SymphonyAI leadership

With more than 30 years of technology leadership and extensive experience in the automotive industry, Sanjay brings a deep understanding of AI and machine learning applications to SymphonyAI. He has a particular focus on developing solutions at the intersection of devices, sensors, cloud solutions, and data integration.

Before joining SymphonyAI, Sanjay served as president and CEO at Cerence, leading its 2019 spin-out from Nuance. Sanjay was responsible for day-to-day operations and financial performance at Cerence, which has more than 60 automotive customers that use its technology in more than 350 million vehicles globally.

Before Cerence, Sanjay served as president of the Connected Services Division and chief technology officer of Harman Industries International until 2019. Between 2010 and 2019, he served as president and chief executive officer of Symphony Teleca Corporation. Harman acquired Symphony Teleca in January 2015. Sanjay Dhawan was responsible for the day-to-day operations of Symphony Teleca and its overall financial performance. Dhawan joined Symphony Teleca from Aricent, where he served as president and chief operating officer. Aricent is a KKR-owned privately held company with global operations in over 25 countries and more than 10,000 employees. At Aricent, he was responsible for the company’s strategy, sales, marketing, and the management and oversight of several high-growth business units and various functional units.

Before Aricent, Dhawan was the chairman, CEO, and co-founder of Inkra Networks, a company credited with defining the virtual networking market segment. Dhawan also held chief strategy, development, sales, and management roles at Netopia, StarNet, and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD).

Dhawan has authored several networking-related publications and books and chaired the IEEE 802 and ANSI X3T9 standards sub-groups. He holds a master’s degree in electrical engineering from Brunel University, England, and a bachelor of science degree in electronics and communications from REC Kurukshetra, India.

Jim Emerich is SymphonyAI’s Chief Financial Officer and leads the company’s finance and accounting functions and financial strategy. Over his 30+ year financial career in various industries, he has leveraged his financial and business experience to help scale companies through efficient top-line expansion, focusing on critical financial and operating metrics and providing funding to fuel growth.

Before SymphonyAI, Jim held CFO positions at various tech companies in the SaaS/online marketplace markets, including Narvar, Science Exchange, BrightEdge, Avangate (acquired by Francisco Partners), Appirio (acquired by Wipro), and MuleSoft (acquired by Salesforce.com). Before those positions, he held various financial leadership positions at Salesforce.com (including supporting their IPO), NotifyMe Networks, NBC Internet, and LDM Technologies. Jim began his career at General Electric Plastics.

Jim graduated from Principia College with a BA majoring in Business Administration, Chemistry, and Economics. He is also a graduate of General Electric’s Financial Management Program.

Vijay Raghavendra is a technology leader and entrepreneur with extensive experience leading technology teams in companies ranging from startups to Fortune 1.

Most recently, Vijay was the CTO at Acuity Brands, an industrial technology company. At Acuity, he was responsible for all aspects of software technology strategy and delivery, including edge computing and IoT.

Before joining Acuity Brands, Vijay served as SVP of merchant technology at Walmart. Vijay and his teams were responsible for all platforms, applications, and algorithms that drove the experience for Walmart’s merchants and suppliers and a significant part of the customer experience across stores and online. Vijay’s teams were responsible for Walmart products, including product catalog, search, pricing, supplier experience, 3P marketplace, assortment intelligence, cost negotiation insights, and analytics.

Vijay was previously a co-founder and the CTO at Inkiru, a predictive intelligence SaaS platform company. Inkiru was acquired in 2013 by Walmart, which uses Inkiru’s platform across stores and online.

Before co-founding Inkiru, Vijay led the payments and revenue engineering team at Zynga, where his teams were responsible for all in-game payments and monetization products. Previously, Vijay served as the senior director of risk product development at PayPal, where his teams were responsible for all risk, compliance engineering, and data science. He also served as the head of architecture at eBay as part of the team responsible for rebuilding eBay’s technology stack. Before eBay, Vijay served in leadership roles at various successful technology startups.

Vijay has a bachelor’s of science degree in electronics and communications engineering from Osmania University and a master’s degree in computer science from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette.

Jennifer Trzepacz (JT) is the chief people officer for SymphonyAI, leading the global HR strategy and building a cohesive culture across SymphonyAI’s vertical businesses to position the company for continued growth. JT has more than 20 years of experience implementing operational and talent strategies at transformative, industry-leading companies.

