Don Rippert
CEO, Basho Technologies, Inc.
Mr. Rippert comes to Basho following a career spanning nearly 30 years at Accenture (formerly Arthur Andersen and Andersen Consulting). During his tenure at Accenture, Mr. Rippert rose from programmer to Chief Technology Officer. During his six years as CTO of Accenture, Mr. Rippert led Accenture’s Technology Labs, Infrastructure Consulting Group, Information Management Group and led Accenture’s technology alliances.
Don Rippert was born in Washington, DC and grew up in Virginia. He attended Fairfax County Public Schools graduating from Groveton High School. He then went on to the University of Virginia where he graduated with a BS in Commerce in 1981. Mr. Rippert is married with five sons and lives in Great Falls, VA.
Dr. Eric Brewer
Father of the CAP Theorem, Vice President, Infrastructure at Google Inc.
Dr. Brewer is globally recognized as one of the most influential people on the architecture of the Internet. He was recently elected to the National Academy of Engineering for leading the development of scalable servers (early cloud computing), and Eric also received the ACM Mark Weiser award for 2009. He received his M.S. and Ph.D. in EECS from the MIT, and a B.S. in EECS from UC Berkeley. He was named a “Global Leader for Tomorrow” by the World Economic Forum, by the Industry Standard as the “most influential person on the architecture of the Internet”, by InfoWorld as one of their top ten innovators, by Technology Review as one of the top 100 most influential people for the 21st century (the “TR100″), and by Forbes as one of their 12 “e-mavericks”, for which he appeared on the cover. Dr. Brewer focuses on all aspects of Internet-based systems, including technology, strategy, and government.
As a researcher, he has led projects on scalable servers, search engines, network infrastructure, sensor networks, and security. His current focus in (high) technology for developing regions, with projects in Cambodia, India, Ghana, Mexico, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh (so far), and including communications, health, education, and e-government.
In 1996, he co-founded Inktomi Corporation with a Berkeley grad student based on their research prototype, and helped lead it onto the Nasdaq 100 before it was bought by Yahoo! in March 2003.
In 2000, he founded the Federal Search Foundation, a 501-3(c) organization focused on improving consumer access to government information. Working with President Clinton, Dr. Brewer helped to create FirstGov.gov, the official portal of the Federal government, which launched in September 2000. Also in 2000, he propounded the CAP Theorem. CAP stands for Consistency, Availability, and Partition tolerance. The theorem simply states that any shared-data system can only achieve two of these three.
Anthony S. Thornley
CEO, Callaway Golf
Mr. Thornley, currently the CEO of Callaway Golf, joined the Board of Directors of Basho in October 2010. From February 2002 to July 2005, he served as President and Chief Operating Officer of QUALCOMM Incorporated, the San Diego-based company that pioneered and developed technologies used in wireless networks throughout much of the world. He previously served as QUALCOMM’s Chief Financial Officer since 1994, while also holding titles of Vice President, Senior Vice President and Executive Vice President.
Prior to joining QUALCOMM, Mr. Thornley worked for Nortel Networks for 16 years, serving in various financial and information systems management positions including Vice President of Public Networks, Vice President of Finance NT World Trade, and Corporate Controller Northern Telecom Limited. Before Nortel, Mr. Thornley worked for Coopers & Lybrand. Mr. Thornley is the CEO of Callaway Golf Company, and is a director of Cavium Networks (a semiconductor company), Transdel Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Proximetry Inc. (a privately held wireless network management company), Gorgon Media, Inc. (a privately held application software business), Public Wireless (a privately held wireless solutions company), and Tip City (a privately held company in the business of communicating deals offered by restaurants on-line and through smart phones), and KMF Audio, Inc. (a privately held microphone company) and also serves as Chief Financial Officer of KMF Audio.
Mr. Thornley received his degree in chemistry from Manchester University, England, and is qualified as a chartered accountant.
