Company > Management and Directors

FirstRain Management Team

Penny Herscher
President and CEO
Penny joined FirstRain in late 2004 with the mission to solve the qualitative information overload problem of the institutional investor. She has developed FirstRain from a technology provider to the leading search-driven application provider to the financial services market.

Prior to FirstRain, Penny was Chairman and CEO of Simplex Solutions, an electronic design automation company serving the global semiconductor industry. As CEO, she grew Simplex from a few engineers in 1996 to a high-growth, profitable software company. She led the company to an IPO in 2001 and through the sale of the company to Cadence Design Systems in 2002. Penny then worked at Cadence as Chief Marketing Officer and General Manager of a major division of the company. From 1988 to 1996, Penny was an early employee and executive at Synopsys. She started her career in 1982 as an R&D engineer with Texas Instruments and then Daisy Systems.

Penny serves on the boards of FirstRain, JDSU, Rambus, the Anita Borg Institute, Planned Parenthood Mar Monte and CCPY (California Community Partners for Youth). Penny speaks on entrepreneurship, career management and technology challenges and has given talks at Berkeley, Stanford, BU and Santa Clara business schools as well as for numerous industry organizations and women's career development organizations. She holds a B.A. with honors in mathematics from Cambridge University in England.

YY Lee
Chief Operating Officer
YY brings strong operational leadership and experience to her position at FirstRain. She leads engineering, product marketing, and professional services in the US and India. Under her guidance, our teams develop new software capability and provide professional services to our customers.

YY was most recently vice president of worldwide services at Cadence Design Systems, leading that business into profitability. Prior to that, she co-founded the software company Aqueduct. After successfully building that business, the company was acquired by NetManage, which she joined as a director of engineering. She has also worked at Bell Labs, Integrated Information Technology (IIT) and Synopsys. YY earned an A.B. in mathematics from Harvard University.

David A. Frankel
Vice President, Business Development
Prior to joining FirstRain, David was vice president of sales at BNY Jaywalk, the independent research consultancy division of the Bank of New York, where he created a go-to-market strategy for a business line that targeted broker-dealers. Before Bank of New York, David spent more than 11 years at FactSet Research Systems, where he led the team that built the foundation for FactSet's current global product marketing strategy as vice president of marketing, and contributed to the creation of a new business development department focused on establishing key strategic alliances as vice president of content and partnerships.

David holds a B.S. in marketing and political science from the Carroll School of Management at Boston College.

Martin Betz, Ph.D.
Vice President, Technology
With over 15 years experience building algorithm intensive software applications, Marty brings management expertise with a passion for data-intensive analytics. Most recently he was a founding partner of Beon Software creating systems for the collection and analysis of real-time text-based communication. Marty previously led an EDA software product group at Credence Systems Inc. and managed development of software for their EmiScope product line. He's been a partner and associate at several technical consulting firms, delivering software in diverse fields ranging from drug development to document and customer categorization. Prior to choosing a career in software, Marty worked as a math professor and researcher at the University of Texas, Austin. Marty's perspective and technical acumen will add substantial depth to FirstRain's information delivery technology.

Marty holds a Ph.D. in mathematics from Stanford University and an A.B. from Harvard University, also in math.

Udit Mathur
Vice President, FirstRain, India
Udit heads the India operations for FirstRain and brings strong leadership and management experience in research and analytics operations in the consumer and financial services industry. Prior to joining FirstRain, he was part of The Blackstone Group, a Chicago-based market research firm, where he built the knowledge services operations from the ground up. Earlier, Udit worked with leading market research organizations such as International Data Corporation (IDC) and AC Nielsen, as well as GE Capital where he led the development and deployment of portfolio strategies through analytics for financial products such as credit cards, insurance, and reinsurance.

Udit has earned an MBA in Marketing from Centre for Management Development and a BS in Computer Science from University of Delhi. He is also a certified Green Belt in Six-Sigma.

David Cooke
Vice President, Analytics
David brings over 25 years of experience growing high-performance global organizations, most recently as an executive in the services organization at Cadence Design Systems, prior to which he co-founded business consultancy MarketSpeed, with additional prior roles at Sun Microsystems and Fairchild Semiconductor.

David holds a B.Sc. in Engineering Science and MEng in Microelectronics and Management from the University of Durham, England.

Eugene Tighe
Corporate Controller
Eugene has more than 15 years of finance and accounting experience in the high-tech industry, growing emerging companies through successful IPOs. Before joining FirstRain, Eugene worked in financial leadership positions with mBlox, Astoria Software, Trintech and Quickturn Design Systems. He is a certified chartered accountant and previously worked at Ernst & Young.

Eugene holds a B.B.S. in Accounting and Finance from the University of Limerick.

Ana Pease
Director of Worldwide Human Resources
Ana brings over 11 years of experience running human resources as a strategic asset to her role sustainably accelerating FirstRain's business strategy and values. Prior to FirstRain, Ana was with Cypress Semiconductor where she managed strategic partner relationships globally and led HR teams on several mergers and acquisitions. Prior positions include Lara Networks and Digi International.

Ana holds a B.S. in Marketing and Industrial Psychology from San Jose State University.

