Telegent Systems represents a breakthrough opportunity for handset makers, carriers, and broadcasters.
Management Team
Ford Tamer
Chief Executive Officer
Ford Tamer joined Telegent in June 2010 as chief executive officer, responsible for leading the company's strategic vision. Tamer brings to Telegent more than twenty years of experience building successful technology businesses. Prior to joining Telegent, Tamer was partner at Khosla Ventures, where he expanded the firm's cleantech efficiency practice. Prior to Khosla, he served as senior vice president and general manager of Broadcom's Infrastructure Networking Group, which he grew to $1.2 billion in revenue in five years. Prior to Broadcom, Tamer was CEO and co-founder of Agere, a networking semiconductor company that was acquired by Lucent before being spun out as Agere Systems, where he served as vice president. Tamer has also led marketing and international operations for Dazel Corporation, acquired by Hewlett-Packard, and co-founded MegaKnowledge, acquired by IntelliCorp.
Tamer holds an MS and PhD in engineering from MIT.
Weijie Yun
Executive Chairman of the Board, Co-Founder
Weijie Yun co-founded Telegent in 2004 and has a proven track record of bringing products from conceptual stage to market. Prior to Telegent, Yun led marketing and product management at Berkana Wireless, Inc., which was acquired by Qualcomm. He also served as the founding president & CEO of AIP Networks and was a founder and director of SiTek, Inc., a spin-off resulting from his work developed at BEI Technologies' Microengineering Technology Center.
Yun was awarded 2008 Northern California Entrepreneur of the Year by Ernst & Young. Yun holds MS and PhD degrees in Electrical Engineering from the University of California at Berkeley.
Samuel Sheng
Chief Technical Officer, Co-Founder
Samuel Sheng co-founded Telegent in 2004 and is responsible for developing and expanding Telegent's core technology platforms. A world-renowned expert in CMOS RF and DSP development, Sheng has extensive experience in architecting and designing leading-edge CMOS RF and DSP chips for silicon tuners, ADSL transceivers, magnetic recording and DVD RF/servo technologies. He has a proven track record of sampling first silicon for all the chips developed under his leadership. Prior to co-founding Telegent Systems, Sheng was at LSI Logic and responsible for architecting and implementing a series of silicon RF tuners for video-band applications, targeted for cable modems, analog/digital video over cable, and voice over IP as well as highly integrated DVD front-end technologies. Before LSI Logic, Sheng co-led the ADSL front-end (AFE) development effort at Datapath Systems, Inc.
Sheng was awarded Inventor of the Year at LSI Logic in 2002 and 2003 and was named the 2002 Distinguished Engineer at LSI Logic. He has authored numerous papers and publications on various topics such as low-power CMOS RF wireless systems and low-power CMOS digital design. Sheng has been awarded seven patents in the areas of RF tuner and DSL modem design.
Sheng holds a BA degree in applied mathematics and BS, MS, and PhD degrees in Electrical Eng ineering from the University of California, Berkeley.
Geoff Ribar
Chief Financial Officer
Geoff Ribar oversees Telegent's financial, legal, and general administration operations. Ribar brings a wealth of financial expertise to Telegent, with extensive experience in both private and public companies in the semiconductor industry. Prior to Telegent, Ribar held the CFO position at a number of semiconductor companies including SiRF, Matrix Semiconductor and nVidia, and was also Vice President and Corporate Controller at Advanced Micro Devices. During his career, Ribar has completed many M&A transactions, prepared companies for IPO and helped companies successfully scale during periods of rapid revenue and headcount growth.
Ribar holds a BS and an MBA from the University of Michigan.
