Executive Team

Dr. Hui Zhang

CO-FOUNDER, CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER, CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD

Hui is a Conviva co-founder, renowned educator, and celebrated research pioneer. The recipient of the National Science Foundation Career Award and three Test of Time Awards from the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), including one in 2022 for his 2011 paper detailing the direct connection between video quality and user engagement, Hui brings more than 20 years of experience to the design and continuous innovation of the company’s groundbreaking technologies. Elected to be a Fellow of ACM in 2006 and recipient of the Alfred Sloan Fellowship in 2000, he is recognized for teaching and mentoring computer network researchers at leading organizations like Facebook (now Meta) and Google, as well as world-class academic institutions including Purdue University and University of California, Berkeley. As a professor of computer science at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) and Finmeccanica Chair in Computer Science from 1998 – 2001, Hui established himself as a leading authority on internet Quality of Service (QoS), video streaming, network control, and Internet architecture. He also supervised fellow Conviva co-founder Ion Stoica’s 2001 award-winning Ph.D. dissertation on Internet QoS. In addition, during his time at CMU, Hui led the End System Multicast (ESM) group, the builders of the world’s first peer-to-peer live streaming system. Prior to co-founding Conviva, he served as chief technology officer at Turin Networks. Hui holds a bachelor’s degree in computer science from Peking University, a master’s degree in computer engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and a doctorate in computer science from University of California, Berkeley.

Dr. Ion Stoica

CO-FOUNDER AND BOARD MEMBER

An accomplished scientist and author, Ion is a Conviva co-founder and former CTO, as well as an active member of the Board. He is also the Executive Chairman and co-founder of Databricks, serves as a professor in the EECS Department at UC Berkeley, and co-directs the AMPLab, leading the software systems effort which included the development of Apache Spark. Before co-founding Conviva, Ion spent over 15 years involved in networking research with an emphasis on Quality of Service (QoS) and traffic management on the Internet. The techniques and architectures which he developed allow powerful and flexible network services to be deployed on the Internet, without compromising scalability. He has also designed algorithms and systems with strong theoretical foundations in the areas of peer-to-peer and cloud computing that can be deployed in the real world. Over the past 15 years, he has published multiple books and co-authored over 100 papers and technical reports. Ion is an ACM Fellow and has received numerous awards, including the SIGCOMM Test of Time Award (2011), the IEEE William R. Bennett Award, the Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship, the Presidential Early Career Award (PECASE), the Okawa Foundation Fellowship, and the ACM Doctoral Dissertation Award (2001). He holds a Ph.D. in electrical and computer engineering from Carnegie Mellon University and an M.S. in Computer Science and Control Engineering from Polytechnic University Bucharest.

Aditya Ganjam

CO-FOUNDER AND CHIEF PRODUCT OFFICER

As Conviva’s chief product officer and co-founder, Aditya leads the product management team and drives product strategy for the world’s first experience-centric operational monitoring and analytics platform. He has been instrumental in bringing Conviva’s paradigm-shifting stateful analytics approach to digital businesses across industries, addressing the growing challenge of connecting system performance, customer experience, and engagement directly to business outcomes. He is a founder of Conviva, where he has spent his entire professional career, initially as a lead engineer followed by progressively more senior engineering roles, before becoming the company’s chief architect, responsible for overseeing product definition, technology strategy, and new product incubation. Before co-founding Conviva, Aditya was a doctoral candidate studying computer science at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), where as a member of the End System Multicast (ESM) project he played a key role in building the world’s first peer-to-peer live streaming system. Aditya earned his Bachelor and Master of Science degrees in computer science from CMU.

Jibin Zhan

CO-FOUNDER AND VICE PRESIDENT OF ENGINEERING

A founding member of Conviva, Jibin oversees multiple engineering organizations including TechOps, DevOps, and SRE, and is responsible for development of overall architecture, big data infrastructure, computation platform, storage layer, AI/ML, data analysis and data science. Jibin is known for his hands-on approach, vast technical expertise, and long track record of building talented engineering teams that deliver excellence at the enterprise level. Alongside other members of the Conviva leadership team, including Dr. Hui Zhang and Aditya Ganjam, Jibin played a key role in the End System Multicast project at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), building the world’s first peer-to-peer live streaming system. Jibin has published technical papers, received two Test of Time Awards from ACM SIGCOMM (2015 and 2022), and has been granted more than 10+ patents, with several more pending. Before Conviva, Jibin served as a System Project Director at CMU, overseeing research on network infrastructure and services. He began his career at Nortel Networks, later holding senior engineering roles at Cisco and Turin Networks. He earned his BS in computer science from Peking University and a master’s of Applied Science, Computer Science from Simon Fraser University.

