Team

ScaleIO was founded by Boaz Palgi, Erez Webman, Lior Bahat, Eran Borovik, and Erez Ungar, who have been working together in the data storage industry for a good part of the last decade and a half. The team members held key technology, executive, sales, and business development positions at storage companies such as IBM, Topio, NetApp, LSI, and XtremIO and have left their signature on some of the market’s leading enterprise storage products.

As designers and developers of traditional “built-like-a-tank” storage subsystems, as well as advanced storage functionality such as snapshots and replication, we were part of the SAN industry establishment that ScaleIO aims to replace. In addition, the ScaleIO team has a great deal of experience in building host-based, highly scalable distributed storage functionality.

Board of Directors

Boaz Palgi, Founder and CEO

Boaz has over 15 years of experience in management, international sales, and business development at various data storage and enterprise software companies, including Topio (acquired by NetApp) and Storwize (acquired by IBM). He holds a BA from Nyenrode University (the Netherlands) and Queen’s University (Canada) and an MBA from INSEAD (France). Boaz served as a paratrooper and medic in the IDF. He has lived and worked in several countries in North America and Europe.

Erez Webman, Founder and CTO

Since 1984, Erez has served in various engineering, technical leadership, and development management positions. In 2009, Erez joined XtremIO (acquired by EMC) as chief architect. Prior to that role, he was a member of the founding team at Topio, where he was in charge of Topio’s technology and architecture; following the company’s acquisition by NetApp in 2006, Erez served as a technical director at NetApp. Before joining Topio, Erez participated in the design of copy-services functions for IBM’s high-end storage servers at IBM Research, where he also led the design of advanced functions for IBM’s mid-range storage servers. Erez holds a BSc in computer science, awarded with honors by the Technion Israel Institute of Technology. He is the inventor and co-inventor of 18 patents in the area of storage (12 of which have been issued, with six pending). Erez has extensive experience in the design of scalable and highly available systems, software architecture, and music signal processing.

Yoram Snir, Chair of the Board, Partner at Greylock Partners

Yoram Snir joined Greylock in 2005 after seven years at Cisco Systems. At his last position with Cisco Yoram led the corporate international business development team, responsible for its acquisitions, investments and strategic partnership efforts in Europe, Asia Pacific and Israel as well as in the global service provider technology space.

Before Cisco, Yoram was with ClassData Inc, a company that developed and marketed software for policy-based provisioning of differentiated services over IP networks. The company was acquired by Cisco in May 1998. Prior to Classdata Yoram held several management positions with other companies.

Mr. Snir received his MBA from the Kellogg School at Northwestern University and B.Sc. Cum Laude in Computer Science from Tel Aviv University.

Dror Nahumi, Partner at Norwest Venture Partners

Dror Nahumi brings to NVP more than 20 years of operational, technology and entrepreneurial experience, having worked extensively in both the U.S. and Israel in various senior positions at leading global organizations. Dror most recently invested in and serves on the boards of Seculert, Pontis, SolarEdge and SundaySky. Dror has served as a board member of Veraz Networks since 2004, and is a board observer for ConteXtream. Dror was a previous board participant for Unisfair (acquired by InterCall). At NVP, Dror focuses on investments in Israel. Dror has years of experience in business development and telecommunications technology leadership in both the U.S. and Israel. Prior to joining NVP, Dror served as executive vice president and chief strategy officer of ECI. Before joining ECI, Dror was CEO of Axonlink, an optical components start-up company. Prior to Axonlink, he was President of I-Link, a US-based VoIP service provider which acquired MiBridge, the VoIP software company he founded. Dror was also a senior research engineer at AT&T Bell Labs, where he developed voice and video compression technologies. Dror holds a BSc in electrical engineering from the Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa.

Erez Ofer, Industry Expert, Partner at Greylock Partners

With Greylock Partners since 2005, Erez Ofer has been the visionary behind some of the most strategic moves of EMC Corporation. Erez formerly served as executive vice president in charge of technology strategy for EMC. Previously, he served as EMC’s executive vice president of open software. During his 11-year tenure at EMC, Erez also held various R&D roles, he oversaw development efforts with strategic partners and established EMC’s first R&D presence in California and India. A holder of more than 30 storage-related patents, Erez also served in various development and project management roles at Silver Arrow in Israel and the United States, as well as with the Israeli Air Force.

Private Investors and Advisors

Frank Slootman

Frank Slootman has served as ServiceNow's President and Chief Executive Officer, and as a director, since May 2011. Prior to joining ServiceNow, Slootman served as a venture partner with Greylock Partners, a venture capital firm, from January 2011 to April 2011, and served as an advisor to EMC Corporation from January 2011 to February 2012. From July 2009 to January 2011, he served as President of the Backup Recovery Systems Division at EMC. From July 2003 to July 2009, Slootman served as President and Chief Executive Officer of Data Domain, Inc., an electronic storage solution company, which was acquired by EMC in 2009. As the CEO of Data Domain, he blazed new trails creating a high-growth enterprise storage company that went public on NASDAQ in 2007. Prior to joining Data Domain, Slootman served as an executive at Borland Software Corporation from June 2000 to June 2003, most recently as Senior Vice President of Products. From March 1993 to June 2000, Slootman held management positions for two enterprise software divisions of Compuware Corporation. Slootman holds undergraduate and graduate degrees in Economics from the Netherlands School of Economics, Erasmus University Rotterdam.

Amnon Bar-Lev

Amnon Bar-Lev, President at Check Point, is responsible for worldwide sales, global partner programs, business development and technical services for the company. Mr. Bar-Lev joined Check Point in 2005 and brings more than 15 years of high-tech sales, marketing and management experience to the organization. Prior to joining Check Point, Mr. Bar-Lev was founder and CEO of Xpert Integrated System Ltd., a leading provider of security, business-continuity and infrastructure platforms and solutions. Before forming Xpert, Mr. Bar-Lev began his career in the Israeli Air Force, where he held several positions within the operational and administration units. Mr. Bar-Lev holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Computer Science (HONS) and Management (HONS) from Tel-Aviv University.