Diana Jovin
Vice President, Corporate Marketing and Business Development
Diana Jovin serves as Vice President of Corporate Marketing and Business Development, responsible for leading the company's communications and marketing programs and directing the company's growth and expansion into new markets. Jovin brings more than fifteen years of leadership experience to her role with a proven track record in enabling companies with disruptive technologies to establish leadership positions in new market segments. Prior to Telegent, Jovin served as CEO and co-founder of CascadeWorks, which pioneered the services e-procurement market. She subsequently served as Vice President of Marketing & Business Development at Elance, which acquired the company in 2002. Prior to CascadeWorks, she served as Director of Marketing at NetDynamics, which established and led the application server software market and was acquired by Sun Microsystems in 1998. Jovin has also consulted with numerous private and public technology companies on the development of go-to-market strategies, partner programs, and positioning and messaging platforms.
Jovin holds an MBA from the University of California at Berkeley and a BA from Harvard University.
Don Stark
Vice President, Engineering
Don Stark brings more than fifteen years of executive engineering experience to Telegent, and provides leadership to the company's global engineering organization. Prior to Telegent, Stark was the vice president of engineering at Aeluros, part of NetLogic Microsystems since 2007, where he led development of 10Gigabit Ethernet transceiver chips and high speed physical layer IP cores. Prior to Aeluros, Stark was the vice president of the Memory, Architecture and Technology Division at Rambus, where he was responsible for the development and design of Rambus' memory interface products, now included in more than 500 million devices shipped in more than 100 million systems. Stark has also been a consulting professor in Stanford University's electrical engineering department and has received 83 US patents.
Stark holds a BSEE from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a MS and PhD in electrical engineering from Stanford University.
Stephen Zadig
Vice President, Operations
Stephen Zadig oversees global operations which includes all manufacturing activities, high-volume supply chain management and infrastructure development to support Telegent's rapid growth. Zadig comes to Telegent with more than thirty years of experience and a proven track record in semiconductor manufacturing operations, combined with an extensive background in growing companies from start-up through IPO. From 1996 through 2001, he was the founding VP of Operations at Marvell Semiconductor, a leading-edge mixed-signal processing company. Prior to Marvell, Zadig was VP of Operations at Paradigm Technology, where he led the company through its IPO. Zadig was also the founding VP of Operations at C-Cube Microsystems, a company he helped lead from inception to a successful IPO. While at C-Cube Microsystems, Zadig was a principal founder of the Fabless Semiconductor Association, where he served as Chairman of the Forecast Committee.
Ron Kao
Vice President, Asia Pacific
Ron Kao serves as Vice President of Asia Pacific, responsible for the region's product development, customer support, and strategic partnerships. Prior to Telegent, Kao served as senior director and general manager of Broadcom's Taiwan Design Center and Asia Business Development, growing the organization from 20 to 300 engineers, delivering products that contributed significantly to rapid growth in revenue. Prior to Broadcom, Kao was founder and CEO of Vovtel Networks and co-founder of Lite-On communications.
Kao holds a bachelors degree in engineering from the National Taiwan University, a MSEE from Oregon State University, and seven patents in PHY and MAC architecture design.
Fang Li
Vice President, China Sales
Fang Li serves as Vice President of China sales, responsible for Telegent's regional sales strategy and customer relationships. Prior to Telegent, Li served in a variety of engineering and product management leadership roles at Motorola over a period of 16 years, most recently as Director of Product Marketing for the Mobile Device portfolio. Prior to Motorola, Li served as software engineer for the Sino Petrol-Chemical company.
Li holds a bachelor of engineering degree from Beijing University and an MS in computer science from DePaul University.
Esther Liu
Vice President, Government Affairs and M&A, China
Esther Liu serves as Vice President of Government Affairs and M&A in China. Prior to Telegent, Liu served as vice president of SMIC, where she drove the marketing and sales team since 2006. Prior to SMIC, Liu served as executive director and vice president of Beijing Beida JBHU Corporation, responsible for leading the Microelectronics Industry group. Liu also held a researching position at Peking University.
Liu holds a bachelor degree in semiconductor physics and devices from Beijing University of Technology.