Ronald Bianchini, Jr.
President and CEO
As President and Chief Executive Officer of Avere Systems, Co-Founder Ron Bianchini has a long record of accomplishment in building and leading successful companies that deliver breakthrough technologies. Prior to Avere, Ron was a Senior Vice President at NetApp, where he served as the leader of the NetApp Pittsburgh Technology Center. Before NetApp, he was CEO and Co-Founder of Spinnaker Networks, which developed the Storage Grid architecture acquired by NetApp. Ron also served as Vice President of Product Architecture of FORE Systems, where he was responsible for ATM products. Previously, he co-founded Scalable Networks [acquired by FORE], which designed and implemented a large-scale Gigabit Ethernet switch, and earlier in his career, he was a professor at Carnegie Mellon University.
Ron received an S.B. degree in Electrical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University. He also holds numerous patents in fault-tolerant distributed systems and high-speed network design and has published extensively in technical journals. 
John Dean
Chief Financial Officer
In his role of Chief Financial Officer, John leads the company's finance, operations and business development functions. Before joining Avere, John was Chief Financial Officer of Vivisimo, a market-leading enterprise search vendor. At Vivisimo, John led the effort to successfully raise the company's first round of outside capital. Prior to Vivisimo, John was Senior Director of Corporate Development at NetApp, where he led the company's OEM relationship with IBM and the company's annual strategy planning process. John served as Vice President of Finance at Spinnaker Networks where he led the company's finance, accounting and legal functions. John also held various management positions at The Procter & Gamble Company, including Associate Director of Corporate Development where he was responsible for M&A activity in the Asia, Paper and Food/Beverage business units.
John holds an M.B.A. from Indiana University's Kelley School of Business and a B.A. from Denison University.
Brian Gladden
Vice President Sales
In his role as Vice President of Sales, Brian is responsible for driving the widespread commercial adoption of the company's storage solutions. Before joining Avere Systems, he was VP Sales at Z Research, the creator of the Gluster file-system. Prior to Z Research, Brian led the sales effort at Gear6 and was responsible for its early success in a number of key verticals, including: financial services, media and entertainment, energy and Web 2.0. He previously served in a number of roles at NetApp from Director of OEM Sales with responsibility for worldwide teams to Global Enterprise Manager covering the fastest growing Fortune 100 accounts. Before NetApp, Brian worked at Spectra Logic, building channel and direct sales teams. Earlier in his career, he held regional sales positions at a number of storage related companies.
Brian holds an M.B.A. from California State University, Hayward and a B.S. from California State University, Chico.
Thomas Hicks
Vice President Engineering
With nearly two decades of experience in high-performance clustered file system and networking products, Tom leads the engineering team at Avere Systems, delivering the company's innovative Demand-Driven Storage product line. Before coming to Avere, Tom was Technical Director for NetApp, responsible for the networking and clustering features in the Data OnTAP/Data OnTAP GX products. Prior to NetApp, he was Software Engineering Manager at Spinnaker Networks, where he managed the systems team responsible for networking, core OS and supportability for Spinnaker SpinOS, which would eventually become part of Data OnTAP GX. Tom has also served as Lead Engineer at several companies, including FORE Systems, and as a Member of the Technical Staff at Hughes Network Systems.
Tom holds a B.S. in Computer Engineering from Penn State University.
Michael Kazar
Chief Technology Officer
As CTO and Co-Founder of Avere Systems and an acknowledged expert in network file system architectures, Mike is responsible for driving Avere's technology vision and architecture. Previously Mike was VP and Chief Architect at NetApp working on Data ONTAP GX, the technology Mike developed while Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer at Spinnaker Networks. Before Spinnaker, he was a Distinguished Engineer at FORE Systems working on LAN Emulation for ATM and several Ethernet to ATM bridge products. Prior to FORE, he co-founded and served as Chief File System Architect at Transarc Corporation [now part of IBM]. Earlier in his career, Mike worked on versions of Carnegie Mellon University's Andrew File System as well as the Andrew Toolkit, an OLE-like windowing toolkit.
Mike received an S.B. in Mathematics and an S.B. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a Ph.D. from Carnegie Mellon University in Computer Science.
Rebecca Thompson
Vice President Marketing
Rebecca brings more than fifteen years of marketing and product management expertise to Avere Systems from technology companies that range from large public entities to small privately held firms. Prior to Avere, she was Vice President of Marketing at Vivisimo, where she successfully positioned the software company from a niche player to a market leader in enterprise search by focusing on the development and promotion of Web 2.0 functionality. Before Vivisimo, Rebecca was Vice President of Marketing at FreeMarkets [now part of Ariba], a pioneer in global spend management, and responsible for managing and developing the company's product lines and worldwide marketing initiatives after its successful IPO. Before FreeMarkets, she was Director of Corporate Marketing at FORE Systems until its acquisition by Marconi. Prior to FORE, she built the highest-rated analyst relations program in the industry at Cisco Systems and was an industry analyst for Dataquest [Gartner Group], both in San Jose, CA.
Rebecca has a B.A. from the University of North Dakota.