Altair Engineering Inc. is an American product design and development, engineering software and cloud computing software company.

Information Technology

Altair

As chief product and strategy officer, Ravi Kunju is responsible for the strategy and vision of Altair products, which includes facilitating the development, sales, pricing, and marketing of Altair’s solutions for multiple industry verticals, across all business lines. He most recently served as the senior vice president of product strategy and pricing for Altair’s software solutions where he established and launched the go-to-market strategy for the Altair Units business model. He also led the analytical team responsible for customer software usage data, including royalty payments and reports for the Altair Partner Alliance.

Previously, Kunju held several leadership roles at Altair including vice president of business strategy for Altair’s manufacturing solutions, vice president of strategy for enterprise computing, managing director of enterprise computing for the Americas, and managing director of the U.S. North Central region.

Prior to joining Altair, Kunju was a project engineer at Ford Motor Company and a structural analyst at Chrysler Corporation.

Ravi Kunju

With more than 25 years of industry experience, Shekar is the chief executive officer of AdMY Technology Group, Inc. and a venture partner at NTTVC. He has a wealth of consulting, strategy, and technical expertise in electronics, telecommunications, and software markets and has an outstanding track record of efficiently scaling technology businesses including both organic and inorganic growth.

Shekar was most recently an executive vice president and general manager for [VMware](/org/vmware)’s telco and edge cloud business unit and previously held other leadership positions at VMWare including as the company’s executive vice president of strategy and corporate development.

Prior to joining [VMware](/org/vmware), Shekar held executive positions at BindView and Instantis, and advised executive management through roles at Lucent Technologies and [McKinsey & Company](/org/mckinsey-company). He also was an assistant professor of electrical engineering at [Lafayette College](/org/lafayette-college) and conducted research at Bell Laboratories.

Shekar earned a master of business administration degree from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania; a PhD and master of science degree in electrical engineering from [Johns Hopkins University](/org/johns-hopkins-university); and a bachelor of science degree in electrical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay.

He has advised on the Boards of MobiledgeX, Cohere, U.S. India Business Council, [Puppet](/org/puppet), and the [VMware](/org/vmware) Foundation. He is currently on the California board for [Room to Read](/org/room-to-read).

Shekar Ayyar

Global Sales Strategy
Go to market strategy
sales enablement team
Strategic Account Team
Product Strategy
Sales Training
Leadership Mentoring

Ubaldo Rodriguez

Sam Mahalingam is the Chief Technical Officer at Altair. Sam has over 25 years of experience in the IT industry, with a focus on software development and management.

Previously, Sam was the Senior Project Manager at [HCL Technologies](/org/hcl), where they were responsible for rescuing a multimillion-dollar engagement with a semiconductor OEM customer that was on the brink of collapse due to quality issues and lack of vision and execution from HCL. Sam was able to successfully turnaround the engagement and deliver a proposal that met the customer's requirements within 8 weeks.

During their time at [HCL Technologies](/org/hcl), Sam also led the development of a semiconductor OEM Wire Bonding machine using state-of-the-art, real-time and embedded software. Sam grew the offshore development team in India from 5 to 100 people within 2 ½ years.

 Sam has also served as the Chief Technology Officer at Altair, where they were responsible for leading the technical direction of the company and developing new products and services. Under their leadership, Altair has released several new products, including a cloud-based product development platform and a mobile app development platform.

After completing their B.E. in Computer Science from Engineering, Sam Mahalingam attended The Wharton School for an executive program in marketing strategy and mergers & acquisitions. Sam then went on to Northwestern University - Kellogg School of Management for an executive program in leadership and pricing strategies. For their next executive program, they studied project management at Skolkovo - Moscow School of Management. Finally, they completed their Executive MBA in Business Management from the [Indian School of Business](/org/indian-school-of-business).

Sam Mahalingam reports to James R. Scapa, Founder, Chairman & CEO. They work with Brett Chouinard - President & COO, Nelson Dias - Chief Revenue Officer, and Amy Messano - Chief Marketing Officer.

