Lorraine Hariton Appointed President, CEO of Apptera; Ross Roesner Named Vice President of Engineering
SAN BRUNO, CA - Apptera announced the appointment of Lorraine Hariton as the company's new president and CEO. Former CEO of Beatnik and current chairman, Hariton will be responsible for Apptera's daily operations, long term business strategy, key customer accounts, as well as the company's nearly 25 employees. Hariton will also serve as a member of the board for Apptera.
Hariton replaces Rick DeGolia, who served as Apptera's president and CEO since March 2002. DeGolia raised more than $6 million in venture funding for Apptera and will remain with the company as chairman and chief strategy officer. Separately, Apptera named Ross Roesner as the company's vice president of engineering. Reporting to Hariton, Roesner will be responsible for engineering, product development and quality assurance.
Hariton, 48, is a former CEO with 25 years experience managing business development, sales and marketing. Prior to joining Apptera, Hariton served as Beatnik's CEO for more than three years. During her time at Beatnik, she raised more than $40 million and repositioned the company for profitability from a web-based audio content startup to the leading audio technology provider for wireless devices.
Previously, Hariton spent six years at Network Computing Devices, including serving as the company's executive vice president of sales, marketing and development. Prior to that, she worked for IBM for 15 years - spending six years in the ROLM division managing call center, PBX and computer-telephone integration products. She has also held positions at Verifone Corporation and American Airlines. Hariton holds a bachelor's degree in mathematical sciences from Stanford University and a master's of business administration from Harvard Business School.
Roesner, 41, has nearly 20 years experience in building and delivering software products. In his role at Apptera, Roesner will direct the company's engineering initiatives, working to meet aggressive product development and release schedules for the company's speech applications suite and award-winning studio and application server. Previously, Roesner provided business and technical analysis for early round, VC-stage technology companies before seeking an opportunity to lead Apptera's engineering efforts. Prior to that, he was vice president of engineering for Talaris Corporation, directing a 36-person team in the development of a user-centric Web services application and platform.
From 1996-2000, Roesner served as vice president of engineering for a networking startup company, International Network Services, which was later acquired by Lucent Technologies for $4.3 billion. Additionally, he held key engineering management positions at both Sybase and Hewlett-Packard Company, where he worked for eight years. Roesner earned his bachelor's degree in computer science from California's Chico State University.
"Ross brings an impressive product development career to Apptera, and has demonstrated his success in delivering highly critical software designs on time for a number of emerging technology sectors," said Hariton. "We are entering an exciting, yet essential stage in our product implementation cycles, and are honored to have Ross drive such a crucial part of our growing business."