Aktana Leadership

As co-founder of Aktana, Derek spent the last decade developing and refining Aktana’s product, evangelizing Aktana’s vision in the life sciences industry, and delivering Aktana’s products and services to customers across four continents to establish Aktana as the global leader in decision support for life sciences. Now as chief operating officer, Derek is responsible for strategic definition and scalable execution of Aktana’s vision. In this role, he oversees strategy, product, customer success, and services at Aktana.

Prior to co-founding Aktana, Derek held a number of different roles in technology and services sector, developing his expertise in sales force optimization, change management, and technology development and implementation. He drove initiatives to enter new markets and develop new products at Intuit, developed and implemented strategies for a diverse range of public and private sector clients at The Boston Consulting Group, worked at several large law firms in Australia and Hong Kong, and co-founded a medical IT company in Australia.

Derek has dual degrees in computer science and law (honors) from the University of Melbourne.

David’s a seasoned Silicon Valley veteran who’s helped start, grow, and lead numerous successful technology companies. He has extensive experience helping organizations of all sizes establish business models, build product/marketing strategies, and meet their go-to-market challenges - all while defining models of leadership, communication, and culture. Prior to launching Aktana, David was executive in residence with Mohr Davidow Ventures, and before that served as CEO of ParAccel, an early pioneer in the field of analytic databases. David also held senior level positions with NetIQ Corporation, Visual Networks, Inverse Network Technology, and McKinsey and Company, where he played a leadership role in the firm’s Asian telecommunications, electronics, and media practice.

In addition to being an angel investor and advisor to early stage technology ventures, David currently serves on the board of Dear Health and has previously served on the Boards of Reso Holdings, ThreatSTOP, Infravio and the Brandeis School of San Francisco. David also spent over a decade on the board of directors for Travelzoo, Inc., where he served as chair of the audit committee and lead independent director.

David received a BA in sociology with honors and distinction from Stanford University, an MS in industrial engineering from Stanford University, and an MBA from the Harvard Business School.

Kate Terrell is a Chief People Officer at Aktana and is based in San Francisco Bay Area. She has worked as VP, Human Resources and Organizational Effectiveness at Eagle Family Foods; SVP and CHRO at Driscoll's; and Manager at Accenture. Kate studied at USC Marshall School of Business and Fisher College of Business.

Clay oversees all brand and marketing strategy for Aktana including market positioning, lead generation, content strategy and development, field sales support, and more. He led the brand repositioning of the company in 2014 as a consultant and has since joined full-time.

Clay has spent the last twenty years in technology marketing beginning his career on the agency side leading go-to-market campaigns and communication programs for brands such as LG, Sun Microsystems, and Advent Software. He spent six years at Plantronics as vice president of corporate marketing where he led the largest rebranding effort in the company’s 50-year history. Clay also served as vice president of marketing for oneID, a digital identity management company funded by Khosla Ventures.

Clay spent several years pursuing screenwriting and was a finalist for the Sundance Screenwriters Lab. He leads a marketing consultancy called treatment. that utilizes the methods of the screenwriter to help brands build and tell their unique story. Clay graduated from the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communication at Syracuse University with a BS in broadcast journalism.

As SVP of Engineering and CTO, Dmitri is responsible for championing innovation through strategic and operational aspects of software architecture, product development and cloud operations. A seasoned technology executive, he brings more than 20 years of software engineering and technology operations leadership experience in both consumer and commercial markets.

Before joining Aktana, Dmitri served as VP of Engineering at Verint, a leading global provider of customer engagement, security and business intelligence solutions, where he was responsible for leading global engineering teams and overseeing product development of Workforce Management and Experience Management product portfolios. Prior to Verint, Dmitri was SVP of Engineering at Capsilon, a leading provider of AI-powered mortgage automation solutions. His career also includes CTO / VP / SVP Engineering leadership roles at Quantros, HP and Kodak.

Dmitri is based in San Francisco and holds a Master’s Degree in Applied Mathematics from Belarus University as well as an MBA from the University of Rochester.

As co-founder of Aktana, Derek spent the last decade developing and refining Aktana’s product, evangelizing Aktana’s vision in the life sciences industry, and delivering Aktana’s products and services to customers across four continents to establish Aktana as the global leader in decision support for life sciences. Now as chief operating officer, Derek is responsible for strategic definition and scalable execution of Aktana’s vision. In this role, he oversees strategy, product, customer success, and services at Aktana.

Prior to co-founding Aktana, Derek held a number of different roles in technology and services sector, developing his expertise in sales force optimization, change management, and technology development and implementation. He drove initiatives to enter new markets and develop new products at Intuit, developed and implemented strategies for a diverse range of public and private sector clients at The Boston Consulting Group, worked at several large law firms in Australia and Hong Kong, and co-founded a medical IT company in Australia.

Derek has dual degrees in computer science and law (honors) from the University of Melbourne.

As co-founder of Aktana, Derek spent the last decade developing and refining Aktana’s product, evangelizing Aktana’s vision in the life sciences industry, and delivering Aktana’s products and services to customers across four continents to establish Aktana as the global leader in decision support for life sciences. Now as chief operating officer, Derek is responsible for strategic definition and scalable execution of Aktana’s vision. In this role, he oversees strategy, product, customer success, and services at Aktana.

Prior to co-founding Aktana, Derek held a number of different roles in technology and services sector, developing his expertise in sales force optimization, change management, and technology development and implementation. He drove initiatives to enter new markets and develop new products at Intuit, developed and implemented strategies for a diverse range of public and private sector clients at The Boston Consulting Group, worked at several large law firms in Australia and Hong Kong, and co-founded a medical IT company in Australia.

Derek has dual degrees in computer science and law (honors) from the University of Melbourne.

David’s a seasoned Silicon Valley veteran who’s helped start, grow, and lead numerous successful technology companies. He has extensive experience helping organizations of all sizes establish business models, build product/marketing strategies, and meet their go-to-market challenges - all while defining models of leadership, communication, and culture. Prior to launching Aktana, David was executive in residence with Mohr Davidow Ventures, and before that served as CEO of ParAccel, an early pioneer in the field of analytic databases. David also held senior level positions with NetIQ Corporation, Visual Networks, Inverse Network Technology, and McKinsey and Company, where he played a leadership role in the firm’s Asian telecommunications, electronics, and media practice.

In addition to being an angel investor and advisor to early stage technology ventures, David currently serves on the board of Dear Health and has previously served on the Boards of Reso Holdings, ThreatSTOP, Infravio and the Brandeis School of San Francisco. David also spent over a decade on the board of directors for Travelzoo, Inc., where he served as chair of the audit committee and lead independent director.

David received a BA in sociology with honors and distinction from Stanford University, an MS in industrial engineering from Stanford University, and an MBA from the Harvard Business School.