Governance

Mirza Arifovic is an accomplished R&D leader with extensive experience in Ethernet switching and Data Center networking. He has built and led global engineering teams delivering complex software and hardware programs across multiple technology generations. Currently Head of Data Center Switching Applications and SONiC R&D at Nokia, Mirza has held senior leadership roles at Casa Systems, Extreme Networks, Avaya Networking and Nortel, driving innovation in open networking solutions, virtualization, carrier-class, and enterprise campus Ethernet solutions.

Prathyaya Bhandarkar is currently working for Marvell Technologies as Senior Director of Software Product Management. He is a seasoned professional in the Computer Networking Industry, boasting a wealth of experience spanning Software Development, Product Management, and Leadership. With a proven track record, Prathyaya has held pivotal roles as both a Product Manager and a Product Architect, specializing in cutting-edge domains such as IoT, SDN-NFV and Open Networking Software.

With a remarkable career marked by achievements, Prathyaya has managed extensive software portfolios for cloud and enterprise applications, including notable projects like SAI/SONiC. His strategic vision has driven next-generation networking software initiatives like NetOps and AIOps with Open Software, and his leadership has been instrumental in driving SONiC adoption across datacenter and enterprise. With Prathyaya, you can expect a captivating and insightful discussion on the latest innovations and trends in the ever-evolving world of computer networking.

Dennis Cai leads the team to build predictable network for Alibaba Cloud, with close to 100K SONiC based white-box switches, gateways and routers deployed. Prior to joining Alibaba, he was a distinguished engineer at Cisco, driving the architecture evolution for the mega-scale web and carrier networks.

Joe serves as Senior Director of Design Engineering at Celestica, where he spearheads software design engineering for all networking initiatives. With a career spanning high-growth startups and industry giants like Dell Technologies and Force10 Networks, Joe specializes in hardware and software designs that advance the state-of-the-art in distributed systems. A recognized leader in the open-source community, he served as the TSC Chair for LF OpenSwitch and was a member of the initial Dell team that helped launch early SONiC development. Joe holds dual degrees in Physics/Math and Computer Science.

Mohammad Hanif leads the software development of SONiC at Broadcom where, in a short span of time, his team has become one of the largest contributors to the open source SONiC.  Prior to Broadcom, Hanif held leadership roles at Brocade and Foundry Networks where he designed and developed industry leading switching and routing products for service providers and enterprise data centers.  During his career, he has also worked for Novell, Apple, Ascend Communications, and others where he built and shipped a diverse set of products ranging from Networking Protocols, Enterprise File Servers, and Broadband Access Switches.  Hanif is a hands-on technology leader and is passionate about building highly scalable and highly resilient networking products.  He holds a BS in Computer Engineering and MS in Computer Science both from the University of Arizona.

Saurabh Kapoor is Director of Product Management and Strategy for Networking Solutions at Dell Technologies. He played a key role as one of the founding members in creating the Enterprise SONiC Distribution by Dell Technologies, the first commercial offering for SONiC.

In his current role, Saurabh leads engagements with the open-source community, technology ecosystem partners, and silicon and partner ODM vendors. Since joining Dell Technologies in 2019, he has played a pivotal role in building the Dell Networking product portfolio and has been instrumental in driving business development and product strategy for their Open Networking offerings.

With over a decade of experience in Product Management, Solution Engineering, and Business Development, Saurabh possesses a keen eye for identifying and executing “big, disruptive, strategic game-changer” ideas. He has consistently delivered remarkable results, adapting to new challenges and driving innovation throughout his career.

Saurabh is known for seamlessly blending technical and business skills to drive strategy, establish C-Level partnerships, foster business development, and lead cross-functional teams. His ability to align strategies with the organization’s vision, mission, and goals has been instrumental in achieving success.

Prior to his role at Dell Technologies, Saurabh gained valuable experience in Product Management, Solution Engineering, and Business Development with technology companies such as Emerson Electric and Aricent.

Saurabh holds an MBA from George Washington University School of Business and a Master’s in Technology from Birla Institute of Technology and Science in Pilani, India.

Amit Katz is Vice President Ethernet Switch at NVIDIA. He has served as VP and previously, Senior Director of Worldwide Ethernet Switch Sales since 2014 at Mellanox, and previously worked in various Product Management roles at Mellanox beginning in 2011. Prior to that, Amit held various Product Management positions at Voltaire and at RAD Data Communications. He graduated from the Academic College of Tel Aviv-Yaffo with a BA of Computer Science and an MBA from Bar Ilan University. Amit and the Mellanox, now NVIDIA team have been involved with the SONIC community since its inception.