Sam Mahalingam

Amy Messano is the current Chief Marketing Officer at Altair. Amy has extensive experience in marketing and communications, having served as the Vice President of Integrated Marketing & Communications for both [Aptiv](/org/aptiv) and [Delphi](/org/delphi).

Amy was a key player in the roll-out of [Aptiv](/org/aptiv) (formerly [Delphi](/org/delphi)), overseeing all forms of marketing and communication, from branding and messaging to social media and digital outreach. This was a massive undertaking, requiring the coordination of a new name, brand, and set of messages across all key audiences in a condensed time frame.

At [Delphi](/org/delphi), Amy led the Integrated Marketing & Communications team, increasing the company's reputation and thought leadership through smart delivery of compelling content. Amy also played a key role in the first-ever autonomous drive across the US, landing massive global media and social results.

Amy Messano has a bachelors degree in history/english from the [University of Colorado Boulder](/org/university-of-colorado-boulder). Amy also has a degree in journalism from [Northwestern University](/org/northwestern-university).

Their manager is James R. Scapa, Founder, Chairman & CEO. They are on a team with Stephanie Buckner - COO, Gilma Saravia - Chief People Officer, and Jeff Marraccini - Chief Information Security Officer.

Amy Messano

Nelson Dias is the Chief Revenue Officer at Altair. Nelson has previously worked as an investment analyst at M. H. Carnegie & Co., and as the CEO of Iceonline.com.au. Dias started their career in 2008 by selling excess jewellery inventory on eBay while at university. In 2011/12, they became Australia's largest store in the Jewellery and Watches category.

Nelson Dias has a Bachelor of Commerce from the [University of Sydney](/org/university-of-sydney). Their field is finance and international business.

Some of their coworkers include Raoul Maitra - Chief Legal Officer, Jeff Marraccini - Chief Information Security Officer, and Matthew Brown - CFO. Pietro Cervellera - SVP EMEA, Ubaldo Rodriguez -  SVP Global Sales report to Nelson Dias. Nelson Dias reports to James R. Scapa, Founder, Chairman & CEO.

Nelson Dias

As chief operating officer, Stephanie Buckner is responsible for Altair's corporate development efforts and field operations, sales, and technical support globally. Previously she served as senior vice president of corporate development where she was responsible for building strategic partnerships across Altair’s entire ecosystem including software, hardware, cloud, the Altair Partner Alliance, and with customers.

Earlier in her career, Buckner held senior management roles at Altair including director of strategic alliances where she surpassed aggressive new partner enrollment goals and was responsible for scouting, selling, onboarding, and managing relationships with third-party B2B software providers. Additionally, during her time at Altair, she also was the co-founder and chief executive officer of WEYV, a multi-content platform built on Altair’s patented digital content licensing model.

Prior to joining Altair, Buckner held analyst roles at Cisco Systems and [American Express](/org/american-express).

Buckner earned a bachelor’s degree in industrial and operations engineering from University of Michigan.

Stephanie Buckner

As chief people officer, Saravia leads Altair’s global human resources organization, including workforce strategy, talent acquisition and development, as well as employee engagement. She joined Altair from [Aptiv](/org/aptiv) where she served as vice president, global corporate human resources and talent. Previously, she held various senior roles at U. S. Steel and [Deloitte](/org/deloitte)’s [Human Capital](/org/human-capital) consulting group. Saravia has more than two decades of experience in leading large-scale, global teams in organizational effectiveness, talent acquisition and development, and HR transformation at major companies. She earned a bachelor of business administration degree from the University of Texas at Austin and holds various certifications and trainings in talent, leadership development, diversity and inclusion.

Gilma Saravia

Neftali Santos

Zulfitri Zulkarnain

Wallace Scott

Anthony Garofali

Sriram Ramanathan

Varun Kallur

Davide Martire

Baba Majekodunmi

Michael Wawrzinek

Manoj Mahendran

Waldemar Dr. Lastowski

Venugopal Ravula

Dylan Shapiro

James R. Scapa brings more than 35 years of engineering experience to his dual role of Chairman and CEO of Altair Engineering, Inc., a title he has held since the company's inception.

