Board of Directors

The Spoke Software Board of Directors is comprised of some of the most talented business strategists and technology leaders in the world. Together, their significant practical experience in building world-class organizations provides Spoke with uncompromising vision and inspired leadership.

Frank Vaculin
President and CEO

Frank is a 20-year veteran of Silicon Valley and brings a unique blend of experience, including CRM, hosted applications, knowledge management and search, to Spoke. With a proven track record building successful software companies, Vaculin has been responsible for up to $141 million in annual revenue, managing organizations from 50 to 400 employees, and aggressively driving annual revenue growth of over 350 percent. Prior to joining Spoke, Frank was CEO of Tealeaf Technologies where he directed the turn around of the company, taking them from pre-revenue to $4.5 million in sales and raising over $12 million in top-tier venture capital funding. Prior to Tealeaf, Frank was executive vice president at Ask Jeeves, where he launched Ask Jeeves Business Solutions, which accounted for half of the company's revenues. He also was a member of the executive team that led the company's successful initial public offering, raising $120 million. Vaculin has also held senior operations, marketing, and sales management positions at Borland International, Electronics for Imaging (EFI), and Software Publishing Corporation. Frank holds a bachelor's degree in economics from the University of San Francisco.

Tim Guleri
Managing Director, Sierra Ventures

Mr. Guleri is a General Partner with Sierra Ventures. Previously, he was Vice Chairman and Executive Vice President of Business Development at E.piphany. Before joining E.piphany, Mr. Guleri was a co-founder and CEO of Octane Software, where he achieved an annual growth rate of 300 percent. He also led Octane's merger with E.piphany in March 2000, a deal valued at $3.2 billion. Mr. Guleri has held key management positions at Scopus Technology as Vice President of Technical Field Operations and Vice President of Product Marketing. During his tenure, Scopus emerged as the leading vendor in the Customer Relationship Management market (CRM). Mr. Guleri is a noted visionary, an accomplished author and a frequent speaker within the CRM industry. He holds a Master's in Robotics and Industrial Engineering from Virginia Tech, and a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from Punjab Engineering College.

Jeff Loomans (Board Observer)
Venture Partner, Sierra Ventures

Mr. Loomans is a Venture Partner with Sierra Ventures with an investment focus on enterprise software (CRM, Supply Chain) and Internet Infrastructure. Before joining Sierra Ventures, Loomans was Vice-President of Engineering for Siebel Systems. Prior to Siebel, Loomans was co-founder/Vice-President of Engineering and Chief Product Architect of On-Link Technologies, a leading provider of business-to-business e-commerce sales and marketing applications, which was acquired by Siebel Systems in October of 2000. Prior to founding On-Link, he was President and co-founder of Integrated Business Software, a software-consulting firm focused on custom software solutions for venture-capital-backed and other start-up companies. Before founding Integrated Business Software, Loomans was Director of Software Development at Decision Systems, in Los Altos, CA. He received both his Master's degree in Computer Science and Bachelor's degree in Symbolic Systems from Stanford University.

Philippe Cases
Venture Partner, Partech International

Philippe joined Partech in 1997, and focuses on enterprise software. Philippe has 16 years experience in private equity in France and in the United States and 11 years in early stage investing. As an early stage investor, Philippe was on the Board of Egide (Europe-listed on French Market), BVRP (Europe-listed on the French Market), Adknowledge (US-sold to CMGI for US$ 300 million), Bidcom (US) and involved with Flamel (Europe-FLML, Nasdaq), Datamind, which later became Rightpoint (US-acquired by E.piphany for US$ 550 million). He was a partner at Sofinnova, a French venture capital firm in Paris and San Francisco. Philippe graduated as a Sloan Fellow from the Stanford Graduate School of Business and received an MS from the Ecole Civile des Mines in Nancy, France.

Nicolas El Baze (Board Observer)
General Partner, Partech International

Nicolas joined Partech in 2000 and had been a Partech venture partner since 1998. He was a co-founder of Softway International, Softway Systems (acquired by Microsoft), and ISDnet (acquired by Cable & Wireless). Nicolas has been a director of several start-up companies including Bidcom, Bigstep.com, MultiMania (MULM.PA, acquired by Lycos Europe), and Workspeed. He holds an MBA from Ecole des Hautes Etudes Commerciales (Paris), and a graduate degree in International Management from UC Berkeley and the University of Cologne, Germany.

Jeff Miller
Chairman of the Board, Documentum & Venture Partner, Redpoint Ventures

Prior to joining Redpoint, Mr. Miller was CEO of Documentum, Inc. (DCTM). Under Mr. Miller's leadership, Documentum has become one of the fastest growing technology companies in the country with year 2000 revenues of approximately $200 million. As CEO, from 1993 to July 2001, he was responsible for day-to-day operations in addition to strategic planning and direction. Now, as Chairman of the Board, Mr. Miller focuses on strategic planning and leadership development. He has more than 28 years of high tech experience, having started his career at Intel and holding senior marketing and general management executive positions at Cadence Design Systems and Adaptec. Mr. Miller holds a Masters of Business Administration and a Bachelors of Science degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the University of Santa Clara.

Rob Theis
General Partner, DCM

Rob Theis is currently a General Partner at DCM, a venture capital firm committed to funding early-stage technology companies. Rob invests in Enterprise/Internet Software, Technology-enabled Business Services, Storage, Security, Wireless and Mobile Applications. Rob is currently serving on the board of directors for Adam Aircraft Industries, JasperSoft, NeoPath Networks, PGP Corporation, Roamware, SignaCert, Spoke Software, Vernier Networks, Vindicia and WorkSoft.

Prior to joining DCM, Rob was Executive Vice President for New Era of Networks (NEON). Rob was instrumental in leading NEON through a successful IPO and grew the company to $200 million in revenues. Prior to NEON, Rob spent ten years at Sun Microsystems, where he carried out successful growth strategies in various executive roles, including Managing Director, Financial Services Industry Group, a strategic business unit which had responsibilities for driving a billion dollars in sales of computer equipment and integration services worldwide.

Prior to Sun, Rob was a Marketing Manager at Silicon Graphics and launched SGI's initial workstations in the early 80's. Rob started his career at McDonnell Douglas Corporation (Boeing) selling timesharing services. Rob was awarded the Honors Scholarship at the University of Pittsburgh, where he earned a BA degree in Economics.