Management Team

Robert Rizika, President and CEO

Robert (Bob) Rizika sets Blackwave’s strategic direction and leads the company’s business development, product management, marketing, and investor relations activities. Bob brings to Blackwave over 20 years of experience leading and building successful technology companies.

Before joining Blackwave, Bob served as Senior Vice President, Worldwide Sales & Entertainment Strategy, for Macrovision Corporation (NASDAQ:MVSN). While at Macrovision, he managed a $250 million global business, directing the creation and deployment of comprehensive anti-piracy strategies for motion picture studios, music labels, video game publishers, and trade associations. He also managed sales development of Macrovision’s market-leading electronic sell-through platform for video games, extensible to movies, cable television networks, television programming and music.

Earlier in his career, Bob co-founded several technology companies, including VerdiSoft Corporation, QuantumClicks, and Reflective Technologies. At VerdiSoft, a mobile iLife™ technology provider, he was responsible for global sales to mobile operators and ISPs. VerdiSoft was acquired by Yahoo! in 2003. At Reflective Technologies, he served as Senior Vice President of Marketing and was instrumental in growing the company from a small start-up to a multi-national corporation that was acquired in 1999.

Before these successful entrepreneurial ventures, Bob held leadership positions in sales at Teradyne, Inc.

Bob received his MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management in 1994 and holds a BSME from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
return to top

Branko Gerovac, Chief Strategy Officer, Blackwave Co-Founder

Branko Gerovac drives Blackwave’s strategic product definition activities and the company’s product roadmap. For over 25 years, he has directed major developments in the convergence of computing, communications, and media.

Before