Zor Gorelov, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board
Ruth Reiter Brown, President
Roberto Pieraccini, Chief Technology Officer
Alan Pan, Senior Vice President of Product Marketing
Gary Lavado, Chief Financial Officer
R. Todd Barber, Vice President Sales
Victor Goltsman, Senior Vice President of Operations
Albert Kim, Vice President of Engineering
Steve Chirokas, Vice President of Marketing
Phillip Hunter, Vice President, Voice Interaction Design Group
Zor Gorelov, Chief Executive Officer and
Chairman of the Board
Zor’s leadership and strategic focus have built SpeechCycle into one of the premier providers of on-demand voice self-service solutions. Prior to co-founding SpeechCycle, Zor was the founder and CEO of BuzzCompany.com, a developer of enterprise collaboration and messaging solutions, acquired in 2000 by Multex.com (now part of Reuters), where he then served as Senior Vice President. Before that, Zor held management positions at Microsoft, Bell Labs, Computron Software and Information Builders. His first experience as an entrepreneur was in Russia, where he started a software company providing medical information services. Zor is a graduate of Tbilisi University in the Republic of Georgia and holds a degree in electrical engineering.
Ruth Reiter Brown, President
Ruth brings significant experience in creating and managing software companies to SpeechCycle. Previously, Ruth was a founder and COO of BuzzCompany.com and became a Vice President at Multex.com with the BuzzCompany acquisition in 2000. Before that, she founded Reiter, Brown & Co., a management-consulting firm, co-founded Software Corporation of America (SCA), an enterprise software company, consulted for John Rhodes & Co., and held management and software engineering positions at Control Data Corp. and Sears. Ruth is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin. She was named to the NY City YWCA Academy of Women Achievers in 1984 and is an Associate Trustee of the University of Wisconsin Union.
Roberto Pieraccini, Chief Technology Officer
Roberto has been at the leading edge of spoken dialog technology for more than 25 years, both in research as well as in the development of commercial applications. The use of statistics for language understanding, machine learning for spoken dialog systems, and advanced models of dialog management are among his most known contributions to the field. Prior to joining SpeechCycle, Roberto was the manager of the Conversational Interaction Technology department at the IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center. Before that, he led the Natural Dialog R&D group at SpeechWorks International (now Nuance). Earlier, he joined the Speech Research Group at AT&T Bell Labs and later AT&T Shannon Labs. Roberto began his career as a speech scientist with CSELT, the research center of the then Italian operating telephone company, after completing his Dr. Eng. degree from the Universita’ degli Studi di Pisa, Italy. Pieraccini holds several patents and has authored more than 100 publications on the subjects of speech recognition, language modeling, language understanding and dialog.
Alan Pan, Senior Vice President of Product Marketing
Alan has been with SpeechCycle since its inception and instrumental in the development of the LevelOne automated agent suite for Triple Play technical support. Previously, he was Director of Product Marketing for BuzzCompany’s collaboration and messaging products for Multex.com, and the Director of Solutions at BuzzCompany.com, where he successfully delivered large Web applications for major corporations. Before BuzzCompany, Alan worked for Wall Street Services where he developed and operated Staffway.com, an end-to-end Web-based solution for the consulting industry, and for J.P. Morgan. Alan graduated from Mount San Antonio College with a major in Management Information Systems.
Alan Pan, Senior Vice President of Product Marketing
Alan has been with SpeechCycle since its inception and instrumental in the development of the LevelOne automated agent suite for Triple Play technical support. Previously, he was Director of Product Marketing for BuzzCompany’s collaboration and messaging products for Multex.com, and the Director of Solutions at BuzzCompany.com, where he successfully delivered large Web applications for major corporations. Before BuzzCompany, Alan worked for Wall Street Services where he developed and operated Staffway.com, an end-to-end Web-based solution for the consulting industry, and for J.P. Morgan. Alan graduated from Mount San Antonio College with a major in Management Information Systems.
Gary Lavado, Chief Financial Officer
Gary is responsible for SpeechCycle’s finance organization. Prior to SpeechCycle, Gary was Vice President of Finance at DataSynapse, a provider of enterprise-level, virtual application infrastructure software. Gary is a certified public accountant, and has held financial positions at Deloitte and PriceWaterhouseCoopers. He has been a financial and accounting consultant to leading software and SaaS startups throughout the New York metropolitan region. Gary earned his Bachelor of Science degree in Accounting and Economics from Virginia Commonwealth University, and a Masters in Taxation from the University of Hartford.
Victor Goltsman, Senior Vice President of Operations
Victor is responsible for SpeechCycle’s LevelOne on-demand service, building on his more than 20 years’ experience in system engineering, network and data communications systems, software applications, technology training and project management. Prior to SpeechCycle, Victor was Vice President of Infrastructure at BuzzCompany.com and a Vice President at Multex.com with the BuzzCompany acquisition. Before that, he was a consultant to Fortune 500 companies, and earlier co-founded Mutual Data Inc., a New York City-based technology training company. Victor received a research engineering degree in 1983 from Polytechnic University in Perm, Russia, and a degree in computer science in 1986 from Moscow City College.
Albert Kim, Vice President of Engineering
Albert Kim leads SpeechCycle’s software engineering and speech science teams, encompassing applications that automate complex technical support calls for high speed internet, video, voice services, and related technologies. Prior to joining SpeechCycle, Albert was a Founder and President of Equicast Media LLC. As a Group Manager and Principal Consultant at Microsoft Corp. for over 13 years, he delivered solutions for service providers and enterprises with global presence. Albert was awarded Microsoft’s prestigious Architectural Engineer of the Year award in 1998. Albert Kim earned his Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science from Long Island University.
Steve Chirokas, Vice President of Marketing
Steve leads global marketing for SpeechCycle which includes strategic marketing, brand management, marketing programs and corporate communications. Steve also works with SpeechCycle partners to support integration efforts and joint opportunities. Prior to SpeechCycle, he served as Director of Product & Partner Marketing for Convergys Corp. Prior to Convergys, Steve held senior level marketing and business development roles at SpeechWorks International (now Nuance). Steve has also held positions at organizations such as Process Software, COMPAQ, Brooktrout Technologies and Scitex. He is a frequent contributor to speech and CRM related publications. Steve earned his Bachelor of Science degree in Marketing from Stonehill College, and MBA from Bentley College.
Phillip Hunter, Vice President, Voice Interaction Design Group
Phillip leads interaction design and usability teams at SpeechCycle, bringing an extensive speech background to his leadership position including international deployments and multi-lingual application design. Previously, as the head of design services for Voice Partners he led the team that won the 2004 SpeechTek Persona of the Year award for Cellular One. Phillip also founded designoutloud, and created and managed the professional services practice for speech recognition at Intervoice. During that time, he co-invented a method for gauging design effectiveness that was granted a patent in 2004. Phillip is a graduate of Texas A&M University majoring in English with a minor in Psychology.