JT joined SymphonyAI from Wildcat Venture Partners, where she was an HR operating partner for over 20 B2B and B2B2C technology portfolio companies. Previously, she was the executive vice president of HR and business operations at Rocket Fuel, a role she took on following the AI-driven predictive marketing SaaS platform’s 2013 IPO.

Prior to that, JT held talent leadership positions with Salesforce, Yahoo, and LivingSocial, among other fast-growing technology companies. During her career, JT has been an early adopter of HR technology and supported many start-ups to build out their product offerings for mainstream markets. JT was selected as one of the Top 100 most influential HR leaders in the tech industry. JT earned her MBA from Simmons Graduate School of Management in Boston and her undergraduate degree from Bryant University.

Erica leads SymphonyAI marketing, working with SymphonyAI vertical businesses to build awareness and create marketing programs that drive enterprise AI adoption across industries.

Prior to joining SymphonyAI, Erica was senior director of marketing for C3.ai, where she led content and drove a number of other marketing functions, partnering closely with product and sales organizations. Prior to C3.ai, Erica was senior director of marketing for SunPower Corp., where she led marketing for SunPower’s commercial and utility solar businesses across the U.S, Europe, and Japan. Prior to SunPower, Erica was a director of marketing at Cisco Systems Inc., leading marketing for a variety of emerging technology products. She also held leadership corporate communications and analyst and public relations positions in Cisco’s service provider business.

Erica began her career as a journalist at PC Week (now eWeek), where she edited several news sections, wrote a column, spoke at industry events, and covered a variety of markets, including telecommunications, networking, enterprise software, storage, and enterprise video.

Erica holds a bachelor’s degree from Duke University and has completed executive MBA programs at Kellogg School of Management and Oxford University’s Said Business School.

Paul is an experienced and business-oriented legal, security, and compliance executive with extensive experience scaling technology companies.

Prior to SymphonyAI, he served as chief legal and trust officer of Narvar, Inc. from May to August 2022. Previously, Paul worked at Fastly, Inc. from January 2014 to May 2022 in executive legal and operating roles, most recently serving as Fastly’s chief legal and trust officer.

From May 2007 to January 2014, Paul served in various legal capacities at Salesforce.com, ultimately as a vice president and assistant general counsel. From July 2004 to April 2007, Paul served in various legal capacities at Intel Corp., ultimately as a senior attorney. Paul began his legal career in May 2000 as an associate at the international law firm Cooley LLP.

Paul has a juris doctor from the University of Michigan Law School, a master’s degree in public policy from the University of Michigan School of Public Policy, and a bachelor’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania.

Bill Bragg is the chief information officer at SymphonyAI. He is responsible for driving the corporate information technology strategy and oversees all IT and information security aspects.

Bill has a track record of creating best-in-class IT organizations that focus on agility, sustainable growth, and resilience.

Before joining SymphonyAI, Bill was the VP, head of IT at Fitbit Inc. (acquired by Google) and, prior, vice president of IT infrastructure at Riverbed Technology. Bill spent fourteen years at Cisco Systems in several leadership positions, both in IT and engineering operations. He has led many transformative initiatives with global teams, building and operating across the world in India, China, and Europe.

Kumar Abhimanyu (Abhi) is the senior vice president and global head of strategic partnerships for SymphonyAI, leading the growth of the worldwide partner ecosystem across all SymphonyAI vertical businesses to position the company for continued growth. Abhi has more than two decades of sales and global P&L experience in the technology industry.

Abhi joined SymphonyAI from Cerence (NASDAQ: CRNC), where he was senior vice president of global client-facing functions, including field sales, channel partnerships, sales engineering, and commercial sales operations. Before that, he was the vice president of Samsung/HARMAN, focused on SaaS solutions for the automotive, hi-tech, media, and communications industries. Abhi previously held senior positions with frog design, Capgemini/Aricent, and General Motors/Hughes Software, supporting clients worldwide in engineering, product management, business unit management, and sales leadership roles. He holds a patent for a portable in-vehicle entertainment hub and is a TechCrunch contributor.

Abhi holds a master’s degree in computer science from the Birla Institute of Technology and completed executive leadership programs at the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore and IESE Business School in Barcelona.