In 1985, Mr. Scapa and two partners founded a small consulting activity in the new field of computer-aided-engineering. Today, the company employs over 2,000 employees with more than 40 offices throughout 20 countries.

Through Mr. Scapa's leadership, the company is now a leading global provider of simulation technology and engineering services that empower client innovation and decision-making.

With over 5,000 clients, Altair serves the automotive, aerospace, government and defense, heavy equipment industry sectors as well as the consumer products, ship building, energy, electronics, life sciences, and architecture engineering and construction markets.

Prior to establishing Altair, Scapa served as an engineering consultant to the automotive industry, beginning his career with Ford Motor Company in 1978.

Scapa holds a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from [Columbia University](/org/columbia-university) and a Master of Business Administration from the University of Michigan.

James R. Scapa

Sandy Carter has more than 20 years of experience of demonstrated success in the technology industry and has held leadership roles in some of the most prominent companies in the world, including Amazon and IBM Corporation. Currently, Sandy is senior vice president and channel chief of Unstoppable Domains Inc., a software company that specializes in building domains on blockchains.

Previously, she was the vice president of Public Sector Partners and Programs at Amazon Web Services (AWS) where she secured some of AWS Public Sector’s largest partnerships, innovated new revenue streams, and implemented business strategies that increased partner participation by 54% on average. With AWS, she also spearheaded organizations that prioritized racial and gender diversity and created the Women of EC2 group, the Women of the C-Suite group, and founded the Think Big for Small Business program, which “offers small and/or minority-owned public sector organizations unique access to business, technical, and marketing support.”

Sandy also holds a position on the board of Girls in Tech, a global nonprofit organization of more than 60,000 that’s dedicated to eliminating the gender gap in the international tech industry, and she’s an adjunct professor at Carnegie Mellon Silicon Valley. And outside of her corporate and academic ventures, she’s authored five books about business, social media, and marketing, was named to Forbes’ “Global Top 40 Marketing Masters” list, and CNN’s “10 Most Powerful Women in Tech of M2M” list. She’s an international speaker and influencer, and has presented on topics like artificial intelligence, machine learning, and cloud computing in more than 80 countries.

Carter earned a Master of Business Administration degree in marketing/technology management from [Harvard Business School](/org/harvard-business-school), and a Bachelor of Science degree in computer science from [Duke University](/org/duke-university).

Sandy Carter

As an executive on Google’s Cloud team with more than 25 years of IT industry experience, Jim Anderson works with customers to leverage emerging cloud, AI, and data analytics technologies to turn data into insights and accelerate digital transformations. Known for his experience in helping companies take advantage of market transitions to meet growth opportunities, Anderson was selected by Savoy magazine as one of the “Most Influential Black Americans in Corporate America” in 2020.

Previously, Anderson held several transformational leadership roles, including serving as the vice president of [Hewlett Packard Enterprise](/org/hewlett-packard-enterprise)’s $2B Cloud Service Provider business; the president of the Americas for BAE Systems Applied Intelligence; global sales director of Unified Computing at [Cisco](/org/cisco); and vice president of enterprise sales for Dell’s Public Sector.

Anderson holds an MBA from The Wharton School, [University of Pennsylvania](/org/university-of-pennsylvania), and a bachelor of science degree in electrical engineering and computer science from [Princeton University](/org/princeton). He previously served as an independent board director for the U.S. Olympic Synchronized Swimming as well as chairman of the board for Make-a-Wish of Central Texas. He is a board member for the Education Reform Network, a member of Executive Leadership Council, and a member of the GTM Advisory Board for [CapitalG](/org/capitalg) (Alphabet’s independent growth fund).

Jim Anderson

As chief information security officer, Jeff Marraccini is responsible for strategizing and implementing Altair’s global security programs across all functions including Altair’s DevOps Center of Excellence, IT, legal, and services. Most recently, Marraccini served as Altair’s senior vice president of cloud strategy and technology where he focused on technical compliance, security controls, tools, cloud specialties, and security vendor operations. Prior to that, he held several leadership roles at Altair focused on IT, computer and network systems, and technology security since joining in 1997, including senior vice president of IT strategy and technology and senior vice president of global IT systems.

