Management Team
Proxilliant’s team of seasoned executives brings together more than ten decades of experience in the cable industry and technology innovation to enable cable operators worldwide to achieve dramatically higher levels of bandwidth capacity, reliability and profitability as they deploy advanced two-way services over their networks.
Sonia Khademi, Chief Executive Officer
Richard Berthold, Chief Technology Officer
Brent Levetan, Vice President, Sales and Business Development
Peter Cullblom, Vice President, Engineering
Peter Carlsson, Vice President, Operations
Tom Trometer, Chief Financial Officer
Paula Giancola, Vice President, Marketing
Sonia Khademi, Chief Executive Officer
Sonia Khademi, a veteran cable executive and successful entrepreneur, brings more than 20 years of experience to her role as Proxilliant’s Chief Executive Officer. With a proven record of innovation, a global business perspective, and a career-long focus of carefully defining customer needs, Khademi leads Proxilliant’s strategy development and daily operations to deliver the company’s industry-leading service management solutions to cable operators worldwide.
In 1996, as co-founder, President and CEO of CableSoft, Khademi brought that company to the forefront of the interactive television market and the center of the convergence of television and the Internet. For the company, she launched the cable industry’s first commercially available interactive television service, demonstrating her expertise in the planning, development and delivery of complex and innovative information services. Among the company’s customers were nearly all of the top-five cable operators at the time. In 2001, she successfully sold CableSoft to OpenTV. In 2004, Khademi co-founded and served as CEO for Sumatus, a solution provider and integrator that specializes in IP-based technology in the key areas of IP surveillance, VoIP applications and multi-services wireless connectivity.
Khademi began her career in the cable industry in 1983 as a Design Engineer for Data Transmission Devices. Since then, she also has held senior executive roles in product management and sales with Interactive Systems Corp., a division of Kodak; Hughes LAN Systems; and Cisco Systems.
Khademi earned her Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering from Northeastern University.
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Richard Berthold, Chief Technology Officer
Richard Berthold, an industry veteran with a successful track record in strategic planning, product development and delivery of high-value solutions for the telecommunications industries, brings more than 20 years of experience in cable and technology. As Chief Technology Officer of Proxilliant, Berthold defines the vision and architecture for the company’s Service Management solutions.
Berthold comes to Proxilliant as a successful technology entrepreneur. He was the co-founder and CTO of Auspice Corporation, which builds next-generation service assurance and infrastructure management solutions that are currently deployed across Comcast, Cox, Cablevision, and Insight, among others. As the lead inventor of Auspice’s core technology, he served both as visionary and lead systems architect of the strategic products.
Before joining Proxilliant, Berthold served as Senior Technology Advisor for OSS services operations automation and advanced voice and interactive service delivery to Comcast and other, next-generation multimedia services companies.
Prior to Auspice, Berthold held several strategic roles as a General Manager, Senior Engineering Development Manager, and Software/Systems Engineer in the design, development and delivery or a wide range of first-of-a-kind products and solutions for highly reliable, highly available and fault-tolerant hardware and software applications at MIT’s Draper Laboratory in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Berthold earned his Bachelor of Science in computer science and mathematics from S.U.N.Y. Potsdam and his Master of Science in computer science from Rutgers University.
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Brent Levetan, Vice President, Sales and Business Development
Brent Levetan is a seasoned sales executive with 27 years of experience in the cable and telecommunications industries. As Vice President of Sales and Business Development at Proxilliant, Levetan is responsible for worldwide sales of the company's cable-based service health management solutions and for managing relationships with strategic manufacturing, technology and distribution partners.
Prior to joining Proxilliant, Levetan served as Vice President of Business
Development at Vyyo, where he was responsible for developing relationships with critical technology and cable industry partners. He had been Vice President of North America Sales and Marketing at Xtend Networks, before the company was acquired by Vyyo. At Xtend, Levetan was instrumental in establishing productive relationships with the leading cable operators in the U.S. and Canada.
