Management Team

Ram Srivastav, Co-founder & CEO

As CEO for Cognika Corporation, Ram Srivastav oversees new business development, marketing and operations. His 25 years of experience includes six years in CEO/Board level positions for international joint ventures of multinational companies. He served as the CEO of Schlumberger Industries India Ltd., CG Schlumberger Electricity Management Ltd. and Dabhol Power Company in India. As an international management consultant, Ram managed business-critical projects and gained valuable exposure to key industries, including: Medical Devices, Healthcare, Power and Energy, Construction, Plastics and Automotive Manufacturing. Within the US market, Ram provided strategic direction and operations improvement to clients like Smith & Nephew Endoscopy, Boston Scientific, St. Gobain, Exelon, ConEd and International Trucks & Engines.

Ram has worked and lived in Brunei, China, Egypt, France, India, Indonesia, the UK, and the US. Ram is an alumnus of Columbia University Graduate School of Business, NY (Columbia Senior Executive Program, 1999) and IIT, Delhi (Directors Gold Medal, 1983). He was elected President of the Indo American Chamber of Commerce (W) in 1998 and was awarded the top employee honor by Schlumberger in 1992.

Robert DiLoreto, VP Business Development

Robert leads Cognika's sales and business development organization and brings 25 years of domestic and international sales, operations and business development leadership experience. Robert has an extensive software and infrastructure solutions background in ERP, enterprise content management, supply chain optimization, RFID/general sensor platform solutions, mobile applications, and Health 2.0, targeted at the pharmaceutical, health care, manufacturing, retail, and web community portal markets.

Robert has consistently pioneered and scaled a number of new software and technology innovations within early stage companies including ASK Computer Systems, Aspect Development and GlobeRanger. At ASK, Robert was part of the sales management team, growing the company's revenues from $5 million to $250M before being acquired by Computer Associates.

Robert led the strategic accounts organization at Aspect Development as revenues grew from $5 to $100M before being acquired by i2 technologies for $9.2B, one of the largest software acqusitions in history. As VP Business Development and International at GlobeRanger, Robert's organization partnered with a number of key global OEM/Reseller partnerships while establishing some of the world's largest RFID/General sensor deployments in the world.

Amit Phansalkar, VP Product Strategy

Amit leads the development of Cognika ESP™ powered products and customized solutions for life sciences and healthcare domains. Amit brings over 10 years of experience building informatics and healthcare solutions using the latest analytics approaches. At Cytel he was responsible for new product strategies and led the development of customized simulation software products translating collaborative research projects with biopharmaceuticals to commercial products and services. Prior to Cytel, he led the informatics efforts at Arup Institute of Experimental and Clinical Pathology providing informatics solutions to multiple research groups within the organization. Earlier as a Statistician with Prolexys Pharmaceuticals he developed statistical models and applied systems biology approaches for mining over 1TB of data from multiple high throughput proteomic technologies. Amit received his Masters Degree in Statistics from University of New Mexico. He also holds a Bachelor’s degree in Engineering.

Martin Willis-Jackson, CFO

A Chartered Accountant (The U.K. designation of a CPA), Martin is originally from a “Big Four” background, who gravitated to commerce after serving with PricewaterhouseCoopers in Bermuda. Martin is an experienced financial director and manager, with expertise in financial and statutory accounting, auditing and regulatory reporting, budget forecasting and control, and investment and technical accounting. He has an extensive track record managing corporate financial transactions both domestically and internationally including acquisitions, mergers, liquidations, and setting up or selling subsidiaries. Martin’s experience includes all aspects of Corporate Governance, including serving on or reporting to boards of directors and sub committees including Audit, Investment, Budget and Corporate Governance. He is familiar with issues created by implementation of Sarbanes Oxley requirements.

Shashi Kant, CSA

As Chief Software Architect for Cognika Corporation, Shashi manages product innovation and industry application, having developed the core Cognika technology and implemented it on a variety of data sets over the last six years. While at MIT, his graduate research focused on Semantic technologies, Bayesian reasoning and emergent models of data.Prior to his graduate work at MIT, he specialized in complex system engineering and architecture at several major corporations, including: Schlumberger, Thinq.com and Absolute Software. His technology experience has spanned a broad range of innovative development areas. Shashi received Masters Degree in Engineering and Management from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and MIT's Sloan School of Management. He also holds a Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, and was an ASP Fellow at MIT.

Luke Burns, Co-founder & Board-Member

As board-member and co-founder of Cognika Corporation, Luke is closely involved in advising Cognika and provides strategic vision and support. In his capacity as Partner at Ascent Venture Partners, he has applied his extensive experience advising growth businesses and has been part of the founding team for a number of ventures. Prior to Ascent, Luke was a management consultant with Bain & Company where he focused on the technology and pharmaceutical sectors. Before Bain, he was co-founder and CEO of e-commerce software provider Emercis Corporation which he led from product concept to successful exit. Luke has also held roles with venture firm Navigator Technology Ventures, and served as co-founder of Cognika Corporation, a provider of cognitive computing solutions.

Luke earned his AB degree, magna cum laude, in Chemistry and Physics from Harvard University. He received his MBA from MIT's Sloan School of Management.

Joe Caruso, Management Advisor

Mr. Caruso has been an advisor to CEOs and an advocate for entrepreneurship and professional corporate governance for over twenty years. He currently serves as CEO of Bantam Group, a technology investment firm, where he provides strategic advice to early-stage companies and serves as mentor and/or board member to client companies. Mr. Caruso is currently a director of Boston Micromachines, Nimbit, and Common Angels, and is an advisor to the Boston University Photonics Center.

Jerry Billow, J.D, Legal Advisor

Mr. Billow is a Partner at the law firm of Posternak Blankstein & Lund LLP. He serves as the chair of the firm’s Health Care Group. He represents institutional and individual providers of health care services, including health maintenance organizations and managed care companies, hospitals, nursing homes and assisted living facilities. Mr. Billow also serves the legal needs of home health care companies, clinics and physician group practices.