MEET OUR TEAM
Core Team in Silicon Valley
Julie Basu,PhD
Founder, CEO & Head of R&D
Julie is a seasoned technology industry veteran with over 20 years of experience in leading-edge enterprise software projects. She was a Director of Engineering at Oracle. Julie holds an MS and a PhD in Computer Science from Stanford University.
Lauren Washington
Lead Data Scientist & ML Developer
Lauren is our lead data scientist and ML expert. Prior to smartQED, Lauren worked at Google as a risk strategist where she developed algorithms to detect fraud. Lauren holds a Masters in Quantitive Methods from Columbia University.
Terry Gallagher
Co-Founder, Head of Customer Solutions
Terry Gallagher is the voice of the customer at smartQED. Previously, he has been a crisis & support manager at Sun, Rambus, Blue Coat Systems and others. Terry holds a BS in Computer Information Systems from ASU.
June Mukherjee
Head of Quality Assurance & Doc
June leads testing, QA and documentation for smartQED. She previously worked in companies like Oracle & Capgemini in support & development roles. June holds a Masters in Computer Science & Electronics from Jadavpur University.
Expert Advisory Board
Tamara Gracon
CEO | Founder | Venture Capitalist | Management Consultant | Economist
Board Member | Start-Up Advisor
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Highly-skilled tech savvy executive with experience in strategy, process improvement, technology selection and deployment, and global project management for a $26B revenue company. In-depth executive experience identifying and resolving complex (strategy, operations, tax, transfer pricing (TP), supply chain, and valuation) issues facing firms in technology, media and consumer products industries. Using Lean Six Sigma principles, provide strategic change management guidance to streamline inefficient processes, harmonize diverse points of view, and provide meaningful ROI to clients.
Serve on the How Women Lead Silicon Valley Advisory Board to elevate women's leadership success across industries and promote gender diversity on corporate boards. Founding LP for How Women Invest, a venture fund comprise of 90 percent female (and 54 percent WOC) investors, which invests in female founded enterprises.
AYSO Region 26 (Palo Alto) Board Member and an active youth coach in soccer, basketball, and Little League.
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Prof. Dr Arthur Keller
PhD Computer Sc, Stanford University
Advisor to startups, expert witness on patent infringement cases
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Advisor to startups, expert witness on patent infringement cases (with testifying experience), politically active environmentalist. Specialties: e-commerce, databases, Internet, distributed systems, supply chain, patents.
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Mahesh Kothurkar
Global Startup Advisor
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Mahesh is the founder of Global Footprint Advisory (GFA), a startup advisory firm based at Mumbai. GFA collaborates with Silicon Valley and West Europe startups to create their traction in India. Mahesh is part of the advisory boards of multiple technology startups. Mahesh also is an advisor with cross border venture investment firm in India, Japan and North America. GFA has been successful in creating traction for B2B oriented startups in Core telecom sector (SDWAN, SDN, ITOM, Big Data analytics, Cloud Data migration), EdTech, AdTech and B2C oriented startups in media content.
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Prior to conceptualizing of GFA in Dec 2014, Mahesh has worked with Tata Communications for over 8 years, in various roles. Most recently, he was part of the leadership team to turn around loss making product lines for Tata Communications, like Media, Data Center and cloud products. Served in the Indian Navy for 20 years as commissioned officer (Ex Commander) in the coveted Navigation and air combat branch before joining the industry. Mahesh has served on various frontline ships and aircraft carriers, also participated in the three international campaigns including UN peace keeping force at Somalia and Indian peace keeping force at Sri Lanka.
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Mahesh has Bsc (Hons) degree in Physics from Institute of Science, Mumbai and is alumni of the Harvard Business School, through the General Management Program.
Waqar Hasan
PhD Computer Sc, Stanford University
Seasoned Entrepreneur & Senior Executive
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Waqar Hasan brings over 30 years’ executive and entrepreneurial experience.He ran Oracle’s $2B cloud and on-premise analytics platforms and applications products as SVP and General Manager.
As SVP at Visa, he was responsible for development of all data products that included over 100 SaaS products organized as 20 product lines in risk and fraud management, loyalty and marketing, commercial cards and business intelligence.
He was the founder and CEO of InsightsOne, a big data predictive analytics startup, that merged with Apigee and was acquired by Google after a successful IPO.
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He served as VP of Engineering at Yahoo!, where he built and managed Yahoo!’s data platform and AI-driven applications.
Before Yahoo!, Hasan founded the startup DB Wizards (acquired by AdeoSoft), was an architect at database software provider Informix and a researcher at HP Labs and IBM Almaden.
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Waqar received his PhD in Computer Science from Stanford University and a BS in Computer Science from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur. He has published over 20 papers and is a recipient of the ACM SIGMOD Test of Time award.
Mahesh Singh
Well-rounded Technology Executive, General Manager and Entrepreneur with a Global Perspective
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Serial Entrepreneur with rich experience in all aspects of building and running software companies – including bootstrapping & fund-raising; Product and Go-to-Market Strategy; Delivery, Operations and Finance; and building effective & successful teams and organizations.
Deep and wide-ranging experience in Product Management, Marketing, Consulting/ Services Business Management, and General Management. Natural collaborative Servant-Leader. A keen observer of human nature, a listener, consensus builder, and an effective decision-maker. Strong believer in an “Employees First” culture.
Lean/ Agile Coach and Trainer helping organizations and teams in their Agile Transformation & DevOps initiatives. Accredited Kanban Trainer (AKT), Accredited Kanban Trainer (AKC), SAFe® Program Consultant. Conference Speaker in Lean/ Agile ALM, Software Development and Product Management in Americas, Europe, and AsiaPac.
Language/ grammar fanatic, energetic karaoke singer, foodie, chef, movie/ music buff, traveler, enthusiastic swimmer/ hiker/ skier/ tennis-ball-cricketer. Wine aficionado. Tea drinker.
Devoted colleague, mentor, friend, son, brother, husband, dad.
Hon Wong
Founder, executive, angel investor, and active board member of technology start-ups
MBA - Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, Dual B.Sc. - Northwestern University
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Hon has led multiple start-ups through their entire life-cycle from conception and growth to exits through IPOs and M&As.
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Hon has extensive hands-on experience with all aspects of the start-up process. He has worked with and guided many management teams through the challenges faced by all technology start-ups. These include fund raising, team building, competitive positioning, market and partnership development, pivoting, and go to market strategy formation and execution. Hon has worked with enterprise software, SaaS, cloud infrastructure and manufacturing service companies.
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Today, Hon sits on the board of a number of technology companies. He is also cultivating a couple of start-up opportunities in the area of SaaS and mobile apps.
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Prior, Hon was EVP of marketing and business development at Coradiant. He also co-founded Ecosystems, NetIQ, Digital Market, Centrify, and sat on the board of many companies, including Relevant Technologies (Flextronics). Early in his career, he was a product manager at Intel and 3Com.
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Hon received dual B.Sc. in electrical and industrial engineering from Northwestern University, and earned his MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.