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.

As chief technology officer, Raj drives SymphonyAI’s technology roadmap and execution. He leads the engineering team that builds the Eureka Gen AI platform, SymphonyAI’s award-winning data and AI platform that supports the rapid design, development, and deployment of enterprise-scale, vertical AI applications, and gen AI copilots. Raj’s team includes AI researchers and ML scientists working on cutting-edge predictive and generative AI models for high-value “vertical use cases” in critical industry sectors, including retail, CPG, financial services, manufacturing, enterprise IT, and media. Raj oversees the tooling and enforcement of enterprise security and privacy and is responsible for AI policies for SymphonyAI’s offerings. Previously, Raj was SymphonyAI’s SVP of Engineering and head of AI and machine learning. 

With almost 20 years of AI/ML engineering and research experience, Shukla also has extensive enterprise AI SaaS experience from his engineering leadership roles at Microsoft, where his successful 14-year career included leading global AI science and engineering organizations across Azure, Dynamics 365, MSR and the search and advertising divisions. At Microsoft, Raj helped PowerBI, Power Platform, and Dynamics365 grow into multi-billion-dollar businesses and market leaders in their categories and built some of the first generative AI copilots Microsoft announced in the enterprise domain. Raj has extensive experience in AI/ML across search, advertising, and enterprise AI and has built several successful AI SaaS products in both consumer and business domains. 

Raj holds a master’s degree in computer science from the University of Texas, Austin, and a bachelor of technology degree in computer science from IIT, Kanpur.

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.

Manish Choudhary is the president of SymphonyAI’s retail / CPG division. He has more than two decades’ of experience leading global teams and managing P&L for publicly traded software and technology transformation-focused companies. He has deep growth experience both organically and through M&A, and he has particular passion and expertise in AI-driven digital transformation, SaaS, analytics, and machine learning. He joined SymphonyAI’s retail / CPG division from Diebold Nixdorf, where he served as EVP of Global Software, and Pitney Bowes Inc. in SVP roles in Sending Technology and Global Innovation & Products. He holds MBAs from UCLA’s Anderson School of Management and National University of Singapore.

Mike Foster is president of SymphonyAI’s financial services division, a global fintech providing financial crime, risk management, and fraud detection and prevention solutions to the financial services sector. With more than two decades in growing and transforming technology giants in the UK, US, Europe, and Asia, he is experienced at managing and leading worldwide teams for private and publicly traded organizations. Mike leverages his experience in sales, technology, and transformation to drive consistent business growth, innovating to solve core financial crime problems, and bring award-winning financial crime AI software solutions to market.

He joined SymphonyAI from BAE Systems Applied Intelligence where he served as Managing Director of Financial Services and is passionate about driving growth in a sustainable manner through long-term planning and initiatives that widen the company moat, broaden prospects, and enhance customer loyalty. Prior to this, Mike was a General Manager at DXC financial services, responsible for a significant P&L and global delivery team of more than 450 colleagues. Mike also served as a Managing Director – Financial Services Sector UK&I at Fujitsu, driving business growth and profitability, and has also held positions at CSC, Logica, Hewlett-Packard UK and Infotech Enterprises Europe. With an enthusiasm for AI-driven digital transformation and combatting financial crime, he has an extensive network and experience to assist in achieving the ambitious goals that he sets out for the company to achieve in both the short and long term.

Prateek is president of SymphonyAI’s industrial division and executive chairman of SymphonyAI’s enterprise IT division.

With over 20 years of technology leadership and extensive experience in the enterprise, telecom, and automotive industries, Prateek brings a unique background in machine learning and AI, product strategy, operations, product technology, engineering, and sales to SymphonyAI.

Prateek has extensive experience with highly engineered systems and expertise in B2B and consumer technology, deep learning, cloud virtualization, enterprise software, mobile applications, and information life cycle management.

Before joining SymphonyAI, Prateek served as EVP and CTO at Cerence, where he was responsible for Cerence’s technology vision, R&D, and professional services, and rolling out Cerence technology and solutions to more than 65 automotive customers across the world and more than 450 million cars on the road. Before Cerence, Prateek served as general manager of AI and IoT products at View, responsible for leading product strategy, defining and driving product roadmap, and supporting M&A activity to accelerate growth. Before View, he served as VP of product and solution management at Polycom, chief strategy officer at HighQ, and VP of product strategy at Accusoft, which acquired Adeptol, a company Prateek founded. Prateek previously worked for several companies, including EMC, Sapient, Cognizant, and NEC.

Prateek holds an MBA and a Bachelor’s of engineering degree in instrumentation and process control.

Mark is president of SymphonyAI’s media division. Mark is a growth and transformational-oriented executive with extensive knowledge of general technology and the media space. He has more than 20 years of experience in the media industry centering around technology, revenue management, and optimization. Prior to SymphonyAI’s media division, Mark spent 10 years at WideOrbit Inc, the preeminent ad decisioning and ERP provider for TV/radio/cable industries, where he served as chief operating officer. In this capacity, Mark oversaw business operations for WideOrbit’s various product verticals, all externally facing initiatives, special projects, and strategies.

Before WideOrbit, Mark spent seven years at Google. Serving as technical operations manager, he managed operations for Google’s Broadcast division, specializing in the real-time insertion of advertising on live Radio Broadcast streams. Before pivoting to a technology specialization, Mark spent several years in the media industry proper holding positions of operations manager, director of programming, and on-air talent to radio and television organizations throughout the Midwest.

