Leadership Team

Liquid Machines is led by an accomplished management team composed of industry veterans with extensive leadership experience in developing and delivering enterprise software.

Michael A. Ruffolo - Chairman, CEO and President

Mike Ruffolo is the Chairman, CEO and President of Liquid Machines, the leading provider of Enterprise Rights Management (ERM) solutions that prevent the misuse, modification, loss or theft of intellectual property and sensitive information. Mike’s career spans more than 25 years of experience in global sales and marketing management, professional services, operations and information technology. As the Chief Operating Officer (COO) of Akamai Technologies, he successfully refocused the company on the enterprise and government markets, driving double-digit revenue growth while dramatically improving operating results. Prior to Akamai, Mike was Executive Vice President of Global Sales, Services and Marketing at EMC Corporation where he drove over $8.5 billion in revenue. In addition, Mike was President of the Document Solutions Group at Xerox Corporation, in which he had worldwide operational and profit responsibility for the group delivering annual revenues of more than $3 billion. Before joining Xerox, Mike was Vice President and Chief Information Officer (CIO) at NCR Corporation.

 

Mike has been an independent Director on both public and private company Boards and currently serves on the Board of Pomeroy IT Solutions (Nasdaq: PMRY) in Cincinnati, Ohio. He is also an Advisory Board member at Virtusa in Westboro, and the CIO Group in New York.

 

Mike graduated summa cum laude from the University of Dayton, earned an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School, and has completed the Advanced Management Programme at the European Institute of International Business (INSEAD).

Arny Epstein - CTO
Arny was most recently a co-founder and CTO of SilverStream Software. At SilverStream, he evaluated SilverStream's technical opportunities and investments and managed the technical end of strategic partnerships. Arny also provided leadership and consistency of architecture across the SilverStream product line. Prior to SilverStream, Arny was the CTO at Watermark Software, where he was responsible for Watermark's close relationship with Microsoft as well as the architecture of Watermark's highly successful product line. Prior to Watermark, Arny was Chief Architect at Lotus Development Corporation, and was responsible for a number of products including LotusScript, Lotus 1-2-3/G (for OS/2) and Lotus Manuscript. Arny has been writing commercial software since 1965. He holds a Ph.D. in Astrophysics from MIT and, while at Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, contributed to the creation of data analysis techniques in the field of experimental X-ray astronomy.

Ed Gaudet - Senior VP of Corporate Development & Marketing

Ed Gaudet is Senior Vice President of Corporate Development and Marketing. With over 20 years of product management, marketing and business development experience, Ed is responsible for driving Liquid Machines' global growth and alliance strategy, expanding its solutions' footprint in the security market through a combination of corporate and business development strategies and programs. Additionally, Ed leads the development and communication of the Company's marketing vision and strategy, cultivating growth opportunities in new and existing markets, and integrating innovative technologies into Liquid Machines award-winning products.

Prior to his current role, Ed was Vice President of Product Management and Marketing at Liquid Machines from 2002-2007, where he created and led the Company’s widely-acclaimed go-to-market and product strategy. Under his leadership, the Company delivered the industry's first Enterprise Rights Management platform in 2003, expanded its product portfolio to include document, messaging and gateway-based solutions, and executed strategic alliances with Microsoft and Symantec.

A frequent industry speaker on the topics of regulatory compliance, information security and intellectual property protection, Ed has held senior executive-level roles in various start-up and public software companies including IONA Technologies, Rational Software, and SQA, Inc. He is currently an Advisory Board member of privately-held Proofspace, a provider of data authentication and trusted time-stamping technology. Ed is a graduate of Bentley College in Waltham, MA.

Stuart Goodnick - Vice President of Professional Services & Support
As Vice President of Professional Services and Support at Liquid Machines, Stuart is responsible for custom consulting services and product support for Liquid Machines’ Email and Document Control software products. Stuart has more than 18 years of experience in engineering and operational management in technology product development.

 

Prior to Liquid Machines, Stuart held executive level positions at Omniva Policy Systems and the Compumotor division of Parker Hannifin. At Omniva Policy Systems, Stuart was the VP Support and Customer Solutions. He was also responsible for leading the team that developed Omniva Policy Manager, an enterprise platform for central management of secure messaging.  At Parker Compumotor, Stuart managed multiple product and development teams.

 

Stuart earned an undergraduate degree in physics from the California Institute of Technology and a Masters in physics from the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Michael Jacobs - Vice President, Global Sales

Mike Jacobs brings more than 20 years of technology sales and business development experience to Liquid Machines. As Vice President of Sales, Mike oversees Liquid Machines worldwide direct sales and channel sales efforts including reseller, system integrator and technology partner relationships.

 

Prior to joining Liquid Machines, Mike served as Vice President of Worldwide Sales at Verdasys, Inc. where he managed the information compliance and privacy software vendors direct sales operations as well as partner and channel programs.

