Management Team

John D’Anna

Chief Executive Officer

Bringing more than 25 years of industry experience to the role, John D’Anna is Chief Executive Officer of Empirix, Inc. Prior to joining the company; John served as senior vice president of global sales and services for JDSU’s Test & Measurement Product Group. Under John's leadership, JDSU’s Communications Test & Measurement sales organization built strategic relationships with some of the world’s largest communications service providers and equipment manufacturers. In addition, John led the company’s global services group, a multinational organization focused on delivering services in support of JDSU’s Systems & Software solutions for deployment and maintenance, product support services, consulting and educational services.

John joined JDSU in August 2005 with the acquisition of Acterna, where he was executive vice president of global sales and services. Before joining Acterna, John was field sales representative for Hewlett-Packard’s Test & Measurement Group from 1984 to 1990.

John is a member of the Advisory Board for the Newark College of Engineering, the engineering college of the New Jersey Institute of Technology. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering from the New Jersey Institute of Technology and received a Masters of Business Administration in finance from Fairleigh Dickinson University.

Ray DeZenzo

CFO and Senior Vice President of Operations

Ray DeZenzo brings more than 28 years of diversified financial and operational experience to his role with Empirix.

Before joining Empirix, Ray served as Chief Financial Officer, VP of Operations and General Manager at Tatara Systems, building products for the mobile convergence market. Prior to Tatara, he was the Vice President and Chief Financial Officer at Quallaby Corporation, delivering carrier class network performance software which was acquired by Micromuse. Well versed in technology environments, Ray has extensive knowledge of strategic financial planning, operations, and financial reporting across a variety of companies. Previously, he also served as the Vice President and Chief Financial Officer at Cadia Networks. Earlier in his career, Ray held a number of middle management to executive levels positions with Xyplex, Unitrode Corp., Edwards High Vacuum International, and Dresser Industries.

Ray holds a B.S. degree in Accounting from Central Connecticut State University.

Franco Messori

Chief Strategy Officer

Franco Messori is a leading authority on network protocols. His extensive experience includes building strong design teams, creating innovative test equipment and bringing new technologies to market.

In 2009 he took the leadership of Mutina Technologies, providing quality assurance technologies for mobile, next-gen, IPTV and IP core networks. He grew the company until it was acquired by Empirix. During his tenure, the company also launched a ground-breaking hand-held device for advanced, real-time testing in the field.

Prior to Mutina, Franco founded Pro.tel Srl, one of the first companies to offer VoIP monitoring solutions. It was acquired by Sunrise Telecom in 2000 and Franco served as CEO of the Sunrise Telecom Pro.tel Division for six years. He then consulted with international telecommunications companies on network architecture, security, management and troubleshooting issues.

Before his entrepreneurial work, Franco served as managing director of Ascom Italia from 1991-1996 and became CTO of Tele Communication Systems (TCS) in 1981. Before he served Telecom Italia former SIP in data transmission department.

Franco earned his degree in telecommunications in 1977.

Vijay Malik

Vice President, Engineering

Vijay comes to Empirix with strong mobile and wire line experience. He most recently worked for VPI Systems, where he led the strategic development of OSS/BSS products used in mobile data networks and wire line carriers that helped drive the company's impressive growth. With more than 20 years of experience, Vijay has driven product development efforts for many world-class organizations including Arbor Networks (acquired by Tektronix), where he lead content delivery engineering for subscriber management products sold to wireless and wire line operators. In addition, Vijay also held engineering positions at RAD Data Communications, Mangrove Systems, Fujitsu, Lucent and CDOT.

Vijay received an ME in Computer Science from Birla Institute of Technology and BE in CS from Nagpur University. He holds a patent in ATM Multicasting methods and systems.

Brigid MacDonald

Vice President, Human Resources

Brigid MacDonald brings to the company more than 23 years of experience in Human Resources management. Brigid has spearheaded and executed organizational change and development across Empirix for more than eight years.

Prior to Empirix, Brigid served as the Director of Human Resources for the Institute for Healthcare Improvement. While there, she created a strong Human Resources strategy, guided organizational development, managed all recruiting activities, and improved the benefit plan design while reducing costs. Brigid has also driven human resources programs for The Picker Institute, Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital, and Bankers Trust Company.

Brigid has a BA in Finance from St. Mary's College and a Master of Science in Management from Boston University.

Tim Moynihan

Vice President, Marketing

Tim Moynihan serves as vice president of marketing at Empirix. In this role, Tim is responsible for strategic business planning and product revenue growth strategies as well as expanding Empirix's position as the market leader in service quality assurance solutions for enterprises and service providers. These responsibilities include providing executive leadership, managing their individual business units on both an internal and external basis as well as overseeing marketing objectives worldwide.

With a specialty in technology marketing in both U.S. and international markets, Tim served as vice president of global marketing and channels at Envox Worldwide prior to Empirix, where he developed and implemented company product management and product marketing and channel strategies for advanced inbound and outbound voice communications solutions. Prior to Envox Worldwide, he served as director at Intel Corporation where he created and implemented worldwide product launches and ecosystem and awareness building programs for rapid market adoption.

Tim earned his bachelor's degree at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass., and received his MBA from Purdue University.

Nikolas Koutsoukos

Vice President, Product Management

Nikolas comes to Empirix with strong networking and security product management experience. He most recently worked for Crossbeam Systems, where he led the strategic development of network security platforms for enterprise end service provider markets. With more than 20 years of experience, Nikolas has driven product development efforts for many world class organizations including 3Com, where he led product management initiatives for all small-medium business product lines such as security, switching, wireless, routing and VoIP.

Nikolas has received a Dip.M. in Strategic Marketing from the Chartered Institute of Marketing and a BSEE from Leeds Metropolitan University.

Gerhard Auer

Senior Vice President, Sales and Services, International

With over 15 years of experience in sales, sales management and solution design expertise in the telecom industry, Gerhard serves as Vice President of Sales & Services, International at Empirix. In this role Gerhard is responsible for bringing Empirix testing, monitoring and analytic solutions to market across EMEA and APAC.

Prior to Empirix, Gerhard most recently served as the Executive Director and General Manager of EMEA East and Emerging Markets for JDSU. There he managed both the direct and channel sales teams and was responsible for architecting and implementing strategic sales plans with both key accounts and channel partners. Previously, Gerhard held direct sales and solution specialist positions within the company.

Prior to joining JDSU, Gerhard worked in key accounts management at Alcatel Austria. He developed his strong telecom, data and communications background with earlier appointments at Elekom, HMC and Philips.

Matthew Ainsworth

Senior Vice President, Sales and Services, Americas and Japan

Matthew has 15 years of experience in the Industry, having worked globally with Contact Centers and Unified Communications Solutions in Sales and Strategic Business Leader Roles. Matthew serves as Vice President of Sales and Services, Americas & Japan. In this role, he is responsible for driving Empirix testing, monitoring and analytics solutions to market. He has held other roles within Empirix, including driving Enterprise Strategy, Global Alliances and Sales in EMEA, as well as driving Empirix Testing as a Service (ETaaS) and OEM/Joint offerings with the leaders in Communications. Matthew travels the world as a customer advocate to support the strategy to deliver Quality of User Experience.

Prior to joining Empirix, Matthew had held a number of sales positions, the last being the Sales Leader for Financial Services at Cognos (now IBM) in UK, as the World Market Leader in Business Intelligence software used to gain a complete perspective of customer business' performance and Financial Performance Management to set targets and allocate the resources to achieve them.

He earned a BA Hons Degree in Accounting and Finance from the University of Lincolnshire.