Management & Directors

John D. Beletic
President and Chief Executive Officer

John Beletic joined XIO after nearly a decade serving as Venture Partner and board member of numerous firms while at Oak Investment Partners. Prior to Oak, he spent nearly 25 years in senior executive roles – principally as President and Chief Executive Officer – of high-growth technology and communications companies including Tigon, PageMart and Weblink Wireless. Mr. Beletic is currently Chairman of the Board of iPass, Inc. (NASDAQ: IPAS) and Lead Director of Tessco Technologies (NASDAQ: TESS). Previously, he also served on the boards at Scale Eight and Data Return.

Mr. Beletic received a BSBA in Finance summa cum laude from Xavier University and an MBA with high distinction from the Harvard Business School.

Stephen Sicola
Chief Technology Officer

Stephen J. Sicola was VP and GM of the Advanced Storage Architecture group for Seagate Technology. With over 32 years of experience in the storage industry, he was a Compaq Fellow, former CTO of StorageWorks at Compaq and Digital Equipment Corporation. Mr. Sicola has led developments on several generations of storage arrays, storage architectures, and software & hardware teams. Mr. Sicola has 50 patents pending or granted in the areas of storage architecture, RAID, fault tolerance, caching, disaster tolerance, and virtualization.

Mr. Sicola has a BSEE from Stanford University in Electrical Engineering and a master's degree from NTU in Computer Architecture/Fault Tolerant Computing.

Lawrence Firestone
Chief Financial Officer

Lawrence D. Firestone joined XIO in February 2011 as Chief Financial Officer. From 2006 until joining XIO, he served as Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Advanced Energy Industries, Inc., a publicly held manufacturer of industrial power conversion devices for manufacturing process and for solar power conversion. Before that, Mr. Firestone served as the senior vice president, chief financial officer, secretary and treasurer at Applied Films Corporation, a publicly held supplier of thin film deposition equipment for manufacturing flat panel displays and other markets, from 1999 until 2006.

Prior to joining Applied Films, Mr. Firestone served as vice president and chief operating officer of Avalanche Industries, a contract manufacturer of custom cables and harnesses, from 1996 to 1999. Prior to 1996, Mr. Firestone held various executive positions with several privately held manufacturing companies serving various industries. Mr. Firestone has held board of director and audit chair positions at Hyperspace communications, a publicly held supplier of internet accelerator software products, and Amtech Systems, a publicly held manufacturer of diffusion furnaces for the semiconductor and solar markets.

Mr. Firestone holds a BSBA in Accounting from Slippery Rock State College.

David Gustavsson
Vice President, Engineering

David Gustavsson is Vice President of Engineering at XIO, and is instrumental in defining and setting direction for the ISE Storage Blade product family and XIO's flagship Intelligent Storage Element (ISE™) technology.

Mr. Gustavsson has been with XIO for two years, coming to the company through the Advanced Storage Architecture group acquired from Seagate Technology in November 2007. Prior to that, he worked for four years at Seagate in a variety of engineering managerial roles, leading efforts to stabilize code, develop and deliver firmware and design the ISE unit. Before that, he worked as an engineer and project lead for EMC and Autodiagnos AB in Sweden.

Mr. Gustavsson holds a Master of Science degree in computer science from the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs and a bachelor's degree in computer engineering from the University of Dalarna in Sweden.

Doug O'Shaughnessy
Vice President of Services

Doug O'Shaughnessy joined XIO in June 2011 and oversees the delivery of all services and the strategic direction of the services organization.

A seasoned services industry executive, Mr. O’Shaughnessy brings more than 20 years of experience to XIO, most recently serving as a partner at Connexion Point MVS (USA), which was acquired by DecisionOne. Prior to this, he was vice president of customer service at EMC Software Group/Legato Systems. Mr. O’Shaughnessy also has held several service delivery and management roles, including director of Amdahl Corporation’s global service center.

David Ornstein
Vice President, Sales East

David Ornstein joined XIO in 2008 and is responsible for all sales and pre-sales activities for the eastern part of the US and is instrumental in setting go to market strategies for XIO.

Mr. Ornstein brings over 15 years of sales and sales management experience in the technology industry to XIO. Prior to joining XIO, Mr. Ornstein held various sales and management positions at Compaq and HP in both the direct and indirect channels. Before that, he held various sales, management, and consulting positions within the IT industry.

