CognitiveScale Names AI Industry Veteran Robert J. Picciano New Chief Executive Officer

Appointment of Former IBM Senior Vice President Headlines New Leadership Team to Fuel the Trusted AI Company

AUSTIN, TX / ACCESSWIRE / October 6, 2021 / CognitiveScale, the Trusted AI Company, today announced its new leadership team, starting with the appointment of former IBM Senior Vice President Robert J. Picciano as its new Chief Executive Officer. In addition to Mr. Picciano, the company is also announcing the appointments of its new Chief Revenue Officer, Mike McQuaid, its new VP of Marketing, Bart Peluso, the promotion of Gopal Krishnan to Senior Vice President of Engineering and Delivery and the transition of Akshay (Shay) Sabhikhi to Chief Operating Officer. Mr. Sabhikhi, a Cofounder, was most recently CEO at the organization, a role he held for more than seven years. CognitiveScale simplifies the development, deployment and management of AI systems, and allows organizations to operationalize AI development and governance. Investors include Norwest Venture Partners, Intel Capital, M12 (Microsoft Ventures), IBM Corporation, Westly Group, and USAA.

These new appointments come at a time of significant growth for the company as its platform for delivering trusted enterprise AI applications continues to drive tremendous change across the healthcare, banking, insurance and digital commerce sectors. The appointment of Mr. Picciano to oversee the company’s next phase of growth will allow Mr. Sabhikhi to leverage his 20-year history of entrepreneurial leadership and proven industry innovation as the company looks to expand on the momentum seen from its Cortex AI platform.

Mr. Picciano is a pioneer in the AI, analytics and information management space. His 30+ years as an IBM and industry veteran leading R&D as well as sales across the software, hardware, AI and cloud portfolios uniquely positioned him to help clients get the most from their IBM product portfolios. Mr. Picciano also served as the Chair of IBM’s People with Diverse Abilities business resource group, a select team who advocates for and champions diversity and inclusion in the workplace, with a special focus on people with disabilities and neurodiverse challenges.

Before his retirement from IBM in 2020, Mr. Picciano was responsible for all aspects of research, development, sales and marketing for IBM’s Cognitive Systems portfolio, including IBM’s multi-billion-dollar Power Systems franchise. Cognitive Systems’ infrastructure offerings serve cloud computing platforms and data center needs of all types. Mr. Picciano and his team also delivered the world’s fastest and smartest HPC supercomputers (Summit and Sierra) to the U.S. Department of Energy National Labs and delivered a record eight quarters of growth in the Cognitive Systems business.

“This is a tremendous opportunity and I couldn’t be more excited to be joining the team at CognitiveScale,” said Mr. Picciano. “I’m energized now to lead the company on this next important stage in our journey. The CognitiveScale Cloud Platform championed by Shay and his team to date is setting the standard for how AI applications should be developed and operationalized. It is the responsibility of the technology community to deliver trusted, transparent and high-performing AI applications and we are proud to be leading this charge.”

In addition to Mr. Picciano’s appointment, Mike McQuaid and Bart Peluso have joined the CognitiveScale leadership team that also includes Matt Sanchez, Cofounder and Chief Technology Officer, Jennifer Crow, Chief Financial Officer, Gopal Krishnan, SVP of Engineering and Delivery, Neeraj Chawla, Chief Customer Officer, and Kendall Collier, Vice President of People.

Mr. McQuaid brings 25 years of Enterprise software experience most recently serving as Senior Vice President of Global Sales for Hitachi Vantara. In his new role he will be responsible for all sales and go to market strategies for the company. Mr. Peluso joins the company with more than 24 years of global marketing experience, most recently serving as Head of Product Marketing at Blue Prism. Mr. Peluso will oversee all marketing activities and will partner closely with Mr. McQuaid and other members of the leadership team on key client engagements. Mr. Krishnan, who has more than 25 years in the enterprise software market, has been with CognitiveScale since 2016 and has played a key role in the Company’s product development and delivery. Prior to CognitiveScale, Mr. Krishnan held Vice President roles at IBM and Webify Solutions.

“The addition of such well respected, successful and innovative leaders is tremendous for the entire CognitiveScale community,” said Manoj Saxena, Executive Chairman of CognitiveScale. “For the past eight years, CognitiveScale has been at the forefront of delivering truly trusted AI solutions to market – all while helping its customers reduce their operational costs and transform their digital experiences. Under the leadership of Shay, we have seen unbelievable results in our technology and now look forward to the future with a singular focus of bringing trusted AI application development to enterprise organizations around the world.”

About CognitiveScale

CognitiveScale pioneered the concept of ‘Trusted AI’, paving the way for responsible Enterprise AI development worldwide. Backed by 164 AI patents, the Cortex platform empowers data scientists and citizen developers to build, understand and analyze intelligent, transparent & trusted AI systems using any data, on any cloud. By simplifying the development, deployment and management of AI systems, CognitiveScale is revolutionizing how organizations across industries-healthcare, financial services, insurance and digital commerce- engage with customers, optimize services and deliver on bottom line goals-all while protecting them from business risk.

Headquartered in Austin, Texas, CognitiveScale is recognized by the World Economic Forum for positively impacting business and society through AI with active investment from Norwest Venture Partners, Intel Capital, IBM Corporation, M12 (Microsoft Ventures), Westly Group and USAA. To learn more, visit www.cognitivescale.com and follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter at @CognitiveScale.

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SOURCE: CognitiveScale

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