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Get to Know CTERA’s Leaders

We’re a dynamic, seasoned team with a proven history of scaling high-growth technology startups. Backed by world-leading investors, the CTERA team is pushing the boundaries of traditional IT, driving innovation to empower secure and forward-thinking enterprises as they transition to the cloud.
Ursa Major

Our Team

Liran Eshel

Chairman & Co-Founder

Oded Nagel

CEO

Aron Brand

CTO

Michael Amselem

CRO

Shay Brin

CFO

Yaniv Nachum

VP, Engineering

Itay Uman

VP, Global Services

Mike Ivanov

Sr. Director, Global Marketing

Saimon Michelson

VP, Alliances

Mariel Katz

VP, HR

Peter Mulvihill

Peter Mulvihill

VP, North America Sales

Emil Velasquez

VP, Federal Sales

Ravit Sadeh

Sr. Director, Product Management

Our Investors

Board of Directors

Liran Eshel

Chairman & Co-Founder

Oded Nagel

CEO

Ronen Nir

Adam Fisher

Arad Naveh

Yaniv Stern

Liran Eshel

Chairman & Co-Founder

Liran is the Executive Chairman of the Board and co-founder of CTERA. He was CTERA’s CEO for 15 years. He brings to CTERA more than 20 years of IT managerial experience. Prior to founding CTERA, Liran was CEO of SofaWare Technologies, which was acquired by Check Point Software Technologies. Previously, Liran served as an officer in an elite technological unit of the Israel Defense Forces. Liran holds a B.Sc. in Mathematics and Computer Science and a M.Sc. in Computer Science from Bar-Ilan University. 

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Oded Nagel

CEO

Oded is the Chief Executive Officer of CTERA. Prior to his CEO role, he was Chief Strategy Officer responsible for CTERA’s solution offering and strategic initiatives. Prior to joining CTERA Oded managed pre-sales at SofaWare Technologies, a Check Point company. He holds a BA in Business and Economics.

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Aron Brand

CTO

Aron Brand, CTO of CTERA Networks, has more than 22 years of experience in designing and implementing distributed software systems. Prior to joining the founding team of CTERA, Aron acted as Chief Architect of SofaWare Technologies, a Check Point company, where he led the design of security software and appliances for the service provider and enterprise markets. Previously, Aron developed software at IDF’s Elite Technology Unit 8200. He holds a BSc degree in computer science and business administration from Tel-Aviv University.

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Michael Amselem

CRO

Michael serves as CTERA’s Chief Revenue Officer, brings to CTERA more than 20 years of vast knowledge and experience in Enterprise Sales WW. Prior to Joining CTERA, Michael was a Senior Director at Check Point Software Technologies. During more than 10 years he held various sales management positions and grew the large Strategic System Integrators and Telco business WW. Prior to that, Michael worked for 6 years with Sofaware Technologies which was acquired by Checkpoint. Michael holds a BA in Economy from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

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Shay Brin

CFO

Shay brings to CTERA more than a decade of financial management experience. Prior to CTERA, Shay worked at M86 Security (acquired by Trustwave Holdings in 2012) and Finjan Software (acquired by M86 Security in 2009) as a Financial Director. Previously he was an auditor at Ernst & Young’s High Tech team in Israel. Shay is a certified accountant (CPA, Israel), and holds a BA in Economics and Accounting from Ben Gurion University.

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Yaniv Nachum

VP, Engineering

Yaniv is an experienced engineering manager with a proven track record in the computer software industry. Through his career Yaniv has developed deep domain expertise in the areas of software design, cloud storage and advanced filesystems. Prior to joining CTERA, Yaniv worked on embedded systems at Freescale Semiconductor. Yaniv holds a B.Sc. in Computer Science, a B.A in Accounting and an MBA and from Tel-Aviv University.

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Itay Uman

VP, Global Services

Itay is responsible for CTERA’s Global Services. He has more than 15 years of experience in implementing large scale and complex projects. Through his career Itay has developed expertise in migrating enterprise companies from legacy systems to modern cutting-edge technology systems. Prior to joining CTERA Itay managed the support and delivery of the Mobile Internet division in Comverse. He holds a B.Sc. in Software Engineering from Jerusalem College of Engineering.

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Mike Ivanov

Sr. Director, Global Marketing

Mike brings over twenty-five years of product and marketing experience from start-ups to Fortune 1000 companies. Prior to joining CTERA, Mike held executive product and marketing roles at DataCore Software, Permabit Technology, Commvault, Mimosa Systems, and Veritas. Mike holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Central Florida.

