Management
WiChorus is led by a seasoned management team with strong backgrounds in the wireless, IP networking and telecommunication industries. WiChorus has an exceptional engineering team with a proven track record in delivering industry-leading high-performance carrier-grade systems. With expertise in OFDMA, IP networking, 3G-wireless, and fundamental wireless research, the WiChorus team has the right blend of skills to build and deliver advanced wireless 4G infrastructure products.
The Management Team:
Rehan Jalil, President and CEO
Sheldon Gilbert, Vice President of Business Development
Eric Andrews, Vice President of Product Management
Kamal Avlani, Senior Director of Engineering
Rene Arvin, Vice President of Worldwide Sales
Charles E. Perkins, Technical Fellow
Lee Khan, Vice President of Manufacturing Operations
Board of Directors:
Rehan Jalil, President and CEO WiChorus
Basil Alwan, President of the IP Networks Division, Alcatel-Lucent
Navin Chaddha, Managing Director, Mayfield Fund
Tom Dyal, Founding Partner, Redpoint Ventures
Peter Wagner, General Partner, Accel Partners
The Management Team:
Rehan Jalil, President and CEO
Rehan has over 15 years of technical management and sales experience in telecommunications, networking, and multi-core processors. Prior to WiChorus, he was the chief architect for Aperto Networks and played diverse leadership roles in technology and sales. Aperto was a key contributor of technology that became part of IEEE802.16 and was a founding member of WiMAX Forum. He developed multiple generations of broadband wireless silicon, carrier-grade base stations and terminals, and also brought significant revenues to the company. These systems are used to deploy networks globally, in over 75 countries, by more than 400 operators. At Sun Microsystems, he helped develop one of the industry’s earliest advanced multi-core multithreaded processor for throughput computing and graphics applications. Part of the technology is now used in Sun’s 32-threaded Niagra and Rock processors. At Siemens, he managed projects related to system-level design and implementation. He also contributes to social entrepreneurship projects and is a charter member of OPEN Silicon Valley. He has over 18 patents pending and graduated with an MSEE from Purdue University.
Sheldon Gilbert, Vice President of Business Development
Sheldon has over 20 years of executive management experience in the communications and semiconductor industries. Sheldon has helped found and has been an early key team member at four venture-backed start-ups and holds more than 12 patents in various aspects of wired and wireless communications. Most recently, Sheldon founded Ensemble Communications, which with over 250 employees around the world, was a founding member of WiMAX, a key contributor of technology to that standard, and a leading developer of broadband wireless and LMDS equipment. Prior to that, Sheldon was responsible for the development of one of the earliest smart-antenna wireless systems, which has been deployed at over 100,000 sites throughout Japan’s PHS system. He graduated with a BSEE from the University of Illinois, Urbana and an MSEE from MIT.
Eric Andrews, Vice President of Product Management
Eric brings over 20 years of marketing and executive management experience in the networking industry to WiChorus. Prior to WiChorus, Eric was Vice President of Marketing for NetDevices (now part of Alcatel), a startup company delivering integrated networking and security solutions for the enterprise market. Prior to NetDevices, Eric was Vice President of Marketing for Turnstone Systems, a pioneer in local-loop management for DSL carriers, where he managed all aspects of marketing from the company’s inception, to profitability, and launching a successful IPO. Prior to Turnstone, Eric held various marketing and product management roles at networking companies such as Newbridge Networks and Penril DataComm Networks. Eric holds an MS and BS in Computer Science and Electrical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Kamal Avlani, Senior Director of Engineering
Kamal leads the engineering organization and brings over 20 years of engineering and executive management experience. He was a founding team member of two high-end IP platforms at Cisco, the 7500 series and the GSR 12000. Kamal has a proven track record of delivering to market high performance systems such as IP routers, ethernet/storage switches and servers, during his tenure at established companies such as Sun Microsystems and Cisco Systems as well as at startups. Kamal earned an MSEE from Purdue University and a BSEE from Bombay University (India).
