Major Accomplishments Of The Leadership Team

The leaders of Aginity have spent their careers leveraging data to transform companies and whole industries.

A sampling of relevant major accomplishments include:

• Built IRI’s Behaviorscan® offering from the ground up. 
• Built IRI’s Loyalty Analytic Frequent Shopper Card offering. 
• Built 10 of AC Nielsen’s analytic delivery products during the 90’s. 
• Built a measurement and market research service for online ad response behavior with NPD and Nielsen/Claritas.
• Built a SaaS offering at Click Commerce that leveraged data and analytics to integrate the activities of industrial Karetsu’s.
• Partner of Slack Barshinger, the largest B2B agency in the U.S. Built and launched the first web-based global supply chain ASP.
• Built the platform on which American Express first brought card holders’ data to the Web.
• Built highly scalable VLDB warehouse and analytic systems across marketing, CPG, financial services and hospitality.

Doug Grimsted, CEO

Doug has been building successful businesses and leading the development of data-centric solutions for 25 years.  From the early 80’s of local computer “databases”, to client-server architectures, to ASP and SaaS, to present-day, high-end data appliances, and cloud computing, Doug and the companies he has started and run can be found leading each “game changer” in the broad world of “data analytics”.

Doug’s pioneering leadership encompasses:

• Data and Information Delivery: Doug led the development of software products, services, and tools that have data and information delivery at their core for companies like  ACNielsen, Kraft Foods and, Kimberley Clark.  Doug had direct involvement in building 10 of ACNielsen’s consumer insight delivery platforms including: Retail Price Simulator™, Automated Lan Production System™, Sales Advisor™, Spaceman Production System™ and Category Manager™.
• Data-intensive Clients: AT&T, AC Nielsen, Dun & Bradstreet, Hewlett Packard, Kimberley Clark, Kraft Foods and Motorola.
• Agile Development – At Geneer and now at Aginity, Doug has pioneered the use of agile development methodologies, reducing risks and time-to-market for software product launches
• Software Services – Under Doug’s leadership, Geneer helped launch some of the earliest Application Service Provider (ASP) business models, building products for companies such as logistics and supply chain vendor Celarix and VisiBILLity, the insurance industry’s collaborative litigation management solution. At Aginity, he is leading the development of a new generation of Software as a Service applications, built on delivering intelligence along the value chain.

In addition to Aginity and Geneer, Doug founded and served as President and COO of Adaptive RFID, a software services company that enables business process improvement and compliance with radio frequency identification (RFID) tagging mandates in the retail supply chain and defense contracting industries.

A major figure in the world of tech entrepreneurship, Doug is a member of the Chicago/NW Indiana Entrepreneurship Hall of Fame, won the KPMG High Tech Award, and has been an E &Y Entrepreneur of the Year Award finalist on two occasions. He has incubated and facilitated the launch of eight new companies through the Kellogg School Entrepreneurship & Innovation Program.

Dan Kuhn, CTO

A recognized authority in data and software development, Dan has been at the forefront of innovation for 18 years.

• Data Appliance Architecture: Dan is the principle architect of the award-winning CPG/Retail solutions provided by Market6 built on the Netezza data appliance.  In January 2009, Consumer Goods Technology Magazine awarded Market6 an “Editor’s Pick” for Supply Chain Support.  As recognition for his pivotal role in the success of Market6, Dan enjoys “most trusted advisor” status with the entire executive team of Market6.   Dan’s architecture supports the acquisition, data cleansing, and reporting of multi-terabytes of data per week.
• Dan led software development at American Express, where he helped design and develop the platform on which the company first brought card holders’ information to the Web.
• He served as Chief Software Architect and CTO of Click Commerce, where he developed enterprise-level supply chain management and e-commerce platforms that allowed major B2B companies such as Delphi, Callaway Golf and Carrier to successfully do business on the Web.
• A technology leader, Dan served as a member of the Microsoft .NET Advisory Council, providing feedback and direction for Microsoft's .NET Platform. He also co-founded Anticipating Minds, a company that built award-winning tools to enable and manage the software development process.

