Management Team

THE MANAGEMENT TEAM

 

Peter Wren-Hilton — Founder and Chief Executive Officer

 

For over 20 years, Peter has owned and managed multiple software development companies in the UK, India and New Zealand. In 1999-2000, HB Internet was BT 'E-Business Solution Provider of the Year' in the UK. HB Internet's global clients included BT, the United Nations and Canon Europe.

 

In 2001, Peter established his first software development company in India's IT city, Bangalore. Since 2007, he has focused on building the technology platform that is now Pingar.

 

Watch Peter's interview with Robert Scoble, on how Pingar turns unstructured data into knowledge.

 

 

Tarun Kanji — Chief Financial Officer

 

Tarun's experience includes 10 years in a consulting environment with Ernst & Young and Coopers Lybrand. He specialized in corporate finance and advisory services, corporate recovery and audit — across a multiplicity of industries.

 

Tarun previously spent 10 years with Fosters Group (NZ) in roles such as Chief Financial Officer, Chief Operations Officer and Strategy and Business Development Manager.

 

Meet Tarun Kanji, Pingar CFO, and learn how Pingar is helping enterprises gain greater ROI from their information assets.

 

 

Dr Alyona Medelyan — Chief Research Officer

 

Originally from Ukraine, Alyona completed a Master's degree in Natural Language Processing at Freiburg University in Germany. During her Master's she spent a semester in New Zealand, where she discovered the renowned Machine Learning and Digital Libraries group at the University of Waikato. She returned there to complete a PhD in Computer Science, which she finished in 2009. She specializes in the areas of semantic and faceted search, query analysis and search result representation.

 

During her PhD Alyona developed an open-source tool, Maui (Multi-purpose automatic topic indexing) that automatically identifies the main topics in documents. She has peer-reviewed and published research for numerous journals such as Information Retrieval Journal, Knowledge and Information Systems, The Computer Journal and Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery. In 2008, Medelyan was a finalist for the Google Anita Borg Scholarship, which rewards women with leadership skills in technology fields.

 

Meet Alyona Medelyan, learn about the Pingar algorithms and how Pingar works.

 

Megan Tobin— VP Global Marketing  

 

Megan is an experienced marketing professional with extensive knowledge of marketing strategy, communications, branding, business development, and client relations. She currently serves as Vice President of Global Marketing. To this role, she brings nearly 20 years marketing experience with leading enterprise technology companies, national and multinational Internet, infrastructure, and software firms and leading high-tech direct retailer, MacMall.

 

Before Megan came to Pingar in 2011, she was Marketing Director at Park Place Technologies and worked with a number of game-changing start-up companies. She also spent many years focused on healthcare IT, working first with Microsoft and later as Vice President of Global Marketing for Orion Health. Early in her career, Megan honed project management and troubleshooting skills as a lighting technician for major international musical touring acts.

 

Megan studied communications at the American University in Washington DC.

 

Meet Megan Tobin and learn how Pingar is helping enterprises with their big data challenges, in the enterprise or the cloud.

 

 

Owen Allen— VP Solutions

 

Owen has spent nearly two decades focused on content management software and solutions as a developer, product manager, sales engineer and consultant and puts that knowledge to work as Pingar’s vice president of solutions. In this role, Owen is responsible for the company’s solutions strategy, matching business needs with Pingar’s technology to help organizations achieve value from unstructured data.

 

He spent eight years at Microsoft working with SharePoint and applications as a technology specialist and a SharePoint senior product manager. In 2010, Owen founded SharePoint Directions LLC, a consulting organization that helps SharePoint-oriented software companies develop and sell competitive solutions. Owen is a founding board member of the Puget Sound SharePoint User Group and the Puget Sound branch of the International Association of Microsoft Channel Partners.

 

Owen’s conference speaker experience includes Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference, SharePoint TechCon, SharePoint Connections, the Harvey Spencer Document Capture Conference, AIIM Expo/Info360, and several SharePoint Saturday conferences. 

 

Meet Owen Allen and learn how Pingar helps enterprises gain even more value from Microsoft SharePoint and other Enterprise Content Management systems.

 

 

Doug Cripps - VP, Digital Solutions 

 

As Vice President Digitial Solutions, Doug Cripps is an enthusiastic and visionary individual who has spearheaded executive and partner relationships in the image capture market for nearly two decades. As vice president of digital solutions, Doug develops partnerships with imaging vendors and OEMs to develop complete solutions that address unstructured management challenges and create efficient business processes.

Doug spent more than ten years at Fujitsu in a variety of sales and account management roles and was responsible for developing strategies to partner with key ISVs and addressing new markets.

Doug is known for simple, creative strategies that produce and enhance partner to partner work. He is recognized for his high level of commitment to product education, improving processes and customer service. 

 

Mike Brooksbank – Managing Director, Pingar API Limited, VP EMEA

 

As Managing Director, Pingar API Limited, VP EMEA, Mike Brooksbank manages Pingar operations in the United Kingdom, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.

 

Mike’s work at Pingar comes after 24 years in the software industry, where he has held senior and executive positions in sales and management. His recent experience includes work as Managing Director UK and Vice President EMEA for Kofax image capture and business process automation solutions. Earlier in his career, Mike held executive and senior management positions at Citadon, Xchange Inc, Serena Software, and Systar Limited. And, before working in the software industry, Mike served as an officer in the Royal Air Force.

 

Meet Mike Brooksbank and learn how Pingar is addressing after-capture information market challenges.

 

 

Mark Lunt —  Managing Director, Pingar Hong Kong Limited, VP North Asia

 

Mark brings more than 20 years of international experience in executive leadership positions to his work at Pingar. Mark has worked at Pingar since 2010 and is Managing Director, Pingar Hong Kong Limited, VP North Asia and responsible for all Pingar operations in Hong Kong and mainland China.

 

Before coming to Pingar, Mark has led or held executive positions in companies in the software, communications, financial services and consumer electronics industries. These companies range from a startup with a staff of 10 to established companies with thousands of employees and annual sales up to $US 750 million. These positions include MD roles at Case Technology and Misys IFA Services PLC, one of the UK's largest financial services companies, General Manager of Sybase New Zealand and Chairman of gen-I. 

 

Mark received a BA (hons) degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from Trinity College, Oxford.

 

Meet Mark Lunt and hear how Pingar is taking on the unique challenges of managing unstructured data in the Chinese language.

 

 

Robert Young —  Regional Manager, Australasia

 

Robert brings 20 years of executive experience managing software businesses in New Zealand, Australia and Europe. He specialises in the Enterprise Content Management, bringing a solid foundation of understanding to solving document organisation and management challenges for clients.

 

Robert’s previous roles included Financial Market Manager for Interwoven EMEA, Director of Engage UK, and Banking and Retail Manager at Stellant UK.

 

Over the last five years Robert has also been a Partner and Head of Acquisitions at Lincoln Capital Partners who have acquired over 40 major businesses with combined revenue in excess of $200M per annum turn over.

 

Meet Robert Young and learn how Pingar adds value to Microsoft SharePoint.

 

 

Rajesh Menon — Director, Pingar India Technologies Pvt Limited

 

Rajesh has almost 10 years' experience as a Director of an Indian IT software solutions company. From 2001-2011, he held a leadership and project management role with HBI Software Pvt Limited.

 

Rajesh has a post-graduate degree (MCA) in computer applications and a post-graduate diploma (PGDBA) in business administration and has spent much of the last decade managing the outsourcing requirements of enterprises based in the US & Europe.

 

Meet Rajesh Menon and hear about Pingar's growth in the Indian IT ecosystem.