 

Before joining Verdasys, Jacobs served as Vice President of North American Sales at Concord Communications, Inc. (CCRD), a global provider of Business Services Management (BSM) software solutions, where he directed the team responsible for delivering 65% of Concord’s worldwide license revenues. Previously, Jacobs served as Vice President of Worldwide Alliances and Vice President of the Eastern Region for BroadVision, Inc., a global provider of personalized self-service web application software, where his leadership aided record setting growth from $15M to $440M in revenues over a four year period.  Prior posts also include various sales and management positions at Informix Software, Prism Solutions and Digital Equipment Corporation.

Keith E. Johnson - Vice President of Public Sector
Keith brings more than 25 years of federal business development and sales experience to Liquid Machines.  Most recently, Mr. Johnson held a similar position at Akamai Technologies, Inc. of Cambridge, Massachusetts.

 

Mr. Johnson joined Akamai in February 2002, and successfully managed the growth of Akamai's presence in the public sector, including customer relationships with civilian, DoD, and state and local and higher education agencies, as well as custom solutions.  He also led the formation of the company's public sector advisory board, comprised of leaders in the federal, state & local, defense, and industry sectors. 

 

In 2002, he managed Akamai's procurement of a GSA schedule award to further expand Akamai's federal sales channel.  In 2004, Mr. Johnson became a recipient of the 2004 Federal 100, an annual award sponsored by the government IT publication, Federal Computer Week.   Mr. Johnson was recognized for his role in bringing the technology to bear that allowed the National Weather Service (NWS) to extend its Internet infrastructure to meet the historic online demands for information brought about by Hurricane Isabel.

 

Prior to Akamai, Mr. Johnson held Federal sales management positions with such market-leading technology companies as Oracle and SAP.

Fajen Kyne - Chief Software Architect

As Chief Software Architect, Fajen is responsible for oversight of technical strategy and product-line architecture.

 

Prior to joining Liquid Machines, Fajen was an Architect for Fast Search and Transfer, a leading provider of Enterprise Search. At Fast, Fajen led the cross-company, multinational effort toward a next-generation, unified architecture for all search technologies. He also led development and QA efforts for Fast’s paid-inclusion service, PartnerSite.

 

Prior to Fast Search, Fajen was Technical Lead for OpenDesign, a company founded to solve key problems in application programming and delivery. At OpenDesign, Fajen was responsible for architecture and implementation of a whole-Internet-scale programmable message-routing system, as well as contributing to overall product strategy.

 

Prior to OpenDesign, Fajen held numerous positions at Microsoft in development, quality assurance, and technical support. At Microsoft, Fajen was most recently Technical Lead for MSN Search, where he designed and implemented the core search engine and supporting technologies. Prior to MSN Search, Fajen’s Microsoft tenure focused on development tools, including Visual Basic, Visual J++, Scripting Runtime, and the Visual Studio Universal Debugger.

Jody Vipperman Saarmaa - Vice President of Product Management

Jody brings more than 20 years of high-tech experience to Liquid Machines. Prior to Liquid Machines, Jody was Vice President of Marketing for Active Control Experts, a company which combined advanced control software with innovative materials to control, sense, and create motion. Jody’s efforts to focus the product strategy on the semiconductor manufacturing industry resulted in ACX’s acquisition by Cymer, the industry’s leading provider of lasers. Post acquisition, Jody led a cross-functional team to develop the first product-line extension for Cymer.

Before joining ACX, Jody spent 13 years at IBM in roles spanning product marketing, sales and software development. Jody serves as a member of the Board of Overseers of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, where she is also the Chairman of the Museum Council.

Jody holds a MS in Management from the MIT Sloan School of Management and a BS in Computer Science and Economics from Duke University.

Jeannie Vineyard - Vice President of Engineering
Jeannie brings more than 25 years of software development, outsourcing and quality assurance management experience to Liquid Machines leadership team. Prior to joining Liquid Machines, Jeannie was vice president of quality and outsourcing for data center virtualization company Egenera, where she led the company's testing and quality assurance operations and oversaw its outsourcing initiatives.

She started her career at Raytheon Systems and has held technical management positions at companies such as Kana Communications, Novasoft, OpenVision Technologies, Cognex Corporation, Cayman Systems and Prime Computer, overseeing the development of various operating systems, networking systems, image processing operations and enterprise-scale Web-based applications. Vineyard is a graduate of the University of New Hampshire, holding a B.S. in Computer Science.

Drew Zalkind - CFO
Drew was a partner for Chestnut Partners, an early stage venture capital company with a venture investment record averaging 17.3 times initial investments. He was intensively involved in working alongside management teams through all stages of their business, to increase speed to market, and enhance opportunities for financing. Prior to Chestnut Partners, he was a consultant at the MAC Group, a subsidiary of Gemini Consulting, where he advised top U.S. banks and other Fortune 100 companies on strategies to maximize their market values. Drew has a B.S. in Marketing from the Wharton School of Business and a B.A. in Psychology from University of Pennsylvania.