Solekai Systems Management Team
Martin Caniff: Founder and President
Martin has over 30 years of experience in leading high performance teams of talented engineers.
Prior to founding Solekai Systems, Martin was president of Doctor Design Inc., a provider of engineering design services for a variety of industries including consumer electronics. He has also served in senior management and engineering positions at DocuFile Inc., Optigraphics Corp., Megatek Corp., and Boeing.
Martin possesses a keen focus on making his customers successful by assembling extraordinary teams and getting multi-million dollar development projects done on schedule and within budget.
Marco Thompson: Chief Technology Officer
A familiar face in the boardrooms of a number of innovative San Diego concerns, Thompson will call on over thirty years of engineering services management experience and a vast network of technology contacts and affiliations to direct the technology focus for the Sorrento Valley engineering services company.
Thompson has designed and managed his way to entrepreneurial success. In 1984 he founded Doctor Design, an embedded engineering services firm that contracted for such companies as AMD, Intel, Samsung, Mitsubishi, DIRECTV, Philips, Thomson, Sony, and IBM. Thompson would later sell the $50 million firm to Integrated Systems, which merged with Wind River (WIND) in 2000, and then merged with Intel (INTC) in 2009. Thompson stayed with the firm for 25 years before departing in November of 2009.
Although trained only as an engineer, and not a marketer or manager, Thompson credits the exceptional strength of UCSD and the entrepreneurial network of San Diego for the success of his former firm. "We reached 250 people because UCSD taught great basic engineering and thinking skills and because the San Diego community is great at networking and providing mentoring to promising entrepreneurs. Prior to joining Solekai, Thompson co-founded & ran CommNexus San Diego, (formerly San Diego Telecom Council) a non-profit network of communications, government, and defense industry companies. Thompson is also currently a Managing Partner at Express Ventures, an early stage Venture Capital Firm, which has funded eight San Diego companies. In addition, Marco is the founder & Vice Chairman of San Diego Sport Innovators, and is the Vice-Chair of the Board of Connect, San Diego's startup assistance organization.
Thompson earned his BSEE, in Applied Physics & Information Systems in 1979 from the University of California at San Diego. In 2003, Thompson was named the Alumni of the Year by the UCSD Jacobs School of Engineering and further honored by being inducted into the Hall of Fame for Engineering, Science and Technology. His interests include heli-skiing, wakesurfing, hockey, and snowboarding.?
Tim McConnell: Vice President, Engineering
Tim is responsible for the engineering department at Solekai, including execution of projects, monitoring and improvement of engineering processes and management of engineering personnel. Prior to joining Solekai, Tim was a program manager at Doctor Design, overseeing a group of 40 to 50 employees and 30 to 40 contract staff in the $10M/year digital video service line and managed multi-million dollar robotic development projects at Vision Robotics Corporation. Tim received a bachelor’s and a master’s degree from MIT and has 20 years experience in development of embedded systems.
Dan Sweeney: Vice President, Sales
Dan is currently responsible for sales, marketing, and business development reaching into the Smart Grid, IPTV, consumer electronics, broadcast and government markets. Previously, Dan was sales and marketing chief at Cauldron Solutions (sold to Anystream in 2007) and ITV gaming company NTN/Buzztime. A telecommunications veteran, Dan also held senior level positions at Gemstar-TV Guide International (sold to Macrovision in 2008), Cooke Cablevision and Showtime/The Movie Channel, Inc
Madonna Bentz: Vice President, Human Resources
Madonna is responsible for recruiting and developing Solekai's technical and support staff. Under her leadership, Solekai has expanded its staff of engineers, program managers, operations, and marketing personnel. Prior to joining Solekai, Madonna was a founder of Jabra®, the market leader in headsets for mobile phones. Madonna was part of the management team that successfully negotiated the sale of Jabra to GN Netcom.
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