Leadership Team

Kelly Ahuja

CEO

Kelly Ahuja is a seasoned industry veteran with more than 20 years of experience in networking and telecommunications. He currently serves on the board of directors for two startups in Silicon Valley.

Kelly spent 18 years at Cisco rooted in the design and deployment of telecommunications networks. He was most recently SVP of Service Provider Business, Products and Solutions at Cisco where he was responsible for developing and managing the service provider segment strategy and portfolio. Kelly held several other senior executive roles at Cisco, including SVP and GM of the Mobility Business Group, Chief Architect for the Service Provider business, and SVP and GM of the Service Provider Routing Technology Group.

Earlier in his career, Kelly served as VP of Marketing at optical networking startup BlueLeaf Networks and product management leader at Stratacom. He also managed the design and deployment of data and voice networks for AT&T Canada, Bank of Canada and Telesat Canada.

Kelly holds a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from the University of Calgary.

Kumar Mehta

Founder and CDO

Kumar brings a proven track record of leading mega-projects at startups as well as publicly traded companies. His vision, work ethic, and leadership as VP of Engineering at Juniper Networks resulted in multiple blockbuster product deliveries, including the market-leading Metro and Carrier Ethernet solution, the MX series.

His leadership in design, development, and delivery of differentiated solutions resulted in huge and continuing revenue streams for the company and brought Kumar the prestigious CEO Excellence Award. Prior to Juniper, Kumar held engineering management positions at Riverstone Networks and Yago Systems.

Kumar is a graduate of the Executive Program at Stanford University Graduate School of Business. He has a Master’s degree in Engineering from Virginia Tech and a Bachelor of Technology from Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur.

Apurva Mehta

Founder and CTO

Apurva brings technical leadership with over two decades of experience leading complex development products creating billion dollar revenue streams. Prior to Versa, he was CTO and Chief Architect for Juniper Networks Mobility Business Unit where he led and delivered the Evolved Packet Core (EPC) product line. Apurva was also the Chief Architect for the MX series, one of the most successful products in Juniper’s history and establishing the company as the market leader in Metro and Carrier Ethernet solutions. For his contributions, Apurva was awarded Juniper Network’s prestigious Founder’s Award for technical leadership.

Before Juniper, Apurva was the Chief Architect and Director of Software at Riverstone Networks and YAGO Systems. Prior to YAGO, Apurva was Architect for all ATM software at Centillion Networks. Apurva has a Master of Science in Computer Science from University of Pittsburgh and a Bachelor of Technology in Computer Science and Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology.

Martin Mackay

CRO

Martin leads the Versa global sales organization and overall go-to-market. He has a track record driving growth in security, networking and SaaS enterprise software. Prior to joining Versa, Martin has held senior leadership positions with Proofpoint, CA Technologies, Verisign, NorthgateArinso and PeopleSoft and has lived and worked in multiple countries.

Martin holds a Master of Arts degree in Modern Languages from Oxford University and is based in London.

Lalit Kumar

CFO

Lalit Kumar leads the Versa finance organization and drives the company’s financial infrastructure, teams, and processes. Lalit is a seasoned SaaS growth finance leader with more than 20 years of experience leading the growth of companies including several successful exits. Most recently, he was at Medallia (NYSE:MDLA) where he was part of a successful IPO and robust growth doubling revenue in his three years there. Prior to Medallia, he was with NetSuite through transformative growth with annual reccurring revenue doubling to more than $1B, and ultimately to a successful buyout by Oracle in one of the largest enterprise software deals at that time.

Lalit holds an Master of Business Administration degree from the University of Texas at Austin, and a Bachelor of Engineering degree from The Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee.

Dan Maier

Chief Marketing Officer

Dan leads Versa’s global marketing organization including market strategy and positioning, branding, demand generation, digital marketing, product marketing, and channel and partner marketing. He brings more than two decades of experience in executive leadership roles at emerging growth companies in cybersecurity, SaaS and AI. Prior to joining Versa, Dan served as VP of Marketing at internet scanner intelligence company GreyNoise, CMO of threat intelligence platform leader Anomali, and VP of Marketing at IoT security company Zingbox (acquired by Palo Alto Networks). He has also held senior marketing and strategy roles at Cyren, Zscaler, Tumbleweed Communications, and ABB. Dan has a bachelor’s degree in economics from Stanford University and an MBA from UCLA.

Tony Fallows

Vice President, Service Provider Worldwide Sales

Tony Fallows leads global service provider sales at Versa Networks. Tony has launched and grown innovative networking companies and product lines for over twenty-five years in a range of roles from system engineer to CEO. Tony worked at industry leaders Shell, Ericsson, Riverstone and Marconi, and founded the start-up Aria Networks.

Dogu Narin

VP Products

Dogu is a seasoned executive with 20+ years of experience with various technology and product management leadership roles.

At Versa, he oversees entire product portfolio, including SD-WAN, NGFW, SD-LAN, ZTNA, SWG, CASB, DLP and the rest of SASE/SSE products and offerings. Before Versa, he worked at Juniper Networks, leading product areas like cloud, router services, mobile, data center, edge, and others. He also has experience with Bay/Nortel Networks and other tech companies.

Dogu holds B.Sc EE degree from Electronics and Telecommunications Engineering faculty from Istanbul Technical University and MBA Degree from Santa Clara University.