Paul M. Russo, PhD
Chairman & CEO
Eric Erdman
CFO
Zorawar Bassi
CTO
Ronald Allard
VP Worldwide Sales
Sudhir Chandratreya
VP Engineering
Brian Gannon
VP Marketing & Business Development
Michael Hopton
VP Operations & GM Toronto
Hiro Ito
Vice President & GM Japan
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Paul M. Russo, PhD
Chairman & CEO
Dr. Russo currently serves as Chairman and CEO of GEO Semiconductor. He also serves as Director of FONOLO (www.fonolo.com) and SBG Labs (www.sbglabs.com), and an Advisor to SiOnyx – the “Black Silicon” Company (www.sionyx.com). Prior to founding GEO Semi, Dr. Russo Founded Silicon Optix in 2000, a privately held fabless semiconductor company, serving as Chairman & CEO through 2008. GEO acquired certain assets from Silicon Optix in 2009. Prior to Silicon Optix, Dr. Russo was the founder, Chairman and CEO of Genesis Microchip (acquired by ST Micro in 2007) through 2000, including its successful NASDAQ IPO in 1998, and on its board until 2001.
Prior to founding Genesis, he was General Manager of GE’s Microelectronics Center, Senior Manager in GE’s Industrial Electronics Group and Head, Microsystems Research at RCA’s David Sarnoff Research Center.
Dr. Russo received his B. Eng. from McGill University and his MSc and PhD in EECS from UC Berkeley. He holds six U.S. patents, is a Fellow of the IEEE and has received numerous RCA and industry awards, including the IEEE Centennial Medal and the 2006 Tech Pioneer Award from the World Economic Forum. He served as an outside director of ATI Technologies from 2001 through its acquisition by AMD in late 2006, as well as numerous private venture funded start-ups acquired by public entities (e.g., RocketChips – acquired by Xilinx, Atmos – acquired by MoSys).
Dr. Russo is a member of the Global Semiconductor Association (GSA) Emerging Company CEO Council and participates in its EDA sub-committee.
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Eric Erdman
CFO
Eric Erdman has served as our Chief Financial Officer since January 2013. He served as Chief Financial Officer for ViXS Systems Inc., a private semiconductor company based in Toronto, Canada, from November 2007 to September 2012. From April 2005 to October 2007, Mr. Erdman served as Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President of Silicon Optix Inc., a private semiconductor company based in San Jose, California. From July 1995 to September 2004 Mr. Erdman served in various capacities with Genesis Microchip Inc., a publicly traded semiconductor company, including Chief Financial Officer, interim Chief Executive Officer and on their Board of Directors.
Mr. Erdman holds an Honours Bachelor of Mathematics degree from the University of Waterloo, and is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants.
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Zorawar Bassi
CTO
Dr. Zorawar Bassi serves as CTO for GEO Semiconductor Inc. and is a key inventor of GEO’s patented warping (eWARP) technology. From 2009 to 2011, Dr Bassi served as Director of R&D at GEO, leading the research and IP development efforts. Prior to joining GEO, Dr. Bassi was a Senior DSP Engineer at Silicon Optix (2000-2009), where he architected three generations of geometry processing chips (acquired by GEO), and made important contributions to their video processing technology.
Dr. Bassi holds numerous patents world-wide, including 10 US patents, as well as having several scientific publications.
Dr. Bassi received his B.Sc. degree from University of Toronto, and his M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in Theoretical Physics from Cornell University. Dr. Bassi is a member of the American Physical Society.
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Ronald Allard
VP Worldwide Sales
Ronald Allard serves as VP of Worldwide Sales for GEO Semiconductor, Inc. (GEO). Prior to joining GEO, Mr. Allard drove worldwide channel sales and emerging markets for Magnum Semiconductor, a leading video compression processor company for professional broadcast applications.
