About

We are the developers of Akiban’s platform, and we find it thrilling to work on new operators, algebra and relational optimizer to innovate on Codd's vision, providing the full power of SQL and logical modeling of data. We strive to create an architecture that developers and DBAs love to use.

Akiban itself is a Boston based startup, funded by Northbridge and Foundation Capital. Our investors share our vision and keep us zooming forward. Thanks Michael and Steve!

Here are the Akibans:

David McFarlane

Co-Founder and CEO

Prior to co-founding Akiban Technologies, David had more than 25 years of experience in growing early stage software companies, including IPOs and multi-billion dollar outcomes at MRO Software and Exchange Applications. More recently, he led Nexaweb’s global growth to profitability and previously IMLogic's triple digit growth, which culminated in a successful sale to Symantec. David graduated with honors from Bath University in England, and holds a Master of Engineering degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering.

Ori Herrnstadt

Co-Founder and CTO

Ori Herrnstadt is co-founder and CTO of Akiban. He has been involved in developing large operational database systems since his days in the Israeli Army. After experiencing common problems of large-scale operational systems in military, healthcare, enterprise ERP, CRM systems and modern web applications, he developed the Orthogonal Architecture. In 2009, he co-founded Akiban Technologies to accelerate the development of the technology.

Mark de Visser

Chief Marketing Officer

Mark heads all marketing functions at Akiban Technologies. Prior to Akiban Technologies, Mark has been marketing software products at companies like Borland, Red Hat, Agitar, Zend Technologies and Sonatype. Ever since he joined Red Hat in 2001, he has focussed on delivering open source technologies and working with large communities of technical users. Mark has a bachelors degree in mathematics from the Technical University of Delft in the Netherlands.

Tim Wegner

VP of Engineering

Tim is leading the engineering development at Akiban Technologies. He has a distinguished career as General Manager and VP of Engineering at Stratus Computer, where he oversaw the development of fault tolerant servers and high availability software solutions. Tim has a BSEE from Northeastern University.

Jack Orenstein

Software Engineer

Jack Orenstein is a serial founder/architect with deep roots in database system starting with his Ph.D. in Computer Science from McGill University. Jack was a founder of Object Design focused on query processing and SQL interoperability of ObjectStore. A founder of Geophile, focused on spatial query processing. A founder of Binary Mines focused on ORM, and more recently a founder/architect at Archivas, acquired by Hitachi Data Systems. Jack joined Akiban with the founding team in 2009.

Peter Beaman

Software Engineer

Peter is a serial inventor specializing in distributed database technology. An MIT EECS graduate, Peter founded DataTree, deploying the then-largest fully distributed healthcare application. DataTree was later acquired by InterSystems where Peter became VP of Advanced Technology. Peter held technology executive positions at Eclipsys, Healthvision and Iron Mountain where Peter designed and led the implementation of a multi-petabyte archival infrastructure. Peter also founded and created PersistIT, the high performance Java B-Tree supporting the Akiban Suite.

Thomas Jones-Low

Software Engineer

Tom is a long time database engineer, with experience using Oracle, MySQL, SQL-Server. A graduate of the University of Vermont, Thomas has worked on projects scaled from enterprise medical information systems to embedded systems data management. Thomas joined Akiban with the founding team in 2009.

Mike McMahon

Software Engineer

Mike worked on free and open-source software on PDP-10s, that is, before it was called that. He was a member of the MIT AI Lab Lisp Machine team and a founder of Symbolics. He founded Oberon Software, a pioneer in enterprise application integration and visual programming that was acquired by OnDisplay, where he was CTO until it was in turn acquired by Vignette. He was a founder of Blue Agave Software, a developer of rule-based real-time supply chain applications that was acquired by i2.

 

Padraig O'Sullivan

Software Engineer

Padraig O'Sullivan is a software engineer at Akiban Technologies Inc. He is working on the core Akiban Orthogonal Architecture as well as contributing to the open source community. He has been hacking on Drizzle since early 2009 with contributions to various other open source projects happen when he has the time. He has an M.S. in Computer Engineering from the University of Maryland. Originally from Killarney in Ireland, he now lives and works in Boston.

Yuval Shavit

Software Engineer

Yuval has been writing code since he was a little kid, and now works on the Akiban Server. After graduating Cornell University, he spent a few years as a writer and editor for an online IT publication before succumbing to the coding bug and returning to his roots as a programmer. Before Akiban, Yuval worked at Kiva Systems, a Boston-area robotics firm.

Nathan Williams

Software Engineer

Nathan was ready to enter the gaming industry in 2010 after receiving his B.S. in Real Time Interactive Simulation from the DigiPen Institute of Technology. However, the opportunity to help create the Akiban architecture from the ground up was enough to bring him from Seattle to Boston. He now works on the Akiban Server and Akiban Adapter for MySQL.

Ari Weil

Product Manager

Ari is Product Manager and covers markets, projects and product direction. Prior to Akiban, Ari worked as product manager for Quest Software's application and database performance management products. He has a Bachelor's from The Ohio State University.

Abia Rosa

HR & Office Manager

Abia is the HR/Office Manager and covers Administration, Finance, and HR internal functions. She began at Akiban part time during her senior year in college and continued into full time after graduating. She has a Bachelor's from the University of Massachusetts, Boston.

Tani Shavit

Engineering and Executive Adviser

Tani has a diverse background rooted in high performance computing, compilers and runtime systems, and includes distributed file systems, speech recognition, chip design and more. She led development in small young startups as well as large companies, such as Interactive Supercomputing, Availl, EMC, Dragon Systems and Kendall Square Research. She holds a B.Sc. in Mathematics from Ben Gurion University in Israel and a B.Fa in Sculpture from MassArt '2010, and is splitting her time between Akiban and her studio.

Michael Skok

Board Member

Michael Skok joined North Bridge Venture Partners as a GP in 2002. Prior to becoming a VC, Michael was an entrepreneur and CEO in the software business for 21 years. Michael recruited teams that attracted over $100m in private equity for investments in software companies ranging from CAD/CAM, Document Management, Workflow, Imaging and Collaboration to Security and spanning the Mini, Workstation, PC, Client Server and Internet eras.

Steve Vassallo

Board Member

In his wallet, Steve Vassallo carries around the business card from his childhood snow-blowing business, a constant reminder that entrepreneurship is about grasping opportunity where you find it, even if your hands get cold and numb in the process. Of more recent vintage is the business card that identifies Steve as a venture capitalist at Foundation Capital, where he works with companies in the areas of cleantech, consumer, and software & services.

Dean Goodermote

Board Member

Dean Goodermote joined the Akiban Technologies board as an independent board member in August 2010. Prior to that he ran Double-Take Software as President and CEO until its acquisition by Vision Solutions in 2010. Prior to Double-Take Dean held Venture Partner, CEO and co-founder roles at various companies.