Adam brings over two decades of financial markets expertise to SymphonyAI, having founded two successful data-driven risk advisory businesses specializing in bond trading and fixed income investing. His entrepreneurial venture showcased visionary leadership, shaping industry standards in innovation. His strategic leadership within SymphonyAI signifies a pivotal milestone as he leads and grows the SymphonyAI Trading and Investing division, reinforcing SymphonyAI’s commitment to transformative growth, innovation, and excellence in the financial landscape.

Prior to joining SymphonyAI, Adam served as the global head of mortgages and asset-backed securities at London Stock Exchange and Thomson Reuters, achieving remarkable organic growth and leading a team in delivering a cloud-based big data analytics and financial engineering platform that powered trading and risk decisions on 80% of annual U.S. mortgage-backed securities issuance.

Adam holds a bachelor’s of science degree in economics from Pennsylvania State University.

Satyen Vyas has been the president of SymphonyAI’s enterprise IT division since 2013. Satyen has led the company’s growth from a startup to a global entity with customers and partners in North America, India, and Southeast Asia. Prior to SymphonyAI’s enterprise IT division, he was a vice president at IBM in India and South Asia, where he was instrumental in growing the company’s x-series servers to a market leadership position. He also served as general manager for mid-markets at Dell India and spent 12 years building Vitage Group into a leading IT systems integration and services player in the Indian market.

Satyen holds a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Nagpur University and a post-graduate degree in management from the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore.

SymphonyAI’s founder and chairman Dr. Romesh Wadhwani is a proven, successful entrepreneur and CEO. He built Symphony Technology Group from startup to $2.5B revenue, $10B EV. Dr. Wadhwani has committed $1B of his own capital to build SymphonyAI.

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.

Blythe Masters is a Founding Partner at the fintech specialist private equity firm, Motive Partners, where she serves on the Investment Committee, chairs Motive Ventures, and is responsible for Motive’s strategic partnership with Apollo Global Management.

Masters is a Board Member of GCM Grosvenor, Forge Global and CAIS. She chairs Wilshire’s Digital Asset Advisory Group, and is an advisor to SandboxAQ, the enterprise quantum services business, the US Chamber of Digital Commerce, Figure Technologies (the blockchain fintech), and Maxex (the residential mortgage exchange).

From 2015-18, Masters was CEO of Digital Asset, the blockchain company responsible for the leading enterprise smart contract language DAML. Previously, she was a senior executive at J.P. Morgan, which she left in 2014 after a career spanning 27 years, following the successful sale of the physical commodities business she built for the bank. She was a member of the Corporate & Investment Bank Operating Committee and the firmwide Executive Committee. Earlier positions at J.P. Morgan included head of Corporate & Investment Bank Regulatory Affairs, CFO of the Global Investment Bank, head of Global Credit Portfolio and Credit Policy and Strategy, head of North American Structured Credit Products, co-head of Asset Backed Securitization and head of Global Structured Credit.

Masters is a former board member of Credit Suisse Group, A.P. Møller Maersk, and Santander Group’s International Advisory Board. She is a past Chair of the Global Financial Markets Association (GFMA), the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA) and the Governing Board of the Linux Foundation’s open source Hyperledger Project. She has also served on the Third Way’s Capital Markets Initiative Advisory Group, the Economic Studies Council and the Taskforce on Financial Stability of the Brookings Institution, the IMF’s High Level Advisory Group on FinTech and as a fellow of the Foreign Policy Association.

Daniela Rus is the Andrew (1956) and Erna Viterbi Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Director of the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) at MIT. Prof. Rus’s research interests are in robotics and artificial intelligence. The key focus of her research is to develop the science and engineering of autonomy. Her work addresses the foundations of (1) computational design of novel machines bodies from user specifications, (2) algorithms for machine reasoning, and (3) algorithms for machine-machine coordination and more natural human-machine interaction.

Prof. Rus served as a member of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) and on the Defense Innovation Board. She is a senior visiting fellow at MITRE Corporation. She currently serves as a USA expert for Global Partnerships in AI, on the board of trustees of MBZUAI, on the board of directors of Symbotic, on the British Telecom Technology Advisory Board, and on the board of directors of Mass Robotics. She also served as Deputy Dean of Research in the Schwarzman College of Computing at MIT between 2019-2022.

Prof. Rus is a MacArthur Fellow, a fellow of ACM, IEEE, AAAI and AAAS, a member of the National Academy of Engineering, and of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She is the recipient of the Engelberger Award for robotics, the IEEE RAS Pioneer award, IEEE Robotics and Automation Technical Award, Mass TLC Innovation Catalyst Award, and the IJCAI John McCarthy Award. She earned her PhD in Computer Science from Cornell University.

Todd Harbaugh is a renowned retail expert with broad-based expertise in store operations, merchandising strategies, supply chain operations, and e-commerce. He is a founding partner of retail consultancy Ollin Global Consulting.

Harbaugh’s 30-year career at Walmart Inc. included extensive and varied experience, culminating in his role as executive vice president of Walmart Supercenters, overseeing 4,000 stores, a million employees, and $250 billion in annual sales.

Previously in Harbaugh’s Walmart career, he was EVP of Walmart Neighborhood Markets, leading the grocery division at more than 700 stores across the US. Prior, he led all Walmart operations in Mexico as chief operating officer for Walmart Mexico, overseeing 2,400 stores and 200,000 employees, along with leading logistics and distribution, innovation productivity, marketing, and strategic planning. Prior, Harbaugh held leadership positions at Sam’s Club, including president of Sam’s Club Mexico and leader of wholesale initiatives for Latin America, EVP of operations and chief integration officer in the US, and other senior roles in inventory management, supply chain, and business member services.

Harbaugh began his career at Walmart in 1990 after six years of US Navy service. He has executive leadership experience from The Wharton School, Harvard Business School, The Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth, and the University of Cambridge.