Our Team
Virtana is the hybrid IT infrastructure management leader, delivering the deepest observability platform to ensure availability, efficiency, and resiliency across complex environments.
Executive Leadership
Paul Appleby, CEO – LinkedIn
Paul Appleby, a seasoned technology leader with a passion for innovation and growth, steers Virtana as its Chief Executive Officer. Prior to joining Virtana, Paul’s impressive career saw him lead high-performing customer-facing teams and develop winning growth strategies at industry giants like Elastic, SAP, Salesforce, and BMC.
Throughout his career, Paul has built high-performing teams and achieved sustained, profitable growth across diverse markets, including AI/Analytics, IT Infrastructure, and Enterprise Applications. His deep understanding of these areas, coupled with his proven track record in scaling businesses, positions him to propel Virtana’s leadership in AI data fabric copilot technology.
When away from the boardroom, Paul balances his time cheering on his two college-aged children and traveling between San Francisco and New York. He also lends his expertise as an advisor to the John Maclean Foundation Board. An avid outdoorsman, Paul enjoys catching waves while surfing, carving fresh powder on the slopes, and exploring new routes on his bike.
Connect with Paul for real-time industry insight on LinkedIn
Kate FitzGerald, CRO – LinkedIn
Kate FitzGerald brings over 30 years of senior leadership experience in the Enterprise software industry to Virtana. As the Chief Revenue Officer, Kate is responsible for driving revenue growth and leading global business initiatives. She has a distinguished career, having held key positions at industry giants such as Elastic, Leanplum, Marketo, Oracle, and Salesforce.
Kate’s expertise lies in building and leading world-class revenue generation teams, fostering a consistent winning culture, and achieving significant business growth. Her deep understanding of the B2B enterprise technology landscape, combined with her experience with 10 different startups, uniquely positions her to drive Virtana’s expansion and innovation.
Known for her strategic vision and operational excellence, Kate is dedicated to fostering a positive and high-performance culture. Her leadership is instrumental as Virtana accelerates its mission to deliver cutting-edge AI-powered monitoring and observability solutions for hybrid cloud environments.
Connect with Kate for real-time industry insight on LinkedIn
Anne Samak de la Cerda, CFO – LinkedIn
Anne Samak de la Cerda brings over two decades of international strategy and finance leadership to Virtana as Chief Financial Officer. As CFO, Anne oversees financial operations, business growth, and financial strategies.
Anne is a partner at FLG Partners and has worked as a consulting CFO for startups in sectors like B2B SaaS, Edtech and medical devices, advising on business planning, fundraising, and cash management. Additionally, she held CFO titles at Yohana, Platform.sh, Textio, Springboard, Anki, Withings/Nokia Technologies, and LeGuide.com, helping scale growth, secure capital, and lead mergers and acquisitions. Previously, Anne spent ten years in strategy and business planning at PwC in London and Vivendi Group in Paris.
Fluent in French, Spanish, and German, she brings a global perspective to her work. Known for her mentoring and team building, Anne is instrumental in driving Virtana’s operational excellence as it expands its AI-powered monitoring solutions for hybrid cloud environments. Anne holds a master’s degree from ESCP and completed INSEAD’s Transition to General Management program.
Amit Rathi, SVP Product and Engineering – LinkedIn
Amit Rathi is Vice President of Engineering at Virtana. He leads all aspects of development, testing, devops, support and cloud operations for Virtana’s products. Amit brings a strong software engineering, customer-centric background and 20+ years of experience in Virtana’s specific Information Technology Operations Management (ITOM) domain. Amit recently spent 12 years at BMC Software, building enterprise on-premises and SaaS projects, delivering customer-centric product experiences and developing high-quality products.
Throughout his career, Amit has been responsible for transforming legacy products into high-quality solutions that deliver outcomes for customers. He has built new SaaS services from scratch, and designed and created scalable architecture for enterprise solutions.
Shridhar Venkatraman, CTO – LinkedIn
As an accomplished entrepreneur and technologist, Shridhar Venkatraman brings a wealth of experience and customer insights to his role as CTO of Virtana. Throughout his career, he has consistently demonstrated an exceptional ability to identify unique customer problems and innovative approaches to solving these problems. He has built talented, cohesive teams to deliver innovative solutions across various industries. His expertise spans capital markets, fintech, retail, device monitoring, and observability.
Prior to his role at Virtana, Shridhar held key leadership positions at global companies, including ESQ, Reliance Infocomm, and Tandem Computers (HPE). As a lifelong entrepreneur, he founded several companies, including NeemTree, RetailWave, and most recently OpsCruise. Venkatraman has worked in several countries and various industries, including capital markets, wholesale banking, retail, and fintech. His remarkable track record of building successful companies and delivering innovative solutions makes him the ideal leader to spearhead Virtana’s innovation agenda.
Shridhar holds a BE in Electrical Engineering from the National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirappalli, and an ME in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Chennai.
Leslie Maher, SVP Strategic Alliances – LinkedIn
Leslie brings 20+ years of sales and general management experience, delivering data center infrastructure and as-a-service hybrid cloud solutions. As Vice President of Worldwide Channels & Alliances at Virtana, she manages all partner routes to market, including Resellers, Solution Providers, MSPs, Systems Integrations, Distribution, OEM, and Strategic Alliances.
Leslie has held senior leadership positions at top technology companies, including Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), Cisco, and Sun – entrusted with multi-billion-dollar businesses and large organizations. Her diverse background includes leading large enterprise sales, specialized product sales, inside sales and SMB, channels and alliances, and product category management. In her latest role as VP of North America Channel & Ecosystem at HPE, Leslie was recognized by CRN as one of 50 Most Influential Channel Chiefs and 100 Most Powerful Women of the Channel.
Leslie received her Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from the University of New Hampshire and her Master of Science in Computer Science from Boston University. She is a lifelong Boston area resident who recently migrated south, making Florida her new home.
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