Leadership
Leadership Team
Rick Bergman
President and CEO
Rick Bergman joined Kymeta as President and CEO in April 2024. Rick has extensive executive leadership experience in top tier technology companies across the past two decades, most recently as Executive Vice President of AMD, a Fortune 500 company from 2019 to 2023. At AMD he managed the graphics and semi-custom businesses and combined AMD’s high-performance CPUs, GPUs and software to create differentiated solutions, growing annual revenue from $2.4B in 2019 to $6.8B in 2022. He also served as President and CEO of Synaptics, a public company, from 2011 to 2019. Rick transformed the company from a hardware module supplier to the PC business to a diversified human interface solution provider using leading edge semiconductor and software technologies for the PC, automotive, IoT and mobile markets. Previous to this Rick held several executive roles at AMD, from 2001 to 2011 as well as senior roles at S3 and Texas Instruments. Rick graduated from the University of Michigan with a Bachelor of Science, Electrical Engineering and received his MBA from the University of Colorado.
Anne Liu
Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer
Anne joined Kymeta in March 2023 bringing over 30 years of experience in finance, accounting, systems implementation as well as transformational initiatives in government technology software and services (Science Applications International Corporation), telecommunications (Leap Wireless/Cricket Communications) and construction services (Interior Logic Group) industries for both public and private equity owned companies. Anne joins Kymeta from Interior Logic Group, a private equity owned company, where she most recently served as the EVP Strategic Initiatives leading a zero-based redesign initiative and prior to that as the EVP, Chief Financial Officer where she had responsibility for FP&A, accounting, treasury, risk management, shared service finance functions, M&A diligence and integration, finance policies and controls and debt and equity financing transactions. In addition, over the years, she has prepared and taken companies through different stages of an initial public offering. Anne is a CPA (inactive) in California and spent 7 years with Deloitte after receiving her B.A. in Government from Pomona College.
Ryan Stevenson, Ph.D.
Senior Vice President, Chief Scientist
Ryan leads Research and Development and Intellectual Property and is a founding member of the organization. Ryan has worked on the development of Kymeta technology since 2011. With his work at Intellectual Ventures, he helped spin out and create Kymeta. He brought an extensive background in RF/microwave engineering, photonics, and semiconductor manufacturing to his role. Previously Ryan held leadership roles in research science and system analytics in the government, public sector and aerospace markets. Ryan holds a B.S. in Biomedical and Electrical Engineering, an M.S. in Electrical Engineering and a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Southern California.
Melisah Burke
Senior Vice President, Chief People Officer
Melisah joined in 2022 bringing 17 years of global human resource and talent acquisition experience for both public and private companies. Her background ranges from managing global capital construction, facilities and security teams including distribution centers. She has experience in taking a company public along with working closely with Board members and leading compensation committees for public companies.
Benjamin Ash, Ph.D.
Vice President, Manufacturing Operations
Ben joined in 2014 and is responsible for developing and implementing the manufacturing and test strategy for Kymeta’s antenna and terminal products. Leading the production, manufacturing engineering and quality teams, Ben brings over 20 years of cross-functional experience to the unique manufacturing challenges inherent in our cutting edge product lines. In 2020, he led the successful onshoring of Kymeta production, standing up our current u8 manufacturing facility in Redmond, Washington. Ben holds a B.S. in Aerospace Engineering from the United States Naval Academy and a Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
Paul Klassen
Senior Vice President, Engineering
Paul joined in 2016 and is responsible for leading the organization’s Software, Mechanical, and Engineering disciplines. Paul brings over 20 years of experience leading cross-functional engineering teams to build innovative, robust and secure technologies for diverse industries including connected car, mobile, media, and satellite. Paul has a successful background managing large engineering organizations to deliver award-winning programs such as Toyota Entune (CES Best-in-Show), Lexus Enform, Chrysler Uconnect. These programs well-exceeded revenue targets of over $700 million and had the highest user conversion rates of its peers. Paul has a strong expertise in machine learning, and has successfully architected and overseen development of deep learning platforms used for tracking major population movements.
Brenda Kuhns
Senior Director of Marketing
Brenda joined Kymeta in 2021 leading the marketing team and has responsibility for all strategic marketing and communications initiatives. Brenda has over 25 years of leading high performing marketing teams in technology companies. During her 16 years at Panasonic Avionics, she managed the corporate marketing team and built a new consumer focused marketing group to further expand inflight connectivity awareness and adoption by global customers. Prior to Panasonic, she worked in marketing at Tenzing (now SITA) the first company to provide inflight connectivity service commercially. She was previously a part of the team at Teledesic, a startup working on delivering global broadband communication services. Brenda graduated with a BA from the University of Washington.
Lilac Muller, Ph.D.
Senior Vice President, Product
Lilac joined in early 2018. She oversees product strategy, definition, and launch activities and was instrumental in the productization of the u8 platform. Lilac has over 20 years of product development experience in the consumer electronics, medical devices, and telecommunication industries where she has led cradle-to-grave product development efforts with a focus on performance, quality, cost and customer experience. She holds 19 U.S. patents, most of them in the field of MEMS-based switching in fiber optic networks. Lilac has a bachelor's and master’s degrees in Aeronautics/Astronautics from MIT and a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from U.C. Berkeley.
Jonathan Osler
Senior Vice President, Global Sales and Services
Jon joined Kymeta in 2021 and is responsible for leading Kymeta’s global services business and is also currently acting as the VP of Global Sales. Jon’s career has covered various disciplines of the telecommunications industry including space, terrestrial, MNO and internet sectors. In his previous role at Intelsat Jon led market development, external partnerships and alliances into emerging markets and technologies globally. Jon also led several key initiatives including the creation of Intelsat’s Global Accounts program and managed Intelsat’s African business. Jon also held various senior sales and marketing leadership positions at ViaSat, Uniden Corp. and Motorola.
Janna Schober
Vice President, Program Management and Supply Chain Operations
Janna joined in 2021 where she oversees the program strategy, execution and delivery for product development. Janna has over 15 years of program management experience in the aerospace industry where she led a wide range of programs across commercial, military and space platforms. Janna has a bachelor’s in Aerospace Engineering and master’s degree in Aeronautical Science from Embry Riddle Aeronautical University , master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from UCONN and Management from Rensselaer Polytechnic University.
Nima Seyedali
Senior Vice President, Legal
Nima joined Kymeta in October 2021 as Vice President of Legal, managing the company’s legal affairs including corporate governance, regulatory, intellectual property, financing, and business transactions. He is an experienced attorney who started his career in aerospace as a Mechanical Engineer at Boeing, then joined Seed IP Law Group as a Patent Attorney during which time he prosecuted patents across various technologies and assisted in patent and trademark litigation. Nima’s first inhouse role was at Greenpoint Technologies as General Counsel where he negotiated international contracts for large aircraft VIP interior completions, oversaw patenting strategies, and managed the company’s legal matters through its growth and sale to Zodiac Aerospace. In his most recent role prior to Kymeta, Nima was General Counsel for Aviation Technical Services, managing acquisitions, large airline and OEM contracts, corporate compliance, intellectual property, and government affairs. Nima holds an MBA and a Juris Doctorate from Seattle University, and a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from University of Washington.