Peter Sobiloff
Chairman of the Board
Peter Sobiloff joined Insight in 1998 following the sale of Think Systems to i2 Technologies. Immediately prior to joining Insight, he was Vice President of Business Development at i2 Technologies (1997-1998). Mr. Sobiloff was previously President of Think Systems, a supply chain management software company backed by Insight. Prior to this, he was President of Datalogix, a vendor of enterprise application software for process manufacturers, and previously held senior executive roles at Ross Systems, a vendor of financial application software. Mr. Sobiloff guided Datalogix and Ross through their initial public offerings and the sale of Datalogix to Oracle Corporation.
Mr. Sobiloff graduated from Baruch University with a degree in Business Administration.
Bob Goodman
Director
Bob Goodman joined Bessemer in 1998 and is the founding partner of Bessemer's investment office in Larchmont, New York. He focuses on investments in software, communications, and health care IT.
Prior to joining BVP, Mr. Goodman founded two successful telecommunications companies: Celcore, Inc., a wireless equipment company, acquired by Alcatel through the acquisition of DSC in 1997; and Boatphone, a group of cellular operating companies in the Caribbean. Having acted as CEO in both companies, Mr. Goodman brings the uncommon combination of entrepreneurial, operating and investment expertise to his portfolio companies. As a venture capitalist, Mr. Goodman has been involved in building many successful companies including leading the first rounds for Flarion (acquired by Qualcommn) and Bladelogic (acquired by BMC).
Mr. Goodman holds a B.A. from Brown University and an M.B.A. from Columbia University.
Deven Parekh
Director
Deven Parekh joined Insight in 2000. He was previously a Principal at Berenson Minella & Company (1992-1999), a New York based merchant banking firm where he served on the firm’s M & A Committee. Prior to Berenson Minella, Mr. Parekh was with The Blackstone Group, where he was involved in both M & A advisory and principal activities.
Mr. Parekh received a BS in Economics from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.
Deven Parekh is a Henry Crown Fellow of The Aspen Institute.
Flavio Santoni
Director
Flavio Santoni is Syncsort’s Chief Executive Officer. With 25 years of executive IT management experience, Flavio is responsible for the strategic direction and operations of Syncsort worldwide. Prior to Syncsort, his career included an eight-year tenure at LSI as Executive Vice President and Co-General Manager of the Engenio Storage Group as well as Senior Vice President of Worldwide Sales, Marketing, and Customer Support for its storage systems division.
Before joining LSI, Flavio was executive vice president and chief operating officer at Sutmyn Storage Corporation, a company that pioneered Virtual Tape technology in the Mainframe space, and held various senior management positions with Memorex Telex in the United States, the United Kingdom and Italy.
Flavio earned a degree in Electronics from IX Istituto Tecnico in Milan, Italy. He also has completed the Stanford University AeA/Stanford Executive Institute program for the management of high technology companies.
Aso O. Tavitian
Director
Aso O. Tavitian, co-founder and a major investor of Syncsort, was CEO from 1975 until April of 2008, when Syncsort was recapitalized by Insight Venture Partners. Syncsort is one of the first software companies that emerged after IBM’s unbundling of software in the late 1960s. This was the start of the software industry and Syncsort played a pivotal role in its development. While overseeing the early growth of Syncsort, Tavitian was closely involved in all aspects of its operation, including Engineering, Marketing, and Sales.
In 1995, Tavitian established and funded The Tavitian Foundation, a not for profit organization focused on the field of education.
Aso is a member of (i) the Board of Governors of the Graduate Faculty of the New School University in New York, (ii) the Board of Trustees of FACE (French American Cultural Exchange), an organization focused on promoting cultural exchanges between France and the US. (iii) the Board of Trustees of the Clark Museum in Williamstown, MA, (iv) the Board of Trustees of the Frick Museum in New York, NY, (v) the Board of Trustees of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and (vi) the Board of Trustees of Austen Riggs, a psychiatric hospital with a strong psycho analytical orientation, based in Stockbridge, MA.
Aso holds a MS degree in Nuclear Engineering from Columbia University. He resides in both New York City and Stockbridge, MA.
Raheel Zia
Director
Raheel Zia is a Vice President in the Principal Investment Area ("PIA") of Goldman, Sachs & Co. where he focuses on growth-equity investments in software & services businesses. Prior to Goldman Sachs, Mr. Zia was a member of the investment team at Bessemer Venture Partners where he focused on investments in the software and infrastructure technology sector. Mr. Zia previously worked in the Investment Banking group at Citigroup. He has also held operating roles at AltaVista and KNUMI.
Mr. Zia has an M.B.A. from the Harvard Business School, an M.S. in Computing from London University (England), and a B.Eng (Hons) in Electronic Engineering from UMIST. He is also a qualified chartered accountant.
Justin LaFayette
Director
Justin LaFayette co-founded Georgian Partners in 2008. Immediately prior, Mr. LaFayette was Vice President of Strategy for Information Platform and Solutions within the IBM Software Group, after the successful sale of DWL Inc., an enterprise software company that he co-founded, to IBM in 2005
At DWL, he served as co-founder and chairman where he guided the company's vision for an enterprise solution allowing companies to behave as a single, customer-centric organization. Under Mr. LaFayette’s leadership, DWL developed its Customer Data Integration (CDI) software and pioneered the Master Data Management (MDM) space.
Mr. LaFayette was the recipient of Ernst & Young's Entrepreneur of the Year award for Technology in 2001.
Mr. LaFayette holds a degree in Computer Information Systems and Business Administration from Ferris State University.