While at Altair, Marraccini’s teams have helped Altair transition to hybrid and public cloud computing, adopted global voice-over IP technologies, remote access for employee flexibility, diverse platform support for software development, engineering and scientific computing, various network technologies, and business systems. Prior to joining Altair, Marraccini worked at Oakland University, Electronic Data Systems, and has consulted at various organizations.

Marraccini holds a bachelor’s degree in economics, computer science, and anthropology from Oakland University.

Jeff Marraccini

Judith Hill

Andrew Baldwin

Salvatore Cristofori

Alessandro Bruno

Varun Kallur S

Brian Gayle has served as our Senior Vice President, Chief Accounting Officer since September 2018 and also became our principal accounting officer in March 2021. From March 2015 to September 2018, Mr. Gayle served as our Vice President-Corporate Controller. Prior to these roles, Mr. Gayle began his career at Deloitte & Touche, LLP. Mr. Gayle is a certified public accountant and holds a Bachelor’s degree of Accountancy from the Walsh College.


Brian Gayle

Pietro Cervellera

As chief financial officer, Matthew Brown is responsible for Altair's global finance organization. Over the past two decades, Brown has led finance teams at top technology companies, helping drive financial strategy and planning, accounting, reporting, and capital structure.

Prior to joining Altair, Brown previously served as interim chief financial officer at [NortonLifeLock](/org/norton), a leading consumer cyber safety company, and chief accounting officer at Symantec, a leading provider of enterprise security software. He also held finance leadership roles at Blue Coat Systems, NETGEAR, and Brocade Communications, after starting his career at KPMG, LLP.

Brown is a certified public accountant with a bachelor's degree in business administration from the Walter A. Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley.

Matthew Brown

Blaise Cole

Raoul Maitra

Martin Nichols is the current Chief Information Officer at Altair. Martin has also worked as a Research Assistant at [Wayne State University](/org/wayne-state-university) and as a BANFES Research Assistant for Evaluation at the Academy for Educational Development. Martin has also been a [Peace Corps](/org/peace-corps) Volunteer, where they served as a Mathmatics and Biology High School Teacher in Lesotho.

Martin Nichols has a Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Michigan.

Martin Nichols works with Stephanie Buckner - COO, Jeff Marraccini - Chief Information Security Officer, and Gilma Saravia - Chief People Officer. Martin Nichols reports to James R. Scapa, Founder, Chairman & CEO.

Martin Nichols

Mary C. Boyce

Trace Harris is a finance, strategy and business development executive. She has spent 20 years managing transactions and leading teams in global media companies and in education.

Ms. Harris' professional experience includes 13 years with [Vivendi](/org/vivendi), ultimately as its senior executive in the US for strategy, finance, corporate development, and business innovation. She was previously Senior Vice President of Strategic Development for Universal Studios Television Group, where she was responsible for developing and implementing international television strategies as well as for launching its first international television network. Prior to Universal Studios, Ms. Harris was Director of Finance and Channel Operations for Warner Bros. International Channels. She started her career at JP Morgan in New York. Currently, Ms. Harris is consulting to media and education companies.

Trace Harris

Mr Earhart is a CPA/MBA with a career that includes forty-two years of finance & operating experience focused on technology and consumer companies, publicly and privately held. Specialties include business strategy, acquisition optimization and corporate finance.

Retired from Motorola, Inc in 2003 as SVP of Finance with contributions in: the launch of the Cellular industry, the opening of Japan, China and several European markets to cellular technology, venture investment for market development and capital formation for overall Corporate stability.

Steve Earhart

The executive team at Altair has experience in a variety of industries, including automotive, tech, and retail. They have experience in integrated marketing and communications, global PR, and research. They also have a variety of educational backgrounds, including history/english, journalism, mechanical engineering, and finance/international business.

CEO and Executive Team

About

Team members

Other teams at Altair

Leadership Team

Board of Directors

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