Dr. Xin Liu leads Azure Network Platform PM team. She is responsible for evolving the network infrastructure with the latest hardware, software technology (SONiC), building management system, and health system to operate the network extensively. Xin holds a bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering and a doctorate in Computer Science and has worked in the Cloud space for ten years. She is an avid advocator of open-source technologies. She has led the SONiC community since its early stage, building a rich ecosystem to benefit broad users. Xin loves to take on new challenges. She mentors female engineers and graduate students and loves to grow more of them in the high-tech area.

David A. Maltz is one of the original founders of SONiC, and is currently the Chair of the Governing Board for the SONiC Foundation.

At Microsoft, he is the engineering leader for the Azure Networking team, responsible for developing, deploying, and operating the software and network devices that connect all Microsoft’s online services, including the Azure Public Cloud and Microsoft 365.  We write the code for the network services ranging from Network Security to DNS, the distributed systems that control our software defined and physical network, and the SONiC firmware that runs many of our physical switches.  We design the cloud-scale networks and data centers that provide petabits of connectivity at low cost and high reliability, from the optical systems on up.

His past projects include a broad array of hardware and software that improves the usability, performance, and cost of cloud computing and mobile/wireless networking.  He founded two venture-funded startup companies in network traffic management and wireless networking, and he worked in both industry research and academia, including 5 years in Microsoft Research.

Education – Ph.D., Carnegie Mellon University, 2001.  S.B. and S.M., Massachusetts Institute of Technology 1994.

Mythil is a Senior Director, Network Infrastructure, Google, where he leads the team responsible for all fabric networking software for Google’s data centers. Over his career, Mythil has led engineering teams at successful start-ups and multiple major corporations, including Force10 and Brocade. Mythil’s interest and experience lie in leading software and hardware designs that push the state-of-the-art in distributed systems, networking and fault-tolerance.  He’s been involved in the P4, PINS and SONIC community for over 5 years.  Mythil holds a BS in Computer Science/Engineering from CEG, Guindy and an MS in Computer Engineering.

Aravind Srikumar is Senior Vice President of Product and Marketing and a founding team member at Upscale AI, an AI networking company focused on high-performance, open, and scalable data center interconnects. He blends deep technical expertise in ASICs, SONiC, and large-scale networking systems with executive product and go-to-market leadership.

At Upscale AI, he leads strategy across silicon, systems, and software, driving the company’s AI-native networking roadmap and partnerships with leading GPU and ecosystem vendors. The leadership team helped scale the company from seed stage to unicorn status in months.

Previously, Aravind held senior roles at Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Cisco, and Juniper Networks, building and scaling large cloud and service provider businesses. At Cisco, he led hyperscaler product strategy and the SONiC portfolio. At Juniper, he led product, architecture and sales for major MSDC customers including Facebook and Apple, co-developing the Juniper PTX10000 routing platform.

He has also advised infrastructure startups such as Selector AI and Auradine on product strategy and go-to-market execution.

Ryan is responsible for Nexthop’s software development organization. He was previously responsible for software and hardware co-development projects with hyperscalers at Arista Networks. There, he built the SONiC and FBOSS teams that delivered datacenter solutions that have been heavily deployed in large scale cloud datacenters. He has been a speaker at venues like the OCP Summit and Linux Foundation ONE Summit. He holds 5 patents in networking.

Manikandan Veerachamy is a Senior Director of Engineering at Cisco with 25 years of leadership experience in the networking industry. Over his career, he has held various engineering roles at Cisco, driving product development across market segments such as access, aggregation, wireless, enterprise, and hyperscalers. Currently, Manikandan leads a team focused on innovating data center products for hyperscaler customers and tier2 enterprise. His team is responsible for delivering Cisco 8000 portfolio of products ranging from 100G to 1.6T, and driving adoption of open-source network stacks like SONiC, FBOSS and GPINs.

Dr. Lihua Yuan is currently a VP of Engineering at Microsoft Azure Networking. He leads the network platform team supporting the network infrastructure connecting major business including Azure, Microsoft 365 and Bing. His team drove the networking hardware evolution from 10G generation all the way to 400G generation in Microsoft. His team lead the development of the open-source SONiC network operating system that is widely adopted in the industry. His team developed software automation that manages the whole life cycle of the network.

Dr. Lihua Yuan’s work led to multiple research publications at top networking conferences. He is the incubation committee member at the Open Compute Project between 2018 and 2022. He is currently the technical steering committee chair of the SONiC Foundation.