Velocity 09: Umang Gupta and Vik Chaudhary, "‘Next Web’ Challenges"

Umang Gupta has served since 1997 as chairman and chief executive officer of Keynote Systems (NASDAQ: KEYN), the global leader in test and measurement solutions that improve mobile communications and online business performance. A well-known technology visionary and Silicon Valley entrepreneur, Umang began his career in 1973 with IBM. Umang joined Oracle Corporation in 1981 where he wrote the first business plan for the company, and served as Vice President and General Manager of the Microcomputer Products Division through 1984. He left Oracle to become Founder, Chairman, and Chief Executive Officer of Gupta Corporation, which he took public in 1993 (NASDAQ: GPTA). Gupta Corporation was responsible for ushering in the era of enterprise client/server computing by introducing many seminal innovations, including the world’s first client/server relational database system for PC networks in 1988. Umang has also been an active investor and advisor to a number of Silicon Valley start-up companies including serving on the Board of Trustees of Mosaix, a publicly held call-center systems company from 1997 to 1999 until its sale to Lucent Technologies.

Umang received his Bachelor of Technology degree in chemical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) at Kanpur in 1971 and his M.B.A. from Kent State University in Ohio, USA in 1972. In 1996, Umang received the Distinguished Alumnus Award of the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur for his outstanding contributions to Information Technology and entrepreneurial achievements. In addition to his professional activities, Umang has previously served on the board of the Peninsula Community Foundation, a San Mateo based public charity that builds investment and involvement in community. He is also an avid history buff and serves on the Board of the San Mateo Historical Association. He is also Chairman of the IIT Kanpur Foundation and Board Chairman of PanIIT USA. In 2000, Umang was the honored recipient of the Asian Pacific Foundation Award for Civic Leadership and Philanthropy.

Vik Chaudhary has been at Keynote for 6 years managing Keynote’s flagship products – Transaction Perspective® and Application Perspective® – and has extended the company into new markets via ten acquisitions. He has spent 19 years in chief executive, product strategy and engineering positions at blue-chip and start-up technology companies, holds a B. S. in Computer Science and Engineering from MIT and is a frequent speaker at Web performance industry events.