The Team at PulseCore Semiconductor

learn more

Our Distributors & Reps

Our management team comprises industry thought leaders with the experience and knowledge necessary to make PulseCore the industry experts in EMI reduction. Our world-class team possesses broad knowledge in analog and mixed-signal semiconductor development and EMI reduction technology.

Michael Hogan – CEO
Mr. Hogan brings more than 20 years of front-line leadership experience in the communications systems ICs industry to PulseCore. Most recently, Mr. Hogan served as President, CEO, and Director at Sirific Wireless, a leading supplier of single-chip CMOS RF transceivers for 3.5G applications. While at Sirific, Mr. Hogan lead the company from a university spin out to an RF supplier to top-Tier 3G OEM's. Mr. Hogan also serves on the board of WiQuest Communications a leader in UWB chipset market.

Prior to Sirific, Mr. Hogan was General Manager at Texas Instruments, Wireless Networking Business Unit, managing over 150 employees and five R&D facilities worldwide. While at Texas Instruments, Mr. Hogan also served as general manager of the Broadband Services Unit, additionally he spent nearly ten years in the sales organization where he was responsible for the North American sales strategy for the Network Communication IC segment.

Mr. Hogan holds a BS in Electrical Engineering from Syracuse University.
Top of page

Narendar "Buddy" Venugopal – CTO and VP/GM
Mr. Venugopal is the founder of PulseCore Semiconductor located in Campbell, CA. He has 16 years of mixed-signal IC design, operations, marketing and management experience. He founded PulseCore in 1998 and for a period of time served as the VP&GM of the Mixed Signal Business Unit of Alliance Semiconductor, after PulseCore was acquired by Alliance. In 2006, Alliance Semiconductor divested itself of its semiconductor operations and its Mixed Signal Business Unit was acquired by a group of investors and reincorporated as PulseCore Semiconductor.

Mr. Venugopal holds graduate degrees in electrical engineering from the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, India and the University of the California, San Diego in addition to Bachelor's degrees in physics and electronics. Top of page

Naresh Sharma – Vice President of Quality and Reliability
Mr. Sharma joined the company in January 2008, as Vice President of Quality and Reliability. He brings more than 26 years of progressive experience in semiconductor industry focusing primarily on engineering, operations, quality assurance & reliability. He has direct experience in building new organization and capability of managing, from the ground up as well as established large scale high volume manufacturing. Most recently, he was VP of Operations at Tripath Technology Inc; – a leader in mixed signal Digital Power Processing ICs. His Quality management experience extends far beyond ISO9001 certification, significant improvements of quality matrices, customer & supplier audits and creation of end-to-end quality programs. Previously, Mr. Sharma has served at Director levels, senior management and technical roles at various companies including Cirrus Logic, Cypress Semiconductor, Alliance Semiconductor, Seeq Technology, & Fairchild Semiconductor.

Mr. Sharma holds Ph.D. in Physics from IIT Delhi and M.S. in Solid State Physics from IIT Roorkee, in India.
Top of page

Steven Kao – Vice President of Sales and Marketing
Mr. Kao is PulseCore Semiconductor’s VP of Sales and Marketing and serves as the General Manager of the PulseCore Taiwan operations. Prior to joining PulseCore, Mr. Kao held a position in Sales at IMI where he was responsible for managing more than $12 million in annual revenue.

Mr. Kao earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics from UC San Diego and an MBA from San Diego State.
Top of page

Sushil Kumar – General Manager, PulseCore Semiconductor India Pvt. Ltd.

Mr. Kumar has over 16 years of experience in mixed-signal IC design, engineering and management. His diverse career experience includes Engineering Lead positions at Philips Semi USA, Sun Microsystems USA, Motorola and Semiconductor Complex Ltd. India. Before joining PulseCore Semiconductor, he was Senior Manager of Alliance Semiconductors AMSBU Bangalore, India.
Mr. Kumar holds a Bachelor of Engineering (Electronics) from AMU and completed the Executive General Management Programme (EGMP) at the Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Bangalore. Top of page

Kyle Ryland – Chairman
Shah Capital Partners

Mr. Ryland is a Senior Partner at Shah Capital Partners, a private equity fund focused on buyouts and recapitalizations of technology companies. Mr. Ryland has over 15 years of experience working with technology companies on a wide range of strategic and financial transactions including mergers and acquisitions, IPOs, leveraged buyouts and other related matters.
In his role as Senior Partner, he is responsible for leading the firm’s efforts to source, negotiate and structure new investments. In addition, Mr. Ryland works closely with portfolio companies on a range of financial and strategic issues.

Prior to joining Shah Capital Partners, he was a managing director at Lehman Brothers and head of Global Technology Investment Banking. During his career, Mr. Ryland has worked on a wide range of transactions for many leading technology companies. In total he has completed over 100 transactions, including venture capital investments, private placements, IPOs, follow-on offerings, convertible debt offerings, equity and fixed income derivatives, M&A transactions and LBOs. Mr. Ryland joined Lehman Brothers in 1998 from Robertson Stephens, where he worked as an investment banker covering clients in the electronics and communications equipment sectors and prior to that he worked in the Venture Capital group executing venture capital and leveraged buyout transactions in the technology industry. He holds a B.A. in Political Science and Public Policy Studies from Duke University and an M.B.A. from the Wharton School of Business. Top of page

Paul Mercandante
Shah Capital Partners

Mr. Mercadante is an Operating Partner of Shah Capital Partners. An executive with experience in various roles and industries, he was most recently President of Force Computers, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Solectron, Inc. Force was a leading, worldwide supplier of embedded computing systems and solutions and was sold to Motorola, Inc. in 2004.
Prior to Force, Mr. Mercadante was the Vice President of Strategic Planning for Solectron's Technology Solutions Business Unit. Mr. Mercadante also has previous experiences with SMART Modular Technologies, Rose Communications, Activision and Apex Data. He has an undergraduate degree in economics from the State University
of New York. Top of page

Vivek Mehra
August Capital

Mr. Mehra brings twenty years of experience as an entrepreneur, business manager, and R&D leader in a number of network computing and systems companies. He has also been an active investor and advisor to startups in the areas of infrastructure software, networking, security, storage, and wireless.

Prior to joining August Capital, Mr. Mehra co-founded Cobalt Networks in 1996. As CTO & VP of Product Development, Mr. Mehra developed the first successful server appliance and grew Cobalt into a worldwide leader in the category, culminating in a successful IPO and acquisition by Sun Microsystems for $2B. At Sun, Mr. Mehra served as the Vice President and General Manager of the Cobalt Business Unit and a member of Sun's Technical Architecture Counsel.

Prior to founding Cobalt, Mr. Mehra held a number of technical and management positions at Apple, SGI, and Digital Equipment Corporation and successfully developed numerous products including Internet enabled set-top boxes, PDAs, RISC workstations, and high performance graphics subsystems.

Mr. Mehra received a BS in Electronics from Punjab University, India, and an MS in Computer Engineering from Iowa State University. He is the holder of one US patent. Top of page