Executive Leadership
Based in Sunnyvale, California, Transera was co-founded by Prem Uppaluru, Mukesh Sundaram and Lori Kendall, proven visionary leaders with patented inventions that have revolutionized the contact center industry. Prem and Mukesh co-founded Telera, which was acquired by Alcatel in 2002 for its leadership in VoiceXML self-service solutions. Transera's team brings a focused perspective on the call center and communications industry, drawing upon leadership roles at Genesys Telecommunications/Alcatel, MCI, Geotel, Nuance, Avaya, Cisco and Novell.
Prem Uppaluru
President & Chief Executive Officer (Co-Founder)
Prem brings to Transera his 25 years of experience in the telecommunications and networking industry and his keen entrepreneurial instincts. Prior to joining Transera, Prem was Executive Vice President, Voice Portal Solutions at Genesys, where he was responsible for strategic direction and development of the company's Voice Platform and Managed Service solutions. As a result of his efforts, the Genesys Voice Portal products were awarded the top ranking in worldwide market leadership from the Gartner Group for completeness of business vision and ability to deliver compelling value to the marketplace.
Prem joined Genesys in mid-2002 when the company he co-founded, Telera, was acquired by Genesys and its parent company, Alcatel. While at Telera, Prem served as Chief Executive Officer, and was the driving force behind the company's success in the emerging VoiceXML platform and solutions market. Prior to co-founding Telera, Prem co-founded VOIS Corporation where he served as Chief Executive Officer. Before launching into his entrepreneurial efforts, Prem held Vice President and General Manager positions at Novell. He also served as Vice President of Engineering at Fluent and Samsung Software America. Prem also held engineering management positions with Bell Labs and Bellcore during his tenure in telecommunications, network management, multimedia and telephony.
Prem holds a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the University of Texas at Austin. He received his masters and undergraduate degrees in Electrical Engineering from IIT Bombay.
Mukesh Sundaram
Sr. Vice President & Chief Technical Officer (Co-Founder)
With more than 25 years of software development and management experience, Mukesh is the driving force behind many communications and networking innovations. Mukesh has successfully contributed to the development of several next generation standards, including voice communications and network management protocols, managed services architectures, and web technologies.
Mukesh joined Genesys in mid-2002 when the company he co-founded, Telera, was acquired by Genesys and its parent company, Alcatel. While at Telera, Mukesh served as Chief Technical Officer, and guided the development of Genesys/Telera's patented Voice Web Application Platform™, which earned Gartner’s highest ranking in the 2004 IVR and Voice Portal report. The platform was recognized for product completeness and ability to deliver value to the marketplace. Prior to co-founding Telera, Mukesh was at VOIS Corporation where he served as Vice President of Engineering. Prior positions also include Director of Engineering at Novell, spearheading the ManageWise product line, and engineering management positions at Ungerman-Bass.
Mukesh holds a Masters degree in Computer Science from the University of Tennessee. He pursued doctoral studies at University of Illinois, and earned an undergraduate degree from IIT Madras.
Ari Klionsky
Vice President, Sales & Business Development
As Vice President of Sales & Business Development, Ari bring over 20 years of experience in the call center industry to his responsibilities for Transera's global sales and business development activities.
Prior to joining Transera, Ari was VP of Business Development for Enkata, a leading call center analytics company. Prior to Enkata, Ari was co-founder and VP of Sales for Cygent, Inc., a provider of eCommerce solutions to the Communications industry where he grew sales from $0 to over $25M. Before this, Ari ran sales for the Bay Area region for Cambridge Technology Partners, a leading technology integration/consulting firm. Ari started his career at Oracle Corporation where he had a variety of technical and project management roles.
Ari holds bachelors degrees in Computer Science and Economics from Brown University.
Arnab Mishra
Vice President, Products & Solutions
As Vice President of Products & Solutions, Arnab is responsible for overall product and solution strategy. In his role, he holds responsibility for the Company’s product management, product marketing, program management, and strategic alliances functions.
Prior to joining Transera, Arnab held senior product marketing roles at Alcatel (Genesys Telecommunications business unit), where he led the team responsible for the definition and positioning of Genesys’ core communications platform offerings. In addition, Arnab spearheaded the launch of Genesys Voice Platform and was instrumental in making the product the leading next generation voice self-service platform globally. Prior to Alcatel, Arnab held marketing and business development roles at Telera through its acquisition by Alcatel in 2002. Earlier in his career, Arnab worked as a venture and growth capital investor with The Beacon Group (now part of JP Morgan Chase & Co.) and as an investment banker with Merrill Lynch.
Arnab holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and a Bachelor of Science in Economics from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.
Gaya Vukkadala
Vice President, Engineering
As Vice President of Engineering, Gaya brings over 25 years of technology experience and is responsible for product development and professional services.
Prior to joining Transera, Gaya was Director of Engineering at Genesys Telecommunications responsible for the Genesys Voice Platform product line. Gaya joined Genesys as part of its acquisition of Telera in 2002. At Telera, Gaya was instrumental in developing a web and standards-based interactive voice response platform delivered as both a SAAS offering and as an enterprise product. Prior to Telera, Gaya held numerous engineering leadership and architect positions at NET, Novell and Xerox.
Gaya holds a Masters in Computer Engineering degree from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and a Bachelor’s in Electrical Engineering from BITS (India).