Ian Franklyn

GENERAL MANAGER, NEW MARKETS

Ian is responsible for the development and execution of the go-to-market strategy into new into new vertical markets. Prior to this role, Ian was GM EMEA, establishing the regional business and taking it from a zero-dollar, zero-customer startup into a repeatable, multi-million-dollar business. Ian has more than 25 years of experience as a business leader and practitioner with startups primarily in the SaaS domain; holds an MSc in Multimedia Systems; and is a graduate of The Royal Military Academy and former officer in the British army.

Jens Koerner

VP OF PRODUCT MANAGEMENT

Jens leads the product team, building real-time observability and analytics solutions on a common platform, at scale. Prior to joining Conviva, Jens worked at Hitachi as Vice President of Technical Product Management, launching the Lumada DataOps suite, a consolidated platform combining Machine Learning, data management tools, and data cataloging. Prior to Hitachi, Jens played an instrumental role at Google, leading an international team that designed and implemented internal systems for Google support agents, making them more efficient and effective. Jens holds a master’s in mathematics, Computer Science, from Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany. Outside of work, Jens is a CrossFit fanatic and enjoys making his special gyro sandwiches in his outdoor kitchen.

Jibin Zhan

CO-FOUNDER, CHIEF ARCHITECT & VP ENGINEERING

Jibin oversees various engineering organizations and is responsible for development in the areas of overall architecture, big data infrastructure, big data computation platform, big data storage layer, AI/ML, data analysis and data science. Jibin is also responsible for the TechOps/DevOps/SRE organizations. Prior to Conviva, Jibin was a researcher at Carnegie Mellon University in the Computer Science Department and has held senior engineering positions at Cisco, Verizon, and Nortel. Jibin has published technical papers and received two Test of Time Awards from ACM Sigcomm (2015 and 2022). He has been granted more than ten patents, with several more pending. He holds a BS, Computer Science, from Peking University, China, and Master of Applied Science, Computer Science, from Simon Fraser University, Canada. Outside of Conviva, Jibin enjoys hiking and reading historical biographies.

Joel Goldfoot

SENIOR DIRECTOR, PRODUCT DESIGN

Joel is responsible for driving the design vision for Conviva products, leading a global team of designers who design user-centered, data-informed workflows to drive a quality experience for the customer and increase engagement. Joel has been recognized with more than 100 design awards and has launched successful products for industry giants such as Sony Entertainment, Whip Media, Sonic Foundry, Epic Systems, HP, and Canon. A respected voice in the design industry, he currently sits on the Design Thinking Advisory Board for the University of California, Riverside. Outside of Conviva, Joel produces, films, and edits short-form videos for performance artists and musical bands.

Marcus Chambers

VP, Sales

Marcus serves as EMEA/MENA VP of Sales for Conviva and is responsible for the go-to-market strategy for the EMEA and MENA market.

Marcus brings three decades of tech sales experience and leadership in the EMEA region, with a proven track record of building and running highly successful sales businesses. He has a strong history of growing start-ups and scale-ups to drive huge revenue growth, having achieved two IPOs and two acquisitions, all while building successful, high-energy teams.

Prior to Conviva, Marcus held leadership positions at D2iQ, VMware and Cisco.

Ningning Hu

VP ENGINEERING & GM, CHINA

Ningning serves as both the General Manager for Conviva China and VP of Engineering. He is responsible for leading and growing the China R&D team to support both product and technology strategies, and ensuring successful execution and advancements for Conviva’s platform. In 2017, he orchestrated the launch of Conviva’s China Office. As the founding General Manager, he has since been overseeing the leadership and management of the expansive China R&D team, driving strategic initiatives and fostering growth. Prior to Conviva, Ningning worked at Google and Pinterest. Ningning has a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon University and a bachelor’s degree from Nanjing University, China. His work on network bandwidth measurement has been adopted by FreeBSD as a common network tool.

