The World's AI Company

Matt Zeiler

CEO & Founder

Matt has worked alongside renowned machine learning pioneers Geoff Hinton, Rob Fergus, Yann LeCun and Jeff Dean. This experience cultivated his passion for convolutional and deconvolutional neural networks and visual recognition. Matt's unprecedented knowledge and know-how in deep learning landed him winning the top five places in image classification at the ImageNet 2013 competition. Matt received his undergraduate degree at University of Toronto and a Ph.D. in machine learning and image recognition from New York University.

Alfredo Ramos

Sr. Vice President of Platform

For over 20 years, Alfredo has worked in various technology companies with a focus on product-led enterprise growth. At Clarifai, he's responsible for Product, Marketing, Research, and Engineering. Prior to Clarifai, he was the General Manager of Vistaprint's digital business. During his career, Alfredo has worked in various leadership roles at Webs, Web.com, and Network Solutions. He holds an MBA from the University of Pennsylvania Wharton School, a MLA in Information Systems from Harvard University Extension School and a Hon.BSc in Computer Science from the University of Toronto.

Michael Gormish

Vice President of Research

Michael's teams work on bringing image and language understanding to Clarifai's platform. Recent projects have involved machine learning for tracking, object detection, text extraction and processing, visual search, and image classification. Prior to Clarifai, he was at Ricoh for 20 years. His work focused on computer vision and precursors to block chain technologies focused on documents. He has authored algorithms used in video games, digital cinema, satellite and medical image acquisition. He led several aspects of the JPEG 2000 standardization. He earned a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University.

Joe Monti

Sr. Vice President of Finance & Operations

Joe is responsible for Finance, Legal, and HR departments, and partnering closely with functional teams as the organization builds the proper processes and strategies that will help Clarifai scale rapidly. Prior to Clarifai, Joe was most recently SVP of Finance and Commercial Operations at Zylotech, which was recently acquired by Terminus. Prior to that, Joe was the SVP of Finance at CrowdTwist and a transition advisor following Oracle’s acquisition of the company. Earlier in his career, Joseph held finance roles within Unilever and Penguin Random House LLC. 

Ruchika Agrawal

General Counsel

Ruchika has worked on intersectional technology, law, and public policy issues since 2001. She has significant trial and litigation experience, diversified in-house counsel experience is CIPP/US certified, and completed a federal district court clerkship. She is passionate about giving back to the community, most recently receiving the Bloomberg Financial Markets Award for Outstanding Community Service. Ruchika received her undergraduate degree from Rutgers-New Brunswick and graduate degree in Computer Science from Stanford University. She received her law degree from the University of Virginia School of Law.

Yuchen Fama

Vice President of Product

Yuchen brings to Clarifai more than 10 years of experience in machine learning/statistical learning and large scale production ML infrastructure. She earned her Ph.D. in Statistics in 2010 from University of Connecticut and is currently serving as an elected council member of New England Statistical Society, a non-profit research organization.

Adam Irving

Vice President of Sales, America

Adam is responsible for the overall strategy and execution of Clarifai’s global sales growth and revenue generation efforts. He has successfully led various technology sales teams for nearly 20 years across firms such as BMC Software, AppDynamics, Cisco, and Rubrik. The majority of his career has been spent building go-to-market teams to address mission critical Public Sector customer needs.

Rob Watson

Vice President of Public Sector Sales

Rob is responsible for the growth, strategy and execution of Clarifai’s Public Sector sales business. He brings more than 10 years of experience in software sales and leadership roles across firms such as BMC Software, Red Hat, AppDynamics, and Cisco. Rob has an undergraduate degree from North Carolina State University, where he majored in Political Science.

Kathleen Shouldis

Vice President of Marketing

Kathleen brings over 23 years experience from IBM where most recently she was the CMO and VP, Marketing, Industrial Market and Watson IoT. During her tenure at IBM, Kathleen developed, deployed, and led successful field enablement programs focusing on IBM’s Cloud portfolio and SaaS offerings. She successfully launched the notion of cognitive manufacturing and services for clients undergoing a digital transformation, and this effort won IBM a silver Effie Award for Effectiveness. Kathleen graduated from Syracuse University and received a professional certification in marketing strategy from The Wharton School.

Ben Amaba, PhD, PE, CPIM^®, LEED^® AP

Vice President of Strategic Partnerships

With over 25 years of global experience, Ben was CTO for Data and ML/AI at IBM and is recognized for private public partnerships in sectors including defense, manufacturing, distribution, and energy. Ben received his Ph.D. in Industrial and Systems Engineering from the University of Miami. As a Professional Engineer with International Registry; certified in operations by ASCM; LEED^® Professional; and certified in Strategy by MIT, he earned his BS in Electrical Engineering and MS in Engineering Management. Ben holds a copyright and multiple patents.