Levetan also enjoyed success at 3Com Corporation, where he built the company's first sales organization focused on the cable industry and served as its Director of North America Sales. That organization generated nearly one billion dollars in sales for 3Com. Earlier in his career, he held various senior sales executive roles at AT&T and Terayon Communications.
Levetan received a Bachelor of Science degree from Weber State University and an MBA from Arizona State University. He is a member of the Society of Cable Television Engineers. For many years, he has been actively involved in industry forums focused on the cable-based business services market.
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Peter Cullblom, Vice President, Engineering
Peter Cullblom is a seasoned technologist with nearly 20 years of experience with RF technologies. He was instrumental in transforming the initial concept of Dynamic Ingress BlockingTM into an integral technology component of Proxilliant’s comprehensive service management solution. At Proxilliant, he is responsible for the design and development of the company’s Cable Access Management System.
In 1992, Cullblom co-founded SpaceNet Communication AB, which focused on the hardware design of Pay TV equipment for the cable industry. While there, he consulted to Ericssson and developed, designed and built RF product products for antenna near systems and EDGE-based base station components. Prior to SpaceNet, Peter worked at SATT and Wormald in Australia, designing advanced electronic defense equipment.
Cullblom has a Master’s degree in engineering physics from Uppsala University in Sweden.
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Peter Carlsson, Vice President, Operations
Peter Carlsson is an accomplished software executive, with 20 years of experience in software development and project management for RF communication systems. At Proxilliant, Carlsson is responsible for overall systems engineering, systems integration, product delivery, and technical support.
Carlsson co-founded SpaceNet Communication AB, where, as CTO, he lead the software development and project management of large communication systems for leading technology companies such as Philips, Ericsson, and CelsiusTech.
Prior to SpaceNet, Carlsson worked within the Swedish defense industry in both hardware and software engineering roles. He then joined for ENEA as a consultant with assignments as Project Leader and System Designer for the leading telecom companies in Sweden working with WLL based systems based on DECT, WLAN, GSM and UMTS.
Carlsson earned a Bachelor of Science degree in computer science from MID Sweden University.
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Tom Trometer, Chief Financial Officer
Tom Trometer brings more than 25 years of financial management experience in both public and private companies to his role as Chief Financial Officer at Proxilliant. Trometer is responsible for the overall financial management of the company, the corporate treasury function, and internal reporting.
Prior to joining Proxilliant, Trometer was the CFO of CableSoft, a privately funded interactive television company. He was instrumental in the sale of the company to General Instruments, a division of Motorola. Previously, he served as Vice President of Finance and Administration for the publicly traded food biotech firm Opta Food Ingredients, where he was responsible for all aspects of the accounting and finance departments as well as human resources. During his tenure, Trometer helped to raise over $40 million in funds in both the public and private sector. Earlier in his career, Trometer worked in the small business practice of Price Waterhouse, assisting start-ups with business models and plans.
Trometer is a Certified Public Accountant. He earned his Bachelor’s degree in accounting from Canisius College in Buffalo, NY.
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Paula Giancola, Vice President, Marketing
Paula Giancola is an accomplished marketing and sales executive with more than 20 years of experience in cable and technology. As Vice President of Marketing, Giancola is responsible for planning and implementing corporate and marketing communications for Proxilliant.
Before joining Proxilliant, Giancola served as Vice President of Marketing for Ucentric Systems (now Motorola), leading corporate communications and product marketing for the venture-backed software firm. Before Ucentric, Giancola served as the National Sales Director for MediaOne Road Runner, where she was responsible for sales channel strategy and implementation for the high-speed Internet service. Prior to her corporate role, Giancola was Northeast Regional Director of Marketing and Sales for MediaOne’s (now Comcast) high-speed Internet service. She also served as corporate Product Development Manager at then Continential Cablevision, focusing on interactive television services.
Before entering the cable industry, Giancola served as Business Development Program Manager for Hewlett-Packard and worked in the management consulting group at Arthur D. Little, Inc.
Giancola earned her Bachelor’s degree in communication arts from Cornell University and an MBA from MIT’s Sloan School of Management. Giancola is also a Betsy Magness Fellow, a graduate of the leadership institute for women in the cable industry.
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