Karl Chen

Principal Partner & CEO at What Tech Companies Need

Karl possesses more than 25 years of experience in technology strategy and business management. He specializes in storage systems, enterprise software, mobile and infrastructure computing. He has successfully built and sold two entreprenuerial start-up businesses including LeftHand Networks, which was acquired by HP for $360M in November, 2008 and NuView ManageX, which was acquired in 1997.

He has executive management experience in strategy development, marketing, channel & business development and sales management. Karl' s skills include P&L and business unit management, fund-raising and mergers & acquisition. His former roles include Chief Marketing Officer at Starboard Storage Systems, VP of Bus Dev & Marketing at LeftHand Networks, VP of Marketing at BMC Software and senior management positions at Dell, Hewlett-Packard and Compaq. He has launched brands and products at several companies, developed strategic partnerships and negotiated licensing deals with industry leaders including Microsoft, Oracle, VMware, Intel, HP, IBM, Dell, Cisco & Citrix Systems and many other world-class enterprise computing companies.

Karl holds an MBA degree from Bentley University and a BSBA from Babson College.

Links

Previous companies

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Timeline

  • Principal Partner & CEO

    Current role