Management

Ilan Kessler, CEO and Co-Founder
Ilan Kessler is the CEO and Co-Founder of Wanova. Ilan brings more than 20 years of senior management experience in global communications and information technology to Wanova. Ilan was co-founder and CEO of Actona, which was acquired by Cisco in 2004. Ilan remained with Cisco helping to drive Cisco's highly successful Wide Area Application Services (WAAS) product. Prior to founding Actona, Ilan was Vice President and General Manager for Qualcomm Israel and a Research Staff Member at IBM in New York. He holds a doctorate, master's degree and bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from the Technion, Israel Institute of Technology.

Dr. Issy Ben-Shaul, CTO and Co-Founder
Dr. Issy Ben-Shaul leads all aspects of the technical and product vision for Wanova. Prior to co-founding Wanova, Issy was the CTO of the Application Delivery Business Unit at Cisco and led the technology and vision for the successful Wide Area Application Services (WAAS) product. Issy joined Cisco via the acquisition of Actona Technologies, where he was Co-Founder, CTO and Vice President of Engineering. Actona developed leading edge technologies for file server and protocol acceleration over the WAN, which became the foundation for the Cisco WAAS product. Before founding Actona, Issy was a tenured faculty member at the Technion, Israel Institute of Technology, working on wide area distributed systems. Issy holds a doctorate and master's degree in computer science from Columbia University and a bachelor's degree in mathematics and computer science from Tel Aviv University.

Barak Yagour, Vice President of Engineering
Barak brings over 15 years of high-tech managerial and R&D experience to the company. Barak's expertise includes the implementation and management of large-scale projects, experience developing emerging products, and familiarity with a diverse set of telecommunication technologies including wireline, VoIP, 3G, and video. Prior to joining Wanova, Barak led Cisco's Active Network Abstraction (ANA) Core Platform Development Group and next generation releases. Barak joined Cisco through its acquisition of Sheer Networks in 2005 where he served as VP R&D. Before joining Sheer, Barak was AVP for Comverse, where he managed the company's emergent products. He also previously held senior positions in the company, leading two R&D organizations. Prior to joining Comverse, Barak served in an elite technology unit of the Israeli Defense Forces. The department and projects led by Barak received several awards for ingenuity and for their contribution to the intelligence gathering capabilities of the IDF. Barak holds an MBA and bachelor's degree in computer science and mathematics with honors, both from Tel Aviv University.

Keren Cohen, Vice President Finance and Operations
Keren oversees all finance, accounting, legal, and operations activities at Wanova. Keren has more than 12 years of industry experience, and previously held the position of Finance Manager of Employee Services for Cisco, Israel before joining Wanova. She came to Cisco via the acquisition of Actona Technologies where she was Director of Finance and Operations. Prior to joining Actona, Keren was Director of Finance and Human Resources for UltraGuide, an Israeli-based medical devices company. Before UltraGuide, she held auditor and accounting positions at Strauss and Ernst & Young, respectively. Keren holds a bachelor's degree in accounting and an MBA from Haifa University. She became a Certified Public Accountant in 1997.

Michele Borovac, Vice President of Marketing
Michele is responsible for marketing and corporate communications. She has more that 15 years in high tech marketing, with specific expertise in startups and emerging markets. Prior to joining Wanova, Michele served in marketing management roles for a variety of technology companies. At Decru, a NetApp company, she was director of marketing where she led global marketing efforts, from launching the company out of stealth mode to its ultimate acquisition by NetApp. Prior to that, she was a consultant to and acting VP of marketing at Miranda Media Networks, a Montreal-based video networking technology company. She also held marketing and business development positions at Electronics for Imaging, TakeFive Software and Oracle Corporation. She holds a B.A. in mass communications from the University of California at Berkeley, and a graduate certificate in Public Relations from the University of Washington.

Howard Greenfield, Vice President of Sales
Howard leads Wanova's global sales strategy, including direct and channel efforts, customer support, and the expansion of the company's sales organization. Prior to Wanova, he served as vice president of North American sales at Witness Systems, a provider of performance optimization software and services, where he developed and managed the company's entire sales model including inside, field and pre-sales, as well as alliance teams. Greenfield also spent more than nine years at Mercury Interactive as vice president of sales, leading sales and operations for the Southeast, Mid-Atlantic and South America regions, and growing the business from $3 million to $112 million during his tenure. Greenfield has also held key sales and operations roles at various companies including Seagate EMS, MTI and NYNEX.

Ady Degany, Director of Product Management
Ady is responsible for product management at Wanova and leads the company's product direction and roadmap. He brings more than 10 years of information technology experience to Wanova, in the areas of product management and technical marketing. Prior to joining Wanova, Ady was a manager in the product management group for Cisco's Application Delivery Business Unit (ADBU). Ady joined Cisco in 2004 via the acquisition of Actona Technologies, which set the foundation for Cisco's Wide Area Application Services (WAAS) product line. He holds a bachelor's of science in information systems engineering from the Technion, Israel Institute of Technology, and an MBA from the Santa Clara University Leavey School of Business.