Chester C. Davenport
Managing Director, Georgetown Partners LLC
Chester C. Davenport is Managing Director of Georgetown Partners LLC, a private equity firm he founded more than 20 years ago. He has since served as chairman of GTE Consumer Services Inc., Georgetown’s $3.2 billion joint venture with GTE providing cellular service to consumers in the Greater Chicago and St. Louis metropolitan areas. Mr. Davenport also served as Chairman of Envirotest Systems Corp., a publicly traded company with a market value of more than $650 million.
Previously, Mr. Davenport was an Assistant Secretary in the United States Department of Transportation. He has worked in the United States Senate as a legislative assistant to Senator Alan Cranston of California and began his career as an attorney in the Tax Division of the United States Department of Justice.
Mr. Davenport is a graduate of Morehouse College and received his LL.B from the University of Georgia Law School. He is a member of the State Bar of Georgia and the District of Columbia Bar. Mr. Davenport serves as trustee of both the Arch Foundation of the University of Georgia and Morehouse College.
Earl Galleher
Chairman
Earl Galleher has been commercializing successful Internet companies for the past 17 years. He held the position of Chairman and CEO of Basho from its inception in January 2008 through June 2011. In that time he guided the company through the 2008 collapse of the US economy, raised $17.5 million of equity, built a board of directors of industry luminaries, and also recruited Mr. Rippert to take the company to market leadership.
Prior to Basho, Earl was a Series A investor in and the Executive Vice President of Akamai Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ:AKAM), from it’s inception, through it’s IPO and highest growth years. In just two years, Earl built a global sales, marketing, service and support organization of 650 employees in 6 countries and he grew revenue from $0 to $165 million annually.
Earl’s record of success in developing valuable Internet companies began in 1996 when he created and was President of the Web Site Management Services Division of Digex, Inc. He led Digex, now part of Verizon Communications, to become the world’s largest provider of corporate web site hosting services for Fortune 2000 corporations. Earl participated in executing a successful IPO of DIGEX in 1997, raising $48 million, and he participated in the sale of the company for $178 million in June, 1998.
In Between Akamai and Basho, Earl dedicated his full time effort as Chairman of the Board of KIPP DC, a Washington DC charter school. From 2003 through 2007, he guided an aggressive expansion of KIPP DC from one middle school serving 160 students in the most underserved areas of DC, to a seven-school system, including three elementary schools, three middle schools and one high school, all in Southeast Washington DC. Today, KIPP DC is the number one performing charter or public school/school system in the District of Columbia, serving over 2,000 students. Earl continues to serve as a Board member of KIPP DC.
Antony Falco
COO, Basho Technologies, Inc.
Tony co-founded Basho with several of his colleagues from Akamai Technologies in 2008. As Chief Operating Officer of the company, Tony directs product delivery, service delivery and oversees marketing for Basho. He has fifteen years of experience in the development of successful early-stage businesses. Prior to Basho Technologies, he held senior management positions at Akamai Technologies, DIGEX (now Verizon Business), and Oplayo, OY, a Helsinki-based start-up. As Vice President of Technical Services at Akamai, Tony designed and led the group that delivered Akamai’s award-winning service, support, and consulting offering.
Later, as Vice President of Product Management at Akamai, Tony oversaw delivery to market of EdgeSuite, the successor to Akamai’s initial product offering, Freeflow. He also led the integration of products from two acquisitions (Intervu and Network24) into the Akamai product portfolio. At DIGEX, Tony designed and led the Strategic Accounts Group, an organization providing high-end services to strategic and high-value accounts.
Jørn Larsen
Founder and CEO, Trifork
Jørn Larsen is the Founder and CEO of Trifork, a Danish software company specializing in solutions for banks, financial institutions, and healthcare organizations around the world. Trifork is also an investor in Basho Technologies.
Mr. Larsen was also a founding member of ACURE, a joint venture between Maersk Data and Trifork. ACURE develops software for healthcare organizations and hospitals. ACURE grew rapidly, from 25 to 170 employees in only four years. In 2004, ACURE was sold to Maersk Data, and Maersk Data was subsequently acquired by IBM.
Mr. Larsen also served as a Naval Engineer, having graduated from Svendborg Engineering School, and also holds a Master of Science degree in Computer Science from Aalborg University. Mr. Larsen lives with his family in Schindellegi, Switzerland.