Rene Arvin, Vice President of Worldwide Sales
Rene has over 20 years of experience in sales leadership roles in the telecommunications and networking industries. Most recently Rene was the VP of Worldwide Sales for Redline Communications, a leading WiMAX equipment supplier. While there, he helped Redline achieve over 150 service provider deployment wins and over 60 successful commercial service roll outs. Rene has a proven track record of successfully launching the sales of disruptive new technologies including: Multilayer IP switching, MetroLAN services, MPLS, network optimization, and WiMAX. Rene has held senior management roles with leading technology companies including Packeteer Inc, Blue Coat Systems, Alcatel, Xylan Inc., and SynOptics Inc. (Bay Networks). He graduated from Indiana University School of Business in 1983.
Charles E. Perkins, Technical Fellow
Charles is a Technical Fellow at WiChorus. He a co-inventor of Mobile IPv4, MobileIPv6, Service Discovery Protocols and some original concepts related to seamless mobility in IP networks. Previously, he was a Research Fellow at Nokia/ NSN. Before that he has held research positions with Sun Microsystems Netcentricity group and IBM TJ Watson Research Center. He has authored several books on Mobile IP, Mobile IPv6 and adhoc networking. He has served on Internet Architecture Board (IAB) and has authored over 25 RFCs. He has served on various committees for the National Research Council, as well as numerous technical assessment boards for Army Research Lab and the Swiss MICS program. He has also served as associate editor for Mobile Communications and Computing Review, the official publication of ACM SIGMOBILE, and has served on the editorial staff for IEEE Internet Computing magazine. In addition to designing advanced features for LTE and WiMAX, he continues strong interest in research activities for adhoc networking and scalability and performance issues. He graduated with a B.A in Mathematics & M.E.E (Masters of Electrical Engineering) from Rice University and an M.A in Mathematics from Columbia University.
Lee Khan, Vice President of Manufacturing Operations
Lee has over 20 years of manufacturing and operations experience. He was the VP of Manufacturing Operations at IP Unity, a start-up providing carrier-grade media services, application servers and real-time mulimedia applications. In his previous role as Executive Vice President and Principal Partner at Nexar Technologies, he took the company through IPO within two years, leading design and product development of a cross architecture platform, the PC industry's first "future ready" PC, leading to patent awards. Prior to that, Lee was Executive Vice President and principal owner of Intellisys for four years before merging with Dynasys to form Nexar. He started this desktop computer manufacturing company from the ground up to a succesful private company with $36M annual revenues. Lee was educated at Western Michigan University and holds a Masters of Science in Operations Research and Industrial Engineering, and an undergraduate degree in Mechanical Engineering.
Board of Directors:
Rehan Jalil, President and CEO WiChorus
Rehan has over 15 years of technical management and sales experience in telecommunications, networking and multi-core processors. Prior to WiChorus he was the chief architect for Aperto Networks and played diverse leadership roles in technology and sales. Aperto was a key contributor of technology that became part of IEEE802.16 and was a founding member of WiMAX Forum. He developed multiple generations of broadband wireless silicon, carrier-grade base stations and terminals, and also brought in multi-million dollar orders. These systems are used to deploy networks globally, in over 75 countries, by more than 400 operators. At Sun Microsystems, he helped develop one of the industry’s earliest advanced multi-core multithreaded processor for throughput computing and graphics applications. Part of the technology is now used in Sun’s 32-threaded Niagra & Rock processors. At Siemens, he managed projects related to system-level design and implementation. He also contributes to social entrepreneurship projects and is a charter member of OPEN Silicon Valley. He has over 18 patents pending and graduated with an MSEE from Purdue University.
Basil Alwan, President of the IP Networks Division, Alcatel-Lucent
Basil Alwan is President of the IP Networks Division at Alcatel-Lucent and has overall responsibility for the company’s portfolio of IP and multi-service switches and routers. Basil came to Alcatel-Lucent through the 2003 acquisition of TiMetra Networks, a start-up focused on service routers for IP/MPLS networks, where he was founder, president and CEO. Basil is a frequent speaker at industry events and was recently named one of the Industry’s “Top 10 Movers and Shakers” by Light Reading for his role in building the highly successful IP business at Alcatel. Prior to TiMetra, Basil held executive positions in both Silicon Valley start-ups as well as in large companies including Rapid City Communications, Bay Networks (Nortel) and AMD. Basil received his BSEE from the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana in 1984.
