Xperi CEO and leadership

Petronel Bigioi is our CTO of Product, responsible for leading the engineering team focused on developing image processing and audio solutions for the home, automotive and mobile markets.

Petronel has more than 250 granted and published U.S. and international patents to date. Petronel is an IEEE fellow with over 20 years of experience in the digital still camera and mobile phone industries, working in both signal processing and connectivity. A co-founder of several successful companies (including FotoNation), he is also a pioneer of digital camera connectivity, a co-author and actively involved in the picture transfer protocol (PTP) and PTP-over-IP networks communication standards.

Petronel got his Bachelors of Science in electronics engineering (1997) from Transilvania University, Brasov. Petronel also holds two master degrees in ASIC design (Transilvania University, Brasov, 1998) and Networks and Communications (National University of Ireland, Galway, 2000). Petronel obtained his Ph.D. in electronics from Transilvania University (2005), his work being recognized by Romanian academy of science with a “Gheorghe Cartianu” award.

John Pernin is our Chief Strategy and Corporate Development Officer, responsible for leading a combined strategy, corporate development and business transformation organization. Prior to the merger with TiVo, he was Head of Corporate Development for Xperi Corporation. Previously, John was Senior Vice President of Corporate Development at DTS, Inc where he played a pivotal role in DTS’s revenue growth through strategic partnerships, investments, acquisitions and divestitures. Prior to joining DTS in 2006, John also held corporate development, investment banking and investment management positions with Cadiz Inc., First Union Securities, Inc.’s Investment Banking division and Dimensional Fund Advisors.

John holds an M.B.A. from the University of Chicago, Booth School of Business and a B.A. in Business Economics from the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Kris Graves is our Chief Human Resources Officer. Prior to the merger with TiVo, she was the Chief Human Resources Officer for Xperi Corporation. Between April 2013 and December 2016 she served as the Executive Vice President, Human Resources at DTS having previously held the position of Senior Vice President, Human Resources. Prior to joining DTS, Kris served as the Senior Vice President of Human Resources and administration at THQ Inc., a developer and publisher of interactive software, from 2009 to 2012 where she was responsible for developing human capital strategies and programs. From 2003 to 2009, she held a variety of progressive human resources leadership positions at THQ. Prior to joining THQ, Kris served in a human resources management role for PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP from 2001 to 2003. She also served as a senior consultant at Ernst & Young LLP from 1997 to 2000, and advised clients on human resources strategies and systems.

Kris holds a bachelor’s degree from Loyola Marymount University.

Murali Dharan, has been appointed President and COO of Xperi’s majority-owned startup, Perceive. Dharan has been a member of Perceive’s Board of Directors since it was founded in 2018 and his demonstrated capacity for technology leadership will be a significant asset for Perceive, which exited stealth mode in March 2020. Mr. Dharan will play a key role in leading Perceive into its next phase of growth following the successful debut its new, groundbreaking machine learning platform that brings data center class compute power and accuracy to edge based computing.