Board of Directors and Advisors
Michael Frendo
Mr. Frendo is currently Senior Vice President of Architecture, Infinera. Frendo currently leads the architecture team at Infinera responsible for all aspects of systems and optical architecture within the company.
Prior to joining Infinera, Michael was General Manager, Unified Communications Solutions Business Unit at Avaya and responsible for the Integration of the Nortel Enterprise Solutions Business into Avaya.
Past roles included Senior Vice President and General Manager, High-End Security Systems (HSS) Business Unit at Juniper Networks. While there he was responsible for the leadership of the security and network traffic visibility technologies and products. Michael has also held positions at McDATA Corp where he was leading system architecture, worldwide product development and customer engagements for the Data Center products, Cisco Systems where he held the role of Vice President for Systems and Software Engineering within the Voice Technology Group and Bell Northern research where he was a leading development manager for the Magellan Passport product.
Frendo holds a PhD in Electrical Engineering from McMaster University in Hamilton, Canada.
Charlie Ill
Mr. Ill has been employed as the Senior Vice President of Sales, Services and Marketing of Fair Isaac Corporation (FICO), a provider of decision management software, since February 2010. Prior to FICO, Mr. Ill was Sr. Vice President, Global Sales at Avaya Inc., a provider of enterprise communications systems. Previously, Mr. Ill served as Executive Vice President, Worldwide Sales at BEA Systems, Inc. and held various sales and marketing positions with IBM Corporation, most recently as Vice President, Worldwide Software Geographic Sales, Marketing and Technical team.
George Rudnicki
George Rudnicki leads the Rudnicki Consulting Group. The organization uses process consulting techniques to quickly and effectively help organizations improve their marketing and strategic planning through advice, consultation and team strategy sessions. He has led and contributed to the development of popular strategy planning methods that are in use today. They include Alliance to Win, Portfolio Analysis for segment, market and solution prioritization, Solution Optimization, Routes to Market, and Value Proposition Creation. He continues to focus on ways to improve a group's marketing, strategy and business results.
Prior to being a consultant Mr. Rudnicki was an accomplished marketing strategist and sales leader at IBM for over 30 years. He held marketing management and sales management positions in both large and SMB accounts. His last sales position was Branch Manager of Hardware and Software Sales for IBM Southern California. He led the team to its first profitable and successful year following many years of cutbacks and declines in the Southern California economy of the early 1990's. After the layoffs, reorganizations and return to success, Mr. Rudnicki decided to change his career focus from sales to marketing. This way he could use all the tools of the marketing mix to better affect business success.
Mr. Rudnicki has spent most of his life in California. He holds a B.A. (1975) and MBA (1977) from UCLA, earning the Charles F. Scott Fellowship. Additionally he taught Finance and Accounting and managed the business school tutorial program while attending UCLA.
Micky Tsui
Tsui has more than 30 years experience in the communications and software industries. He was most recently the senior vice president and general manager, Enterprise Solutions in Nuance Communications, Inc., managing both on-premises and hosting/SaaS businesses for speech self-service solutions for contact centers. Prior to that, he held various executive management positions with Avaya Inc., including its Unified Communications Solutions Division; the Global Communications Solutions Group; and Converged Communications Solutions, spanning across the full portfolio of enterprise products from collaborations, messaging, and contact centers with voice, video and data. Tsui was responsible for establishing Avaya as the global market leader in IP Telephony, increasing market share while significantly improving the operating margin of the business.
Tsui began his career with Nortel Networks in communications network planning and optimization. He held positions of increasing responsibility, including strategic planning, product management, and research and development. At Nortel he was responsible for the successful launch of the Meridian line of PBXs and the development of the Meridian mail and call center products. He also initiated the Internet Access and Solutions Business, addressing the needs of enterprise and service provider markets. He was VP/GM Internet Telephony at Nortel before going to Avaya.
He graduated with honors from McGill University with a bachelor's degree in engineering.