Mr. Ornstein holds a BS in Accounting from the University of Central Florida.

Shawn Kinnear
Vice President, Sales West

Shawn Kinnear joined XIO in 2006 and is responsible for all sales and pre-sales activities for the western part of the US and is instrumental in setting go to market strategies for XIO.

Mr. Kinnear brings over 20 years of sales and sales management experience in the technology industry to XIO. Prior to joining XIO, Mr. Kinnear held various sales and management positions at Cotelligent, Quest Software and Computer Associates.

Mr. Kinnear holds a BS in Computer Science from Brigham Young University Hawaii.

Richard Nelson
Vice President, International Business Development

Richard "Rick" Nelson joined the senior team at XIO in late 2011 where he rejoins his former CEO from WebLink wireless. Mr. Nelson is building the international business unit as well as overseeing the marketing department.

Mr. Nelson comes from Relume Technologies, a manufacturer of high brightness LED lighting products, where he served as VP of Sales since 2009. There, he upgraded and grew the manufacturer’s representative network selling the company’s products into commercial, municipal and governmental accounts. Previously he was VP of Worldwide Market Development for General LED, a start up solid-state lighting company, where he guided the establishment of the Architectural Lighting Division. While at General LED he established both a domestic and international sales organization. Mr. Nelson had been recruited from System Services, Inc., a rapidly growing Dallas based IT solutions provider, where he was the VP of Marketing and Sales. Previous to that he served as Executive VP for Dent Zone Intl., a leading supplier of innovative automotive aftermarket services, and as President of RG America, Inc., a publicly traded corporation focused on the commercial building and storm restoration business. Before joining RG America, Mr. Nelson served 10 years in a number of executive roles at WebLink Wireless including VP of Marketing, VP of Business Development, Sr. VP of Sales, and President of the International PageMart division where he was instrumental in helping the company grow from a start up to over $300m in revenues.

Mr. Nelson made his name as a corporate innovator at American Airlines where he spent 20 years and was the co-creator of the well-known Sabre Travel Reservations System, which became the largest Global Distribution System in the travel industry. After that he moved back into more traditional airline management roles where, with the approval of the CEO and board, he created and built American Airline's American Eagle division and served as its VP of Marketing. American Eagle rapidly grew to be the largest regional airline network in the world.

Mr. Nelson received his B.A. in Political Science from Northwestern University and his M.B.A. from the University of Dallas. Mr. Nelson is married with two children.

Alan Atkinson
Chairman of the Board

Alan Atkinson came to XIO from EMC, where he served as Vice President of its Storage Software Group. Prior to that, he co-founded WysDM Software, Inc., a company specializing in data protection management in industries such as financial services, telecommunications and pharmaceuticals. He served as CEO of that company until its sale to EMC in 2008.

Before co-founding WysDM, Mr. Atkinson served as Senior Vice President of Engineering and Product Marketing at StorageNetworks, helping the company conduct a successful initial public offering and land clients such as Microsoft, Sun Microsystems, and NetApp. He also worked for Goldman Sachs, serving as Information Technology Vice President responsible for the firm's global storage infrastructure. Before that, he worked at AT&T Bell Laboratories in a variety of functions for the company's mainframe and UNIX environments.

Mr. Atkinson holds a master's degree in computer science from the University of Pennsylvania and a bachelor's degree in computer science from the University of Delaware.

Jerry Gallagher
Director - General Partner, Oak Investment Partners

Gerald Gallagher is a General Partner of Oak Investment Partners, a venture capital partnership. For 30 years, he has been involved with the retail industry, holding positions as an analyst, manager, and venture capitalist. Before joining Oak in 1987, he was Vice Chairman of Dayton Hudson Corporation where, during a ten year period, he served in both operating and staff positions. Prior to 1977 he was the retail industry analyst at Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette. Mr. Gallagher is currently a director of five privately held companies. He received an undergraduate degree from Princeton University and an MBA from the University of Chicago.