Having begun his career as an engineer, Dan has brought a real-world, solution-driven approach to his years of leadership in the software industry. His achievements include winning two U.S. patents for cutting-edge thermodynamics solutions in the aerospace industry. In between his career accomplishments, Dan found time to join the Peace Corps, providing engineering support to developing nations in Africa.

Asif Ahmed, COO

Asif brings years of strategic product management and consulting experience to his role at Aginity

• Asif co-founded VisiBILLity a quintessential ASP business model success story. VisiBILLity provides a Web-based e-billing, audit and collaboration platform to law firms and Fortune 500 insurance companies. Under Asif’s leadership, the company grew its client base to more than 1000 firms across the United States, annually processing several billion dollars a year in legal bills and indemnity payouts.
• Previously, Asif served as a management consultant at PricewaterhouseCoopers, advising both Fortune 500 and start-up clients on information technology, product development and staffing strategies.
• He began his consulting career at Accenture, working with Fortune 500 clients on enterprise-level systems integration projects and migrations from mainframe systems to client/server architectures.

Asif holds his MBA from the Kellogg Graduate School of Business of Northwestern University, and a B.A. in Physics and Mathematics from Knox College.

Ted Westerheide, Chief Architect

A 20+ year veteran , Westerheide comes to Aginity from ShopLocal, a provider of online media, where he was responsible for the information business and partnerships with market research firms.  Prior to ShopLocal, Mr. Westerheide was Senior Vice President of Loyalty Analytics at Information Resources.  Westerheide also has held leadership positions at Technology Partner at Fusion Ventures, an early stage venture fund and Chief Technology Officer at Xcelerate (acquired by Avenue A Razorfish), where he was instrumental in growing the e-Business services company from a start-up to over $30 million in annual revenue.

Ted's many career achievements include:

• Building a measurement and market research service for online ad response behavior with NPD and Nielsen/Claritas.
• Building an IRI division from the ground up to create a service for consumer-centric retailing. Innovative (patent pending) technology and an ASP service to change retail, enabling targeted marketing and shopper specific merchandising, pricing and promotion.
• As a venture capitalist at Fusion Ventures, Ted provided seed stage venture funding for SaaS and consumer behavior companies.  He was an active coach and worked with early stage companies as board member and principal.
• Built highly scalable VLDB warehouse and analytic systems across marketing, CPG, financial services and hospitality.

Ken Florian, CMO

Ken has 20 years of hands-on technology leadership experience as a company owner, executive leader, marketer, and software developer.  Ken was Doug Grimsted's president and business partner for a dozen years at Geneer.  Ken has participated in every aspect of growing and managing a software development company.

• Way back when, he cut code for Geneer’s largest clients.  Ken takes great pleasure in the fact that an application he authored in the early 1990's still generates 7-figure income for that client.
• When he needed strong leadership, Grimsted promoted him to VP of Software Development.  In this role, Ken lead all aspects of service delivery to Fortune 1000 clients. 
• In 1995 Ken became president of Geneer and continued to work with Doug and the executive team to create a high-performing software development organization.
• For the past 6 years Ken has focused exclusively on the marketing of software development services.  Prior to re-joining Doug at Aginity in 2008, Ken was the VP of Marketing at Geneca, LLC.  While at Geneca, Ken drove the marketing efforts that grew company revenue 4-fold in three years. Keys to this success included consistent and focused messaging, public relations, and attracting top-grade talent to the company.   One notable contribution was Ken's invention of a "Feet on The Desk" technology strategy workshop.

Ken’s work has been externally recognized by repeat invitations spanning his career to teach workshops on the various development methodologies, training programs, and people systems he used to help build a software development company. At Aginity, Ken's job is to find prospective clients and show them how a data factory built by Aginity can turn them into an aggressive competitor and profit machine.

Farrukh Khan, Senior Strategist

Farrukh has over 15 years of experience in product strategy and product management: extensive experience in go-to-market strategy, business process re-engineering, product management, post-merger integration, product roadmap definition, competitive analysis and vendor evaluation. He started his career at McKinsey & Company and has subsequently worked in leading enterprise software and market analytic companies in the East Coast and in Silicon Valley.

