Executive Management

• Jean-Yves Leclerc

• Thierry Grenot

• François Lecerf

• Michel Agopian

• Frank Lyonnet

• Véronique Coulmann

• Mark Burton

• Béatrice Durand

• Ammar Hindi

• Jeff Herman

• Géraldine Palau

• Jean-François Rousseau

• Markus Ernsten

Jean-Yves Leclerc,
Founder & CEO

Jean-Yves has extensive experience in managing international high-tech companies in the technical, industrial, marketing and sales domains. He was the cofounder of Tecsi, then Deputy General Manager of Telic-Alcatel, where he oversaw the development of Minitel. He set up and managed the Supercomputer Division of Evans & Sutherland in California. He was Chairman of Alcatel Business Systems in the UK. Jean-Yves graduated from the Ecole Polytechnique in Paris and received a Ph.D. in Computer Sciences from the University of California, Berkeley.

Thierry Grenot,
Founder & CTO

Thierry was responsible for the architecture design and implementation of numerous telecommunications systems, including multi-service high-throughput networks. A recognized expert in the fields of ATM and quality of service, he owns numerous patents. Before Ipanema’s creation, he was VP of Engineering, at the Corporate Network Business Unit of Thales. Thierry is an E.N.S.E.R.G. graduate.

François Lecerf,
Founder & VP Engineering

François has over 15 years experience in the design of numerous telecommunications products, including access systems for WAN (PPP, frame relay, ATM, IP, etc.). He was co-founder and Vice President of Engineering & Manufacturing at Synaptel until its acquisition by the Interphase Corporation in 1987. At Interphase, he was CTO for Europe. François is an Ecole Supérieure d'Electricité graduate.

Michel Agopian,
VP Europe

An INSA and IAE graduate, Michel has already more that 20 years of commercial experience in the new technology sector. After holding the positions of commercial engineer, regional commercial director and then marketing director at Digital Equipment, he was then general manager for UB networks, a networks solution manufacturer. In 1997 Michel joined Cisco Systems Europe as EMEA marketing director for the enterprise sector and then commercial director for large accounts in the industry sector. Before joining Ipanema he held the position of general manager for Symbol Technologies France.

Véronique Coulmann,
VP Finance

Véronique has extensive international finance experience. She worked for the Fujitsu subsidiary Amdahl, France, where she was Regional Finance Manager and European Controller. She started her career as Finance Manager at Cedies and then became Chief Accountant for Grel, the INTERBANK market agent. Véronique holds an MBA from the University of Seattle.

Frank Lyonnet,
VP Product Marketing

Frank founded ActiVia Networks, a Content Delivery Networking company in 2000. He managed the company growth until 2003 when he sold it to Stratacache. Frank began his career as a researcher within the l’Institut National de Recherche en Informatique et Automatique (INRIA), for four years. Frank holds a doctorate in IT with a specialization in IP Networks from the University of Nice.

Béatrice Durand,
Corporate Marketing Director

Béatrice has extensive experience in IT. At Thomson she worked as sales account manager before joining the marketing department. She worked for Interface Data, the main integrator in France of Sage and Navision's accounting and business management solutions  and Catalliances multichannel retailers, on and off-line as Marketing Manager. In 2001 Béatrice joined Ipanema as as Marketing Director and is a graduate from the Ecole Supérieure de Vente de Paris

Mark Burton,
Product Management Director

Mark Burton has more than has 20 years pre and post sales IT experience, primarily in  systems and network management at a variety of companies including IBM/Tivoli and Riversoft.  He joined Ipanema four years ago as their first UK technical consultant and has been a key team member helping in the establishment and growth of Ipanema in the UK.  Mark has recently become Director of Product Management within Ipanema.

Jeffry Herman,
Vice President and General Manager of North America

Before Ipanema, Herman served as vice president of worldwide sales for Certeon, Inc., a provider of WAN application acceleration appliances. Previously, he was director of sales for Blue Coat Systems Inc., a provider of Internet security software and network appliances focused on the Internet content control and application acceleration market. Prior to that, he was vice president of sales and business development for Vocalocity, Inc., a provider of speech recognition-based applications. Earlier, he held positions with Arrow Electronics, Inc., Harris Corporation, Prime Computer, Inc. and NCR Corporation. Herman has a bachelor’s degree in finance from the University of Colorado.

Jean-François Rousseau,
BeNeLux and Spain Regional Sales Director

Before joining Ipanema, Jean-François Rousseau worked for Cisco Systems for 10 years where he held the position of Strategic Alliance Manager France after having been Sales Manager for global system integrators for Europe, Asia and Africa. He started his career at Alcatel Réseaux Entreprise where he held amongst others the role of Product Marketing Manager. Jean-Francois is a Supelec and ENSP Marseille graduate.

Markus Ernsten,
Country Manager, Germany 

Géraldine Palau,
Country Manager, France

Géraldine has more than 15 year’s commercial experience in the new technology sector and in network management. She worked for 4 years as Channel Manager for Legato Systems and then for 4 years at Network Appliances. She then joined the French subsidiary of Silicon Graphics as the Commercial Director. Géraldine is an ISTEC graduate - Ecole Supérieure de commerce et Marketing.