Karen White CEO, Syncplicity

Syncplicity Inc. announced the expansion of its executive team with the following appointments: Karen White will serve as CEO, Jeff Schultz joins as CMO and Brenda Swiney as VP of Finance.

Syncplicity’s co-founders, Leonard Chung and Ondrej Hrebicek, serve as Chief Product Strategist and CTO, respectively. On the heels of experiencing record growth this year, the veteran powerhouse joins the company’s founding team members to drive Syncplicity’s next stage of growth.

The market for on premise file management solutions is estimated at more than $40 billion worldwide, including $21 billion for software solutions and another $20 billion for hardware and operations costs. A significant portion of those on premise file management solutions will migrate to the cloud over the next five years. Driven by trends in mobile and cloud computing, a high growth market is emerging that IDC estimates will reach $2.5 billion in three years. Cloud solutions for file management are still in the early adoption phase for businesses, but the segment is growing rapidly due to the complexity and cost of supporting users’ file management, sharing, and collaboration requirements across a growing number of computers, mobile devices, and tablets.

Syncplicity was founded in 2008 and is keying in on this to simplify the way businesses and ‘power users’ manage, access, and protect the data and documents they need, no matter where they are and what device they are using. Syncplicity has been on a growth track, generating record revenue, expanding its customer base, and extending its product, Syncplicity Business Edition, including the recent launch of its latest iPhone and iPad apps, Salesforce.com integration, Google Docs integration, and launch of its reseller program.

“Syncplicity has differentiated itself as a leading business-class, easy to deploy cloud solution for file management. The company’s innovative approach to file sync, sharing, mobile access and backup has been well established under Leonard and Ondrej’s leadership,” said Karen White, CEO and Chairman of Syncplicity. “Jeff, Brenda and I are excited to join the founders to help drive Syncplicity’s next stage of growth.”

Syncplicity provides a secure way for users to store files of any size in the cloud, sync files across all of their computers, access files on their mobile devices and tablets, allow them to share and collaborate with any file or folder on their devices with colleagues, automatically backup their files, and provide access to previously saved or deleted versions. Syncplicity does not require users to move files from the folders where they like to work, remember to ‘drop’ them into a shared drive or ‘box’ or grapple with a corporate VPN – and includes the controls, scalability, and security that businesses require.
 
Syncplicity’s new executive appointments include:

 Karen White has been appointed to Syncplicity as its CEO and Chairman of the Board. Prior to her appointment, she served as Executive Chairman at the company. Karen brings more than 25 years in the technology industry to her role. Previously, Karen spearheaded worldwide corporate and business development at SolarWinds, a network management software company that debuted its successful IPO in May 2009. Prior to SolarWinds, Karen served as managing director at Pequot Ventures, a private equity firm with $1.8 billion under management, where she established and led the software investing team in Silicon Valley, focusing on investments in enterprise software and information technology. Her investments and Board roles included Scalent (acquired by Dell), Securify (acquired by Secure Computing, now McAfee), Kavado (acquired by Protegrity) and privately held Blazent. From 1993-2000, Karen was senior vice president at Oracle, serving in various executive management roles under CEO Larry Ellison and President Ray Lane in her seven years there, including senior vice president of marketing and head of worldwide business development.

Jeff Schultz joins as Chief Marketing Officer at Syncplicity. He brings over 24 years of experience in marketing, selling, supporting, and developing innovative software solutions for businesses and prosumers. Prior to Syncplicity, Jeff was Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Bill.com, where he led the establishment of the company’s brand and programs that delivered rapid customer adoption, helping grow the organization from its early stages to a recognized leader in cloud-based accounting services. Previously, he served as Senior Vice President of Worldwide Marketing for Parlano, a provider of enterprise group collaboration solutions, acquired by Microsoft in 2007. Earlier in his career, Jeff was Chief Marketing Officer at Divine Inc. leading marketing activities across a $500M+ portfolio. Jeff also served as Vice President of Marketing for the Knowledge Management and Internet Solutions divisions at Platinum Technology prior to its acquisition by Computer Associates, and was Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Identity Management vendor Abridean. He earned a Bachelors Degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Texas.

Brenda Swiney has been named Vice President of Finance and brings over 20 years of financial management and accounting expertise to her role. Prior to joining Syncplicity, Brenda was Vice President of Finance at Good Technology, in multiplatform enterprise mobility, where she led financial operations during its early stages through its acquisition by Motorola. Prior to Good, Brenda served as Corporate Controller at optical networking company Blaze Network Products. She has extensive publicly-traded company experience, as Controller at a Lucent Technologies $100 million high-growth business unit and as Director of Corporate Finance at Hitachi Data Systems, a multi-billion dollar joint venture of Hitachi and EDS. Brenda started her career in public accounting at PricewaterhouseCoopers, is a Certified Public Accountant and Certified Management Accountant, and a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, Institute of Management Accountants and California Society of CPAs. Brenda received her M.S. and B.S. in Accounting from the University of Colorado.

Co-founder Leonard Chung, who led the company through its initial prototype, funding, launch and market growth, has been appointed Chief Product Strategist. In this role, Leonard continues to drive Syncplicity’s vision for transforming the way people and businesses manage the proliferation of data and devices and gain unprecedented access and protection for their data. Co-founder Ondrej Hrebicek continues in his role as CTO, driving Syncplicity’s technology, architecture and product vision.