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FirstRain Directors

Marc L. Dulude
Chairman
Marc joined FirstRain investor Ampersand Ventures in 2002 from Moldflow Corporation, where he was President and CEO. Marc brings more than eleven years experience as a senior information technology executive, including serving as Senior VP of Marketing at Parametric Technology and in various positions at Nortel. Marc also serves as Chairman Proficiency. He holds an M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Carleton University.

Bandel L. Carano
Director
Bandel L.Carano, Managing Partner, joined Oak Investment Partners in 1985 and became a General Partner in 1987. Bandel has invested in companies with emphasis on Wireless and Rich-Media communications (2Wire, Airspan, Avici, CommVerge, CoreTek, Endwave, FiberTower, General Bandwidth, Kratos Defense and Security Solutions, MobiTV, NeoPhotonics, Netopia, PictureTel, Plastic Logic, Polycom, Presidio, PulsePoint, Qtera, Sentient Networks, SmartDrive Systems, Tegic, Trapeze, and Wellfleet); Advanced Software Systems (Entropic, firstRain, Illustra/Informix, Sybase, Tele Atlas and Visto); Advanced Semiconductors (Actel, Airgo, CommQuest, Kenet, Level 5, NemeriX, Newport Media, nLight, Qpixel, Resonext, SMIC, Solarflare, Stretch, Synaptics and Virata); Design Automation (Centric Software, Interconnectix, Parametric, Synopsys and Tensilica) and Clean Energy Technologies (Aurora BioFuels, Boston-Power, eSolar, GreenVolts, NanoH2O, PML, ReliOn, and Sundrop Fuels). Prior to Oak, Bandel joined Morgan Stanley's Venture Capital Group in 1983. He was responsible for advising Morgan Stanley on high-tech new business development, as well as sponsoring venture investments. Bandel received BS and MS degrees in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University. He currently serves on the Investment Advisory Board of the Stanford Engineering Venture Fund.

Steven C. Walske
Director
Steve Walske led Parametric Technology Corporation (NASDAQ: PMTC) as the Chief Executive Officer from 1986 to 2000. Under his guidance, Parametric-a supplier of mechanical design and manufacturing software-established itself as one of the largest software-only companies in the world with revenues in excess of $1 billion. He guided the company from its start-up phase through its initial public offering in December 1989 to its position as market leader in mechanical design automation software. He holds an undergraduate degree from Princeton University and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Charles Frumberg
Director
Charles Frumberg is the founder and managing partner of Emancipation Capital, an activist hedge fund focused on publicly traded enterprise IT companies. He brings more than 28 years of well-recognized experience with capital markets and research to the FirstRain board.

Before founding Emancipation Capital, Charles was the co-head of equities for SG Cowen Securities Corp., a leading investment bank specializing in technology and health care. Prior to joining SG Cowen, Charles was the director of United States equity research and co-head of global research at UBS Securities. Under Charles' leadership, Institutional Investor magazine selected UBS as a top-four global research firm. Charles started his career at Mabon, Nugent and Co.

In addition to the FirstRain board, Frumberg also sits on the boards of Trilogy Software and nSight Software.

Mary Henry
Director
Mary Henry was a partner and managing director of Goldman Sachs for over 18 years. Over the course of her tenure, primarily in the firm's Investment Research Division, Henry became one of the top ranked analysts on Wall Street and was named an Institutional Investor All-Star analyst. She was personally involved in financings that totaled tens of billions of dollars and spanned a variety of technologies, initial public offerings and strategic advisory work. Henry started her career at Centel Corporation and Washington National Corporation before joining Goldman Sachs, and received a BA in Economics and an MS in Journalism from Northwestern University.

Raman Khanna
Observer of the Board
Raman Khanna has 20 years of operating experience and 15 years of investment experience in information technology. Raman was named on the Forbes Midas List as a top 100 dealmaker in 2008 and 2009. He has been involved in many start-ups that had exits valued at over $1 Billion.

At ONSET, Raman is focused on software, internet infrastructure and digital media sectors. He currently serves on boards of Mixercast, Permuto, Serus, FirstRain and Nitronex.

Prior to becoming a managing director of ONSET, Raman co-founded Diamondhead Ventures in June 2000 where he led the firm's investments in Cavium Networks (IPO: CAVM), Reactivity (acquired by Cisco Systems), PassMark Security (acquired by RSA Security/EMC), Orative (acquired by Cisco Systems), Intraspect (acquired by Vignette), Serus, FirstRain and Nitronex.

Prior to Diamondhead Ventures, Raman worked at Stanford University for 16 years in various roles, including Chief Information Officer (CIO) and Chief Technology Officer (CTO). Raman also served on Advisory Boards of many global technology companies. During his Stanford tenure, Raman was actively involved with many high technology start-ups as an angel investor, advisor and board member. His portfolio included Berkeley Networks (acquired by Fore Systems), Postini (acquired by Google), Siara Networks (acquired by Redback), SupportSoft (IPO), Shopping.com (IPO), Selectica (IPO) and Entercept Security Technologies (acquired by McAfee).

Raman is one of the early charter members of The Indus Entrepreneur (TiE), the world's largest non-profit organization for entrepreneurs. Raman currently serves on the board of TiE Silicon Valley.

Raman received a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Delhi University, an M.S. in Computer Science from Virginia Tech and an MBA from Golden Gate University.