Michael Knudsen

Mr. Knudsen’s 40 year business career included executive assignments at large technology companies (Juniper Networks, Sun Microsystems, and Toshiba), as well as medium sized companies (QLogic and Digi International), and a venture funded startup, Xambala. As the CEO of Xambala, he completed development of and introduced the world's first semantic processor. At Juniper, he held the position of VP Business Operations, chartered to grow its newly launched switch business to $1 billion. At Sun, he was Vice President of the OEM Systems Group where he managed the company's $1 billion OEM business. At Toshiba, as Network Products VP/GM, he led an internal startup to market share leadership in 27 months, against an entrenched competitor, and at QLogic, as Senior Vice President in charge of all of the company's business units, he improved operational excellence in quality, cost and customer service, while establishing dependable delivery of new products that met function, cost and time-to-market goals.

Mike has an engineering degree and an MBA from the University Of Wisconsin – Milwaukee, where he was elected President of the business school's Graduate Student Advisory Council.