Bryan Minor

Vice President of Professional Services

Bryan manages the services portfolio for getting optimal value from Clarifai’s AI platform by providing: custom model building, AI solution development, field engineering, deployment, labeling, support, and program management. After serving as an officer in the U.S. Air Force for a decade and earning his Ph.D. from Air Force Institute of Technology in physics, then turned entrepreneur over the last 26 years and is now in his eighth startup.

Lieutenant General Robert P. Ashley, Jr., U.S. Army, Ret.

Sr. Advisor & Member of Public Sector Advisory Council

Lt. General Robert Paul Ashley Jr. most recently served as the Director of the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency. He previously served as Army Deputy Chief of Staff, G-2 where he was the Senior Advisor to the Secretary of the Army and Army Chief of Staff for all aspects of intelligence, counterintelligence, and security. Other notable assignments include the Director of Intelligence, Joint Special Operations Command; the Director of Intelligence, U.S. Central Command; the Deputy Chief of Staff, Intelligence, International Security Assistance Force and Director of Intelligence, U.S. Forces, Afghanistan; and Commanding General, the U.S. Army Intelligence Center of Excellence.

Major General Barbara Fast, U.S. Army, Ret.

Sr. Advisor & Member of Public Sector Advisory Council

Major General Barbara Fast, U.S. Army, Ret., is a member of the Military Intelligence Corps Hall of Fame. She was the first female to command an Army Military Intelligence Tactical Exploitation Battalion and the first female Intelligence Officer/G2 of a combat division. Her expertise spans across intelligence and cybersecurity. Major General Fast, served the U.S. Army for 32 years. Major General Fast holds an M.S. degree in Business Administration from Boston University and was given an honorary Doctorate of Laws degree from Central Missouri University. She also is a graduate of the Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania and the Armed Forces.

Ellen M. Lord

Sr. Advisor & Member of Public Sector Advisory Council

Ellen served as the first Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment, leading the Department of Defense’s personnel, policy and processes for acquisition of products and services, lifecycle sustainment and the security and resiliency of the defense industrial base. She implemented procedures that recognize major platforms and weapon systems are hardware enabled yet software defined. Additionally she is recognized for addressing cyber vulnerabilities and incorporating an aggressive cybersecurity posture into acquisition policy. 

After leaving her DoD role in January 2021, Ellen established EML Enterprises, LLC, providing advisory services that leverage her industry and government experience. Prior to her government appointment, Ellen was President and CEO of Textron Systems, a subsidiary of Textron Corporation where she led a broad range of products and services.

Ellen has a Master of Science degree in Chemistry from the University of New Hampshire and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Chemistry from Connecticut College.

Jacqueline Sarah Tame

Sr. Advisor & Member of Public Sector Advisory Council

Jacqueline Sarah Tame most recently served as the Acting Deputy Director and inaugural Chief Performance Officer of DoD’s Joint Artificial Intelligence Center. Previously, she served as a Senior Advisor to the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security; Senior Staffer on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence; Chief of Customer Engagement at the Defense Intelligence Agency; Advisor to the Chief of Naval Operations; and Policy Advisor to the Deputy Director of National Intelligence. Jacqueline holds a BA in French and classical vocal performance and a Master of Public Affairs degree from the University of Texas, and a Masters in National Security and Strategic Studies from the Naval War College.

Stuart McGuigan

Sr. Advisor & Member of Commercial Advisory Council

Most recently, Stuart was the Chief Information Officer U.S. Department of State. As Chief Information Officer, he established technology strategic direction and provided oversight for $ 2.4B of technology programs across the Department. During his tenure, the Department was able to provide all staff to cloud-based resources, supporting the move from less than 10% to 90+% telework to handle the COVID crisis.

Stuart joined the Department of State from Johnson & Johnson where he was responsible for global Information Technology strategy and operations for an organization with 130,000 employees at over 170 overseas and domestic locations. At J&J, Stuart established a global Data Science capability.

Mr. McGuigan brings over 33 year of industry background including experience as Senior Vice President and CIO of CVS Caremark, Senior Vice President and CIO of Liberty Mutual, and Senior Vice President of Information Services for Medco Health Solutions.

Stuart earned Master of Science and Master of Philosophy degrees in the Cognitive Science program at Yale University, and has a Bachelor of Arts degree in psychology from Fairfield University.