Ed Glassmeyer
Director - General Partner, Oak Investment Partners

Edward F. Glassmeyer is a founding General Partner of Oak Investment Partners. Mr. Glassmeyer was with Citicorp Venture Capital from 1968 to 1970, followed by The Sprout Capital Group where he was Managing Partner from 1971 to 1974. Ed led the first round venture financings in both Shugart Associates (1973) and Seagate Technology (1980). Shugart Associates was the first floppy disk company later sold to Xerox; Seagate was the first 5 1/4 hard disk company, and today is an industry-leading disk drive company. Mr. Glassmeyer has invested successfully in the IT and telecom industries over the last three decades, and continues to be an active investor in the data storage industry. He graduated from Princeton University in 1963, served as an officer in the Marine Corps from 1963 to 1966, and received his MBA with distinction from The Tuck School in 1968. Mr. Glassmeyer was a founding Director of the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA) in 1973, and is an Overseer of The Amos Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College.

Stephen J. Luczo
Director - Chairman of the Board, Seagate Technology

Stephen J. Luczo is the Chairman of the Board of Seagate Technology, the worldwide leader in the design, manufacture, and marketing of hard disc drives and storage solutions. Mr. Luczo joined Seagate in October 1993 as Senior Vice President of Corporate Development and was promoted to the position of President and Chief Operating Officer in September 1997. In July 1998, he was promoted to Chief Executive Officer and became Chairman of the Board in June 2002. Mr. Luczo resigned as the Chief Executive Officer in July 2004, but retained his position as Chairman of the Board. He became the non-employee Chairman of the Board in October 2006. Prior to joining Seagate, Mr. Luczo was Senior Managing Director of the Global Technology Group of Bear, Stearns & Co. Inc., an investment banking firm, from February 1992 to October 1993.

Casey Powell

Casey Powell served as president and CEO of XIO for four years. Before that, he was the co-founder, chairman, and CEO of Sequent Computer Systems, Inc., a pioneer in the development of commercial multiprocessing computers. He played a pivotal role in developing a partnership with IBM on a next-generation version of UNIX, which culminated in IBM's acquisition of Sequent in a deal valued at $810 million. Earlier in his career, Mr. Powell held several executive positions at Intel Corporation, including general manager of the company's microprocessor operations. Most recently he was CEO of Stonefly Networks. Mr. Powell has been a director of Verity, Inc., since August 2000. In addition he served on the National Board of Directors of the American Electronics Association.

Mr. Powell holds a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy at Kings Point, N.Y.

Richard Lary
Corporate Fellow

Richard (Richie) Lary is corporate fellow at XIO, and joined the company in December 2009.

Mr. Lary has been in the computer industry for 40 years. He began his career as a software engineer at Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC), building operating systems and compilers for the PDP-8 and PDP-11 computers. In 1975, he served as a member of the core team that defined the VAX computer architecture, and later the implementation team for the first VAX computer. After joining DEC's Storage Business Unit in 1978, Mr. Lary was a key architect of the Digital Storage Architecture and a key implementer of several of the hardware and firmware components of the associated product family. He became DEC's Storage Architect in 1990, Storage Technical Director in 1994, and Compaq Computer Corporation's Storage Technical Director in 1998, where he was responsible for technical oversight of the entire corporate storage architecture and product line. Prior to joining XIO, he had been an independent consultant in the storage industry and a technical advisor to several emerging storage companies since 2000.

Mr. Lary holds 32 patents for his work in processor and storage system architecture and design, and was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Server I/O Conference in January 2000. He also frequently speaks at industry events.

Mr. Lary holds a bachelor's degree in mathematics from the Polytechnic Institute of New York University.

Jeff Nicholson
Fellow

As the Storage Management Fellow at XIO, Jeff Nicholson is instrumental in developing the architecture and implementation of the CorteX RESTful Web Services management platform for the Intelligent Storage Element (ISE) technology.

Mr. Nichoson has been with XIO since the Seagate Advanced Storage Architecture group was acquired in November 2007. Earlier, Mr. Nicholson joined the Seagate ASA division in 2003 at the beginning of the ISE project to architect and develop the ISE storage management layer. Before that, he was the Director of Advanced Storage Technology for three years at StorageNetworks working with storage vendors to enhance their products in support of Storage Service Providers. Mr. Nicholson was a Member of the Technical Staff and a Principal Engineer at Compaq Computer and Digital Equipment developing storage management applications for multiple storage products. He also developed disk drive firmware solutions for both Digital and Maxtor. Further, Mr. Nicholson developed digital hardware solutions for Digital's magnetic disk technology and Sperry Defense Products Group's optical disk and fighter avionics technologies.

Mr. Nicholson holds MSEE and BSEE degrees with an emphasis in Computer Engineering from Oklahoma State University.