Jim Kaskade

Jim is currently the CEO of PE-backed rocketship, Conversica. Founded in 2007, Conversica is the pioneer and leading provider of Conversational AI solutions consisting of a suite of AI Assistants (aka digital team members), dedicated to helping revenue-centric organizations attract, acquire and grow customers at scale.  A Conversica AI Assistant is an Artificial Intelligence-powered, SaaS-based software application that serves as a virtual team member and autonomously engages end-users in human-like, two-way conversations at any scale, ultimately accelerating revenue; whether that’s scheduling a sales meeting, gauging interest to buy additional products or services, or politely but persistently collecting overdue payments.

Prior to that, Jim led Janrain, another PE-backed company and the category creator and global leader of Consumer Identity & Access Management (CIAM).  Janrain was acquired by Akamai Technologies in early 2019. At Janrain we believed that your identity was the most important thing you own, and that your identity should not only be easy to use, but it should be safe to use when accessing your digital world. Janrain, now Akamai, is an Identity Cloud servicing Global 2000 enterprises providing a consistent, seamless, and safe experience for end-users when they access their digital applications (web or mobile).

Prior to Janrain, Jim was the VP & GM of Digital Applications at CSC (now DXC). This line of business was over $1B in commercial revenue, including both consulting and delivery organizations focused on serving Global 1000 companies in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Peru, Chile, Argentina, and Brazil; with technologies from partners including SAP, Oracle, Microsoft, IBM, Salesforce, Workday, and ServiceNow. To stay ahead, enterprises need agile, dynamic, iterative, continuously evolving, ecosystem-based application environments. In the digital economy, businesses will live or die based on how they handle complex application strategies, including the use of data and analytics, cloud, cyber, and mobility to expand packaged applications, and/or develop custom applications which improve internal operations and external customer experiences. All of these application environments need to deliver one thing – a seamless digital user experience. The key challenge for today’s applications professional is to reinvent applications strategies to align with the new digital reality, while at the same time supporting the innovation businesses will need to remain competitive. With Jim’s leadership of the “largest cell in the matrix”, CSC achieved an additional $2B in enterprise value. In only 6 months Jim turned around the BU increasing profits from 0% to 20%, and growth from -5% to 12%.

Prior to this, Jim was the VP & GM of Big Data & Analytics at CSC. In his role, he created the fastest growing business at CSC (from 0% to over 50% year-over-year growth in revenue in only 1 year), overseeing the development and implementation of innovative offerings that help clients convert data into revenue.

Jim was also the CEO of Infochimps, the leading Cloud for Big Data, and later a subsidiary of CSC (and the core R&D arm of commercial offerings within Big Data & Analytics). The Big Data Platform as a Service, powered by Infochimps, became a scalable solution for building and managing complex Big Data environments and is recognized as the fastest way to deploy big data applications. Jim grew Infochimps from $0M to $50M in 2.5 years.

Prior to Infochimps, Jim was an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at PARC, a Xerox company, where he established PARC’s Big Data program. His work helped PARC understand how to best integrate its in-memory data processing technologies and high-performance data graph analytics to the burgeoning online services ecosystem, with a focus on predictive analytics for the retail sector. Jim also helped build PARC’s Private Cloud platform. This work led to the formation of Quantiply, a company fighting financial crime with AI solutions for Anti-Money-Laundering.

Jim also served as the SVP, General Manager and Chief of Cloud at SIOS Technology, a publicly-traded company in Japan focused on open source – SIOS stands for “Software for Innovative Open Solutions”. He was responsible for the company’s global cloud strategy and their developments specifically in the are of private cloud Infrastructure as a Service and Platform as a Service.

Jim has over 16 years of experience as a serial entrepreneur, leading startups as CEO ranging from cloud computing to online digital media and advertising to semiconductor technologies, from their founding to acquisition.

Jim started his career at Teradata where he spent ten years in enterprise data warehousing, analytical applications, analytics, and business intelligence services designed to maximize the intrinsic value of data, servicing fortune 1000 companies in telecom, retail, and financial markets.

Jim has managed all facets of the new product development process from product concept to discontinuation; Led initiatives for technology acquisition, in/out licensing, as well as OEM, reseller, and referral agreements; Established several engineering joint developments and managed associated cross-functional and global teams.

Jim’s domain expertise from his experiences include:

• Artificial Intelligence with AI-Based Virtual Assistants
• Consumer Identity & Access Management / Digital Identity Security
• Digital Transformation / Digital Applications
• Application Rationalization, Migration, Integration, Development, and Test
• Big Data & Analytics
• Datacenter Virtualization / Cloud Computing
• Software As A Service (SaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)
• In-video/in-stream advertising
• Online video publishing and syndication
• Social Networking
• Social Media
• Mobile Video
• Web 2.0 Applications
• Data Warehousing
• Business Intelligence / Analytics
• Data Mining
• Relational Database Technologies
• Fabless Semiconductor & Packaging
• High Speed Interconnects / Switched Fabric

Jim’s leadership areas of specialty include:

• Building and leading venture-backed technology startups
• Managing new business development processes
• Initiating & managing strategic partnerships
• Leading technology licensing
• Spearheading technology & company acquisitions
• Performing in-depth market & competitive research
• Creating strategy, goals, and executing against plan
• Producing ROI business justifications
• Raising venture capital
• Leading M&A transactions

A few places where you can find Jim:

• jim.kaskade@gmail.com
• google voice: 415-938-7891
• AIM: jimhkaskade
• skype: jimkaskade
• Check out my about.me profile!
• http://www.linkedin.com/in/jimkaskade
• http://twitter.com/jimkaskade
• http://www.slideshare.net/jimkaskade
• http://www.quora.com/Jim-Kaskade
• http://www.google.com/profiles/jim.kaskade
• http://www.facebook.com/jimkaskade
• http://www.youtube.com/user/jimkaskade
• http://friendfeed.com/jimkaskade