Prior to Magnum from 2003 to 2009, Mr. Allard served as VP of Sales for W&W Communications, Inc., a successful high definition video compression chip company acquired by Cavium Networks, Inc. From 1998 to 2003, Mr. Allard co-founded and served as VP of Business Development at InfoMove, a leading wireless technology company, where he drove sales and strategic relationships worldwide. Prior to InfoMove, Mr. Allard served in senior sales and business development roles including over 10 years with Sony Corporation.
Mr. Allard holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Finance from University of Houston, Houston, Texas and a MBA Degree from Pepperdine University, Malibu, California.
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Sudhir Chandratreya
VP Engineering
Dr. Chandratreya serves as Vice President of Engineering for GEO Semiconductor. He brings extensive experience in various areas of Semiconductors of which last thirteen years at a Vice President level.
After obtaining doctorate Dr. Chandratreya worked in variety of assignments at Hewlett Packard Corporation starting with IC process development all the way up to cutting edge CPU designs and very large subsystem development for Corporate Servers. Following that he worked at a startup which was acquired by Micron Corp. Afterwards he was Vice President in NeoMagic Corp responsible for VLSI development of their Application Processor SOC products. Later he ran Centillium Corporation’s DSL/VoIP/Optical communication product lines, both Analog/Digital CO/CPE, as Vice President of for Engineering. He then joined Maxim Integrated as Executive Director of Video Processing Products. Finally he came to his current position through GEO’s acquisition of the same product line.
Dr. Chandratreya completed his undergraduate engineering degree from Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur. He has Master’s degree from Stanford University which he obtained under Hewlett Packard Fellowship. He earned his Ph.D. from University of California, Berkeley.
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Brian Gannon
VP Marketing & Business Development
Brian comes to GEO through the acquisition of Maxim Integrated’s Digital Video business where he served as the general manager of the product line. Brian worked at Maxim for over eight years in both product line management and general management roles. At Maxim Brian created the Display product line that rose to 80% market share in the LCD TV market for analog display drivers. Brian also led the acquisitions of Mobilygen, a leader in H.264 video compression and Trinity Convergence, leaders in Voice and Video telephony software in embedded systems. Prior to Maxim Brian worked as a management consultant at The Boston Consulting Group and as a design engineer at Fujitsu. Brian holds a BS in Electrical Engineering from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and an MBA from MIT’s Sloan School of Management.
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Michael Hopton
VP Operations & GM Toronto
Michael Hopton currently serves as VP and GM Toronto Operations for GEO Semiconductor Inc (GEO). Prior to joining GEO, Mr. Hopton served as VP Operations at Silicon Optix Inc from 2004 until 2008, he also served as Director of Operations from 2000 (when the company was founded) until 2004.
Prior to Silicon Optix Mr. Hopton served as Manager of Manufacturing Engineering at Genesis Microchip Inc. from 1995-2000. In this position, he supported the development qualification, release to production, and sustaining engineering on Genesis products. Prior to 1995, Mr. Hopton performed test program development, characterization and production engineering on Genesis products. He started his career at Texas Instruments working as Senior Product Engineer on mixed-signal devices for the Automotive and Cell Phone Markets from 1988 to 1991.
Mr. Hopton is a 1988 graduate from the Heirot-Watt University, Edinburgh, Scotland, with a Bachelor’s degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering.
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Hiro Ito
Vice President & GM Japan
Hiro Ito currently serves as GEO’s VP and GM Japan. Prior to joining GEO, Mr. Ito served as Managing Director at Intersil Corporation (NASDAQ: ISIL) since its acquisition of Techwell (NASDAQ: TWLL) in 2010. While at Techwell, he served as President of Techwell Japan from 2006 until 2010. Prior to joining Techwell, Mr. Ito served as General Partner of Global Technologies Alliance, a venture capital firm specializing in investments in startup companies in the high-tech sector. Prior to Global Technologies Alliance, Mr. Ito served as General Manager, Business Development of Kanematsu, a Japanese Trading firm specializing in business opportunities between US and Japan.
Mr. Ito is a 1982 graduate from the University in Tokyo, Japan, with a Bachelor’s degree in Electronic Engineering.
