six years. He was also a member of the Board of Directors.

  As president of Fidelity Software Development Company, a subsidiary of Fidelity Investments, Bob led Fidelity´s IT strategy by introducing emerging technologies and advanced development capabilities into all companies within the Fidelity umbrella. As managing director and CIO of Smith Barney, Inc., Bob rebuilt the Information Services Division and led the development of new sales, trading and operation systems. As a principal at Nolan, Norton & Co., Bob managed one of three operating units that executed IT strategy and management consulting for various Fortune 500 companies. Bob began his career in the Management Services division of Touche Ross & Co. where he managed IT projects for several commercial and public sector clients.

• Ullas Naik. Ullas is a Managing Director based in Globespan Capital Partners' Palo Alto office. He focuses on investments in Internet/Enterprise Infrastructure, Wireless Technologies, Clean Energy and the applications of Nano-scale Technologies. Ullas is passionate about identifying future technology trends and partnering with entrepreneurs to build sustainable value within those trends. His experience as an entrepreneur and as an investor have taught him that working with strong teams and adapting intelligently to change is the only way to create and sustain long term business value. More »

  Ullas also serves on the boards of BladeLogic, CaliSolar, Certeon, Copan Systems, Nantero, and Revivio. He is an observer on the the board of GlassHouse Technologies. Previously, he led Globespan's investments in Millennial Net (acquired by Festo) and Pirus Networks acquired by Sun Microsystems (NASDAQ:SUNW).

  Prior to Globespan, Ullas served as Managing Director of JAFCO Ventures in the Boston office. Before that, he served as a Senior Vice President in the Technology Research Group at First Albany, where he was named a "Wall Street All-Star" by Fortune Magazine and recognized by The Wall Street Journal as one of the top technology analysts in the country.

  At First Albany, he led the public financings of companies, including IDT Corp. (IDTC), Critical Path (CPTH), Forrester Research (FORR), Mainspring (MSPR, then acquired by IBM), NaviSite (NAVI), and USWeb (USWB, then acquired by MarchFirst). While at First Albany, Ullas was an active angel investor in leading technology companies, including Arbinet (ARBX), Critical Path (CPTH), Ecora, InterTrust (ITRU), iRobot (IRBT) and others. Prior to First Albany, Ullas started his career as an entrepreneur as the founder and operator of a specialty chemicals trading company in India.

  Ullas earned his Bachelor of Science degree in Chemistry from Bombay University in India and an MBA from Bentley College.

• Ernie von Simson. Ernie von Simson is a Senior Partner of Ostriker von Simson, Inc., a firm which develops IT strategies concerning the assessment, acquisition, and management of emerging technologies and technology-related ventures. He also co-chairs the CIO Strategy Exchange, which brings together invited CIOs from the largest multinational enterprises along with entrepreneurs leading truly innovative technology firms, CEOs from major computer companies and IT thought leaders. He is a Director of Arcsight, BDNA, Good Technology, and Levanta. More »

  Previously, von Simson was co-founder of the Research Board where he directed the professional staff into examinations of evolving business models, advanced technology, business applications and IT best practices. He holds a B.A. in economics from Brown University and an M.B.A. from New York University.

• Robert Willms. Optaros' President and CEO Robert has more than 20 years of experience in professional services and technologies focused on helping leading global brands improve the scale, profitability and duration of their customer and prospect relationships. More »

  Most recently Robert was founder and CEO of digitalArbor, Inc., which was sold in early 2011. An innovative digital production and technology services provider, digitalArbor focused on efficient digital production and implementation in partnership with leading global brands.

  Prior to digitalArbor, Robert spent more than 10 years as a senior leader at Digitas, LLC and Digitas, Inc., where he was part of the management team that scaled Bronner Slosberg Humphrey and the Strategic Interactive Group into what became Digitas as it grew more than 500%.

  As executive vice president of Digitas, Inc., Robert looked at alternative business models in the rapidly evolving digital marketplace and led the creation of the company’s successful production services division, Prodigious. Prior to this role, he was the global head of Client Services as well as the global head of the company’s Strategy and Enablement Capabilities division. For more than 8 years, Robert also held the position of EVP/Relationship Leader of Digitas’ extensive relationship with General Motors, establishing, growing and managing one of Digitas’ largest integrated, cross-capability teams. Earlier, Robert was president of the Boston Region, Digitas LLC, with operating responsibility for several offices that accounted for more than 70 percent of Digitas’ total revenue at the time. Robert started his tenure at Digitas as managing director establishing the Digitas Chicago office in 2001.

  Prior to joining Digitas, Robert helped build Bain & Company’s strategic consulting practice in Canada, where he focused on customer loyalty and cost reduction strategies in the banking, airline and integrated financial service industries.

  Rob earned an M.B.A. (with Distinction) from the University of Western Ontario, Ivey School of Business, in Ontario, Canada.