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Saimon Michelson

VP, Alliances

Saimon brings over 15 years of experience in IT, storage and cloud solutions. Saimon has held positions across several functions within CTERA, including product management, sales engineering and software development. Previously, Saimon designed software solutions for the IDF recruitment arm. He holds a BSc in Mathematics and Computer Science from Tel-Aviv University.

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Mariel Katz

VP, HR

Mariel brings more than 20 years of experience in Human Resources. At CTERA, Mariel oversees all HR aspects, both locally and globally. Prior to joining CTERA, Mariel served as the VP HR of the Security Division at Nice Systems. Previously, she led the HR at Nuvoton and held a senior HR position at Alvarion. Mariel holds a BA in Criminology from Bar Ilan University and an MA in Labor Studies from Tel-Aviv University.

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Peter Mulvihill

Peter serves as the Vice President of North America Sales at CTERA, where he leads sales strategy and execution. Peter is a seasoned sales leader with over 25 years of experience in the global IT industry, specializing in driving business growth and leading high-performing sales teams across complex markets.

Prior to joining CTERA, Peter served in several senior sales leadership roles at Cohesity, Nutanix, Solarflare and Mellanox where he successfully built and managed sales teams, led transformative strategies, and significantly increased market share. He holds a BA in history and communications.

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Emil Velasquez

VP, Federal Sales

Emil serves as CTERA’s VP Federal Civilian and Defense Sales, bringing CTERA more than 25 years of storage technology experience. Prior to joining CTERA, Emil held both technical and sales positions at EMC.

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Ravit Sadeh

Sr. Director, Product Management

Ravit brings over 15 years of experience in product management and development in storage and cloud solutions. Previously, Ravit held product management and development roles at Dell EMC and Amdocs. She has earned two Bachelor of Science degrees, one in Computer Science and one in Biology from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

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Ronen Nir

Ronen is a managing director in PSG’s Tel-Aviv office. Previously, he was a principal, partner and General Partner at Viola Ventures from 2008 to 2021 focusing on SaaS and Vertical AI investments. Notable investments include iRonsource (NYSE: IS), Redis, Verbit, Samanage (acquired by NYSE: SWI). Prior to Viola, Ronen held several positions in the Israeli tech industry, the latest one being VP Product Management in Verint Systems (NASDAQ:VRNT).

From 1989-2002 Ronen served in an elite Israeli Defense Forces’ Intelligence Unit (8200) and holds a rank of Lieutenant Colonel (Res.). He received a B.A., cum laude, in Economics and Middle East History from Tel Aviv University and an M.Sc. in Technology Management from the University of Maryland University College (UMUC).

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Adam Fisher

Adam Fisher is a partner at BVP, where he manages the firm’s Herzliya office focused on investments in Israel and Europe. He joined BVP in 2007 after 9 years with Jerusalem Venture Partners.

Adam covers several areas of investment at BVP, including consumer Internet (Wix, Fiverr, MyHeritage, BillGuard), enterprise SaaS and data center infrastructure (Wandera, Stratoscale, Ravello, Cloudius, Dynamic Yield), and disruptive technology companies in storage and wireless (Altair, Densbits, Vayyar).

Adam received a Bachelors of Science in Foreign Service from Georgetown University. Adam was named one of the top 100 venture capitalists in 2013 by AlwaysOn. He blogs about venture capital and Israeli high tech at Savants in the Levant.

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Arad Naveh

Arad is a partner at Benchmark Capital Israel and a board member at CTERA. Prior to joining Benchmark, Arad was responsible for Cisco’s investment and M&A activity in Israel. Before Cisco, Arad was the founder and CEO of Class Data, which was acquired by Cisco in 1998. Arad holds a BSc Cum Laude in Electronics and Computer Engineering from the Ben Gurion University in Israel.

Arad’s investments include Broadlight (acquired by Broadcom), Cotendo (acquired by Akamai), Finjan Software (acquired by M86), Oplus Technologies (acquired by Intel), Panaya, Sentrigo (acquired by McAfee), and many others.

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Yaniv Stern

Yaniv is Managing Partner at Red Dot Capital Partners, an Israel based growth stage fund backed by Temasek Holdings, an investment company owned by the government of Singapore.

Prior to joining Red Dot Yaniv was Vice President at Adama Partners, a venture firm that invests in, builds and operates businesses in the luxury space. Earlier, Yaniv was part of the Private Equity and Principal Investors Practices at McKinsey & Company where he focused on developing investment strategies, deal evaluation and portfolio company growth strategies primarily in the tech, business services and industrial spaces. Yaniv served for 10 years as an officer in the Israeli Intelligence.

Yaniv has an MBA from Harvard Business School and a B.Sc. in Computer & Software Engineering from the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology.