Leadership

Subutai Ahmad

CEO

Subutai is passionate about neuroscience, deep learning, and building intelligent systems. An accomplished technologist, he has been instrumental in driving Numenta’s research, technology and business since 2005. He previously served as VP Engineering at YesVideo where he helped grow the company from a three-person start-up to a leader in automated digital media authoring. In 1997, Subutai co-founded ePlanet Interactive which developed the IntelPlay Me2Cam, the first computer vision product developed for consumers.

Subutai holds a B.S. in Computer Science from Cornell University, and a Ph.D in Computer Science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Celeste Baranski

COO

Celeste has vast experience in high-tech engineering, design, and management. Previously, Celeste was SVP of Engineering & Operations at Panasas, a Big Data storage provider. She was CEO and Co-Founder of Vitamin D, one of the first developers to use the NuPIC platform. Celeste also served in VP Engineering roles at Palm and at Handspring, where she led the companies’ engineering efforts for handheld computers and smartphones. Celeste has built effective engineering teams, starting from a few to over 500, and has delivered numerous successful and award-winning products.

Celeste holds both a B.S. and M.S. in electrical engineering from Stanford University.

Amy Stanton

SVP Strategy & Business Development

Amy brings over 20 years of expertise in strategy, business operations,  and program management. Amy has held senior executive roles across high-tech, mobile consumer electronics companies. Prior to joining Numenta, Amy was the SVP of Business Operations at Mojo Vision, an AR smart contact lens company where she led strategic planning, investor relations, finance, legal ,and general business operations. Prior to joining Mojo, Amy successfully led the business operations, product operations and program management teams at Google, Motorola, and Palm. She also led the merger and acquisition process for a prominent software engineering and design company, resulting in the company’s >$2B sale.

Andy Xu

VP Engineering

With over two decades of experience in AI, ML, and engineering, Andy is recognized for his ability to build and implement business-critical technology solutions that address real-world challenges at scale. Prior to joining Numenta, Andy was the Senior Director of Engineering for Latch, where he led the engineering team to build a robust, scalable, data-driven software platform. Andy has also served in engineering roles at Microsoft, where he played a pivotal role in developing Machine Learning operations (MLOps) tools for Azure ML Services. Beyond his technical expertise, Andy has led and mentored high-performing engineering teams, effectively turning visions into realities.

Andy holds a B.S. and M.S. in Computer Sciences from Peking University and Johns Hopkins University, and an M.B.A. from Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley.

Christy Maver

VP of Marketing

Christy brings more than two decades of technology marketing and communications experience to Numenta. Previously, she launched analytics programs for the Retail and Healthcare industries as the Global Product Marketing Director of Analytics at Actian. Christy held a number of software marketing roles during her 13 years at IBM, where she managed user groups, produced live demos and developed big data video tutorials. She was also one of the founding members of IBM’s thought leadership group: the IBM Institute for Business Value.

Christy holds a BA in Economics from Princeton University.

Jeff Hawkins

Co-Founder

Jeff is a scientist whose life-long interest in neuroscience led to the creation of Numenta and its focus on neocortical theory. His research focuses on how the cortex learns predictive models of the world through sensation and movement. In 2002, he founded the Redwood Neuroscience Institute, where he served as Director for three years. The institute is currently located at U.C. Berkeley. Previously, he co-founded two companies, Palm and Handspring, where he designed products such as the PalmPilot and Treo smartphone. Jeff has written two books, On Intelligence (2004 with Sandra Blakeslee) and A Thousand Brains: A New Theory of Intelligence (2021).

Jeff earned his B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Cornell University in 1979. He was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2003.

Lawrence Spracklen

Head of AI, ArkiFi

Dr. Lawrence Spracklen is an experienced leader, with a decade of experience in developing and delivering AI solutions at scale. Lawrence served as CTO and VP of Engineering at several AI startups, including RSquared, SupportLogic, Alpine Data and Ayasdi. He also worked at VMware, Nvidia and Sun Microsystems, where he led teams focused on hardware architecture, software performance and scalability.

Lawrence holds a Ph.D. in Electronics Engineering from the University of Aberdeen, a B.Sc. in Computational Physics from the University of York and has been issued over 70 US patents.

JP Vasseur

Cisco Engineering Fellow

JP Vasseur, PhD is a Cisco Fellow where he has been working on a number of networking technologies such as IP/MPLS, Quality of Service, Traffic Engineering, network recovery, “The Internet of Things” (as the Chief Architect of the Internet of Things), Security, Wireless Networks.

Prior to joining Cisco in 1998, he worked for Service Providers in large multi-protocol environments. As an active member of the Internet Engineering Task Force and several SDOs, he has co-authored more than 35 IETF RFCs and co-chaired key Working Groups such as the PCE and ROLL WG.

JP has been leading world-class engineering teams of advanced networking and Analytics/Machine Learning with key applications such as Security, Wifi networks, Devices classification and SD-WAN to mention a few. He is a regular speaker at various international conferences; he is involved in various research projects in the area of IP/IoT/Security/ML and the member of a number of Technical Program Committees. JP Vasseur is also Associate Professor at Telecom Paris.

He is the (co)inventor of more than 500 patents in the area of IP/MPLS, Security, The Internet of Things and Machines Learning / Analytics. He holds an engineering degree in Computer Science (France), a Master of Science in Computer Science (Steven – USA) and a Ph.D. in Networking (Mines-Telecom Paris – France).

Donna Dubinsky

Board Chair

Donna is a serial entrepreneur best known for her work as CEO of Palm Computing and then Handspring, pioneers of the first successful handheld computers and smartphones. Previously, Donna spent 10 years in a multitude of sales, sales support, and logistics functions—both at Apple and at Claris, an Apple software subsidiary. She founded Numenta with her long-time business partner, Jeff Hawkins, in 2005.

Donna earned a B.A. from Yale University, and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School. In addition to chairing Numenta’s board, she currently serves on the board of  Twilio (NYSE: TWLO). Donna also served on the board of Yale University from 2006-2018, including two years as Senior Fellow.

Ed Colligan

Former President & CEO, Palm, Inc.

Ed came to Silicon Valley in 1985 to be part of the personal technology revolution and since that time has established himself as a leading product and marketing innovator. He was part of creating some of the most groundbreaking products and brands in personal computing.

Ed was part of building the Radius brand to be synonymous with graphics and graphics imaging at the outset of the desktop publishing revolution. Then he embarked on a 16-year journey to define and establish the next generation of personal computing – the handheld computer. Ed was the first vice president of marketing for Palm Computing where he helped develop the original Palm Pilot and the Palm brand. During Ed’s tenure the company shipped the original Palm Pilot, Palm III and Palm V handhelds establishing Palm and the Palm OS as the market leader with more than 90% market share.  Ed left Palm to co-found Handspring where he and his partners created the forbearer of all future smartphones; the Handspring Treo.  Ed led the transaction that reunited the Palm and Handspring teams into one company while establishing relationships with wireless carriers globally and driving Palm’s annual smartphone business to more than $2 billion. As the CEO of Palm, Ed spearheaded the transformation that created the highly acclaimed WebOS platform and Palm Pre line of smartphones.

Ed has spent the last several years doing impact investing and mentoring next generation entrepreneurs. He is a board member of Numenta, Inc., POPS Worldwide, and Levered Learning, Inc. Recently, Ed joined Low Carbon as Head of Americas, and a member of the board to focus his impact on climate change. He now joins a very experienced, mission driven team committed to building 20 Gigawatts of new renewable energy by 2030.

Mike Farmwald

General Partner, Skymoon Ventures

Mike is a successful serial entrepreneur. He has founded many companies with breakthrough technologies including FTL, a super computing company that merged with MIPs, Epigram, which was acquired by Broadcom, Rambus and Matrix Semiconductor, a creator of 3D integrated circuits. Mike currently sits on the board of Rambus (NASDAQ: RMBS). He is participating on the Numenta board as an individual, rather than as a representative of Skymoon Ventures. Mike holds a B.S. degree in Mathematics from Purdue University and a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Stanford University.

Harry Saal

Chairman, Retrotope, Inc.

In 2002, Dr. Harry J. Saal was chosen by the US Department of Justice to lead the Technical Committee charged with monitoring and enforcing the Microsoft Antitrust case, and he served as Chairman of the Committee through the May 2011 expiration of the Judgment.

Harry founded Nestar Systems, a pioneer in local area network systems, in 1978. In 1986, Harry became the founder and CEO of Network General Corporation, the first company wholly dedicated to the area of network diagnostics. From 1993 through 1995, Harry served as founding CEO and President of Smart Valley, Inc., a non-profit organization chartered to create a regional electronic community based on an advanced information infrastructure and the collective ability to use it.

Harry is active in philanthropy and community affairs, and serves on the board of the American Institute of Mathematics, among others. Harry holds a B.A., M.A. and Ph.D. in Physics from Columbia University.