Navin Chaddha, Managing Director, Mayfield Fund
Navin Chaddha is a proven serial entrepreneur, corporate executive, and venture investor. Navin was named on the Forbes Midas List as a top 100 dealmaker in 2007. He invests in the software, enterprise infrastructure, networking systems, communications, Internet infrastructure, and semiconductor sectors in the U.S. Navin leads Mayfield’s investments in India. His current Mayfield investments include Mimosa Systems , Seedfund, Tejas Networks, and WiChorus. Navin has made 25 investments in the past of which nine have had IPOs and six have been acquired. Some of his past investments include LVL7 Systems (acquired by Broadcom), NeoPath Networks (acquired by Cisco Systems ), ReaMetrix, Still Secure, Test Quest, and Vendavo in the U.S. and GCI Solutions, Indya.com (acquired by News Corp ), Makemytrip, and Persistent Systems in India. His notable investments that had IPOs include Allsec, IL&FS Investsmart, Provogue, and Shree Renuka Sugars in India and Akamai, Northpoint Communications, Qwest Communications, and Rhythms NetConnections in the U.S.
Navin holds a Masters degree in electrical engineering from Stanford University (received the Stanford and IBM Graduate Fellowships) and a B.Tech degree in electrical engineering from IIT Delhi (received the Director’s Medal for being first in his class) and was honored with the prestigious distinguished IIT Alumni Award in 2006.
Tom Dyal, Founding Partner, Redpoint Ventures
Tom Dyal is a founding partner of Redpoint Ventures. Tom focuses on infrastructure investments, including software, systems and components for the communications, datacenter and wireless sectors. Tom was a Director or actively involved in such companies as TopSpin Communications (acquired by Cisco), TiMetra Networks (acquired by Alcatel), StratumOne Communications (acquired by Cisco), Growth Networks (acquired by Cisco), Shasta Networks (acquired by Nortel), Vivace Networks (acquired by Tellabs), Netcore Systems (acquired by Tellabs), Santera Systems (acquired by Tekelec) and Velio Communications (acquired by LSI Logic). Currently, he is leading the firm's investments in Clearwell Systems, Cortina Systems, Kazeon Systems and WiChorus. Prior to founding Redpoint, Tom was a general partner with IVP, a firm he joined in 1997.
Prior to joining the venture business, Tom spent ten years in operating roles in the communications and networking industry. Tom is a director of the Western Association of Venture Capitalists (WAVC). He holds a BSEE from the Georgia Institute of Technology and an MSEE from Stanford University.
Peter Wagner, General Partner, Accel Partners
Peter Wagner has worked in technology since the mid-1980's as a physicist, line manager and venture investor. He focuses primarily in Information Technology Infrastructure, including the networking, computing, storage, and wireless sectors. Since joining Accel in 1996, Peter has led investments in dozens of early-stage companies, many of which have gone on to complete IPO's or successful acquisitions. These include Acopia Networks (being acquired by F5), Airgo Networks (acquired by Qualcomm), Amber Networks (acquired by Nokia), Arrowpoint Communications (IPO 3/00, subsequently acquired by Cisco), Broadjump (IPO 6/04 after merger with Motive), iBEAM Broadcasting (IPO 5/00, subsequently acquired by Williams), Infinera (IPO 6/07), New Edge Networks (acquired by Earthlink), Northpoint Communications (IPO 5/99, subsequently acquired by ATT), Peribit Networks (acquired by Juniper), Tellium (IPO 5/01), TiMetra Networks (acquired by Alcatel), and Topspin Communications (acquired by Cisco). Peter was also part of the team responsible for Accel's investments in Redback Networks (IPO 5/99, acquired by Ericsson) and Motive (IPO 6/04).
Peter currently serves on the Board of Directors at Azul Systems, C2 Appliance, ConSentry Networks, Omneon Video Networks (currently in registration for its IPO), Trapeze Networks, and WiChorus.
WiChorus Management: 4G Communication