Sean Wilkinson

GENERAL MANAGER, MEDIA AND ENTERTAINMENT

Sean leads development and execution of the go-to-market strategy for customers in Media and Entertainment globally. Prior to Conviva, Sean was the Vice President of Sales and Business Development at Quantifind, where he developed and executed their go-to-market strategy, which led to $43 million in funding across rounds A through C. Prior to Quantifind, Sean led initiatives within Conviva, capturing and onboarding strategic media clients. Sean holds an MBA from the University of Southern California and a BA from Ohio State University. Outside of Conviva, Sean enjoys golf and is constantly striving toward improving his handicap.

Shane Sullivan

VP OF SALES, AMERICAS

Shane is the Vice President of Sales, Americas, responsible for leading the Americas sales organization and overseeing revenue growth. Prior to Conviva, he served as Director of Strategic Sales for New Relic and was instrumental in redefining GTM strategy for their enterprise & global segments, contributing to significant overall company growth. Prior to New Relic, Shane was responsible for enterprise sales at BMC Software’s Automation and Performance & Availability segments, leading teams to double-digit revenue growth. Shane holds a BS in Economics & Business Administration from St Mary’s College of California, USA. An avid soccer fan, he can be found watching the USWNT team at every opportunity he gets.

Tanya Valova

VP, GLOBAL SALES OPERATIONS

Tanya is responsible for leading all aspects of Sales Operations at Conviva. She oversees the development and optimization of processes, systems, and efficient operations that are aligned with Conviva’s go-to-market strategy to support growth and success. In her most recent role prior to Conviva, Tanya worked for CDNetworks, where she was responsible for establishing and leading AMERICAS & EMEA Sales Operations function and developing sales processes and structure that were adopted globally. Prior to CDNetworks, Tanya led Sales Operations at Fox Technologies, acquired by Fortra in 2017. Tanya holds an MS in Linguistics from Sofia University, Bulgaria. Outside of Conviva, she can be found on the trails with her beloved horses, Jasmine and Carlos.

Theresa P. Bui

VP, PRODUCT MARKETING

Theresa leads the company’s effort for the development, definition, and execution of go-to-market strategy. She partners with product, sales, and customer success teams for integrated support around the full customer journey, ensuring internal alignment for customer success. With more than 20 years of experience in B2B product and growth marketing, she has worked across diverse organizations, ranging from Fortune 100 companies to early-stage startups. Her most recent roles were head of product and growth marketing for the industry leaders in IoT and Artificial Intelligence, Cisco IoT and Jasper. Passionate about IoT and AI, Theresa has published articles in Tech Target, Network World, Tech Republic, NPR, and many more. She holds a BA in History from Middlebury College, Vermont. When not working, Theresa is an avid globe trotter and chauffeur for her children.

Varun Dixit

VP, GLOBAL FIELD OPERATIONS

Varun is responsible for all aspects of Conviva’s customer journey, from pre-sales to onboarding to customer health. He has more than 15 years of industry experience leading and executing global pre-sales and post-sales initiatives. Prior to Conviva, Varun was in leadership roles at Accedo, a global video solutions provider, developing video-centric experiences. He led pre-sales and post-sales teams in North America and was GM for their Southeast Asia business. Prior to Accedo, Varun provided consulting services to various technology companies in the Bay Area. Varun holds an MBA from The Wharton School at University of Pennsylvania and a B.S. in Computer Science from Coastal Carolina University. Outside of Conviva, Varun enjoys traveling with his family and vibrant culinary experiences.

Will Penson

VP GLOBAL SOLUTIONS, ENGINEERING

Will is responsible for Product Strategy with a focus on extending Conviva’s Time-State capabilities beyond the world of video. A 10-year veteran at Conviva, Will has collaborated with many of the largest publishers in the world including Disney, Sky, ITV, DAZN, Sling, and Zee, helping them understand the relationship between content proposition, quality of experience, audience engagement, and the impact on business success. Prior to joining Conviva, Will held Sales, Pre-Sales, Technical Account Management, and Product Management positions at video systems integrator, KIT digital (now Piksel), and online video platform, Kyte. Will holds an MEng degree with business management from King’s College London, UK. He can often be found in the garage tinkering with his classic car.