• Farrukh was VP of Product Management at IRI where he strategized with senior management around IRI’s entrance into the supply chain world and led the product management of IRI’s supply chain initiatives utilizing daily data and focused on solving out-of-stocks in retail and CPG.
• As Group Product Manager at Informatica Corporation Farrukh created the Informatica real-time data integration suite. He led Product Strategy/Business development strategy focused on real-time data integration solutions, Business Activity Monitoring (BAM) solutions and Data Quality solutions.
• He co-founded MicroStrategy’s Strategy.com business unit focused on using business intelligence technology for consumer information reporting/alerting, he helped grow from 3 to 300 people and $25M in revenue.
• At both Morgan Stanley & Company and McKinsey, Farrukh performed multiple roles as a senior technology consultant including analysis recommendations of internet and new technology strategy for Fortune 500 companies.

He has a Masters of Business Administration in Strategy and Entrepreneurship from the Kellogg School of Management of Northwestern University and a Bachelors of Science in Electrical Engineering and Physics from Columbia University.

Michael Cacicio, Partner, Marketing and Strategic Partnerships

A marketing and research veteran, Mike has spent twenty years helping companies leverage the power of research and analytics to optimize their businesses.

• Mike held leadership positions in operations and business development at Information Resources, Inc. (IRI) the world’s leading provider of enterprise market information solutions and services.
• He led the market research services division at Slack Barshinger, the largest B2B advertising agency in the US, helping some of most world’s leading companies understand the dynamics of their markets and find opportunity.

Mike has consulted with virtually every major consumer packaged goods manufacturer and retailer as well as several of the world's largest business-to-business marketers, empowering the development and execution of profitable strategies and tactics for a rapidly changing marketplace

Oleg Popivnenko, VP of Technology , Kharkiv

Oleg has 18 years of experience in all phases of software development. He started his career as a software engineer but soon augmented his technical skills to include requirements gathering and definition, architecture design, testing, and complete SDLC and team management.

Four years ago, Oleg extended his already deep database development skills to include building VLDB’s on the Netezza massively parallel (MPP) database appliance. As a certified Netezza engineer, Oleg currently leads the development of analytic data factories for multi-terabyte databases. Oleg’s leadership includes architectural design and coding across the entire data life cycle – from raw data arriving from dozens of heterogeneous systems, to performing analytical data processing and forecasting, to building dimensional tables and fact cubes for reporting purposes.

Prior to his recent focus on building VLDB analytic data factories, Oleg built a wide range of data-driven applications for Web, Windows and Windows Mobile platforms. He is an experienced practitioner of agile development methodologies especially as they apply to building terabyte and larger database systems. Oleg is proficient in multiple programming languages, tools, and databases.

In his career he has led the design and development for an enormous variety of applications. A small sample includes: -

• Enterprise data warehouses
• ETL and ELT solutions
• Data synchronization solutions
• Supply chain management systems
• E-Learning platforms
• Municipal accounting and quality control systems.

Oleg holds a master’s degree in engineering from Kharkov State Polytechnic University as well as numerous technical and platform certifications.

Andrey Gamayun. Director of BI Architecture, Kharkiv

Andrey has more than 15 years of experience in technical architecture, programming and team leadership. He has designed and implemented large scale data centric software and business intelligence solutions across multiple industries, using a wide range of technology platforms, including Microsoft, Oracle and MySQL. The systems he has built have included wholesale telecommunication financial and transaction applications, customer web portals and customer relationship management applications.

An expert in managing electronic transactions, Andrey has substantial experience designing and building ecommerce systems and other electronic data exchange applications. Prior to Aginity, Andrey worked as a software engineer for several Ukrainian firms specializing in business intelligence, data management and online collaboration.

Certified in multiple programming disciplines including object-oriented analysis and information system design, Andrey holds a master’s degree in applied mathematics from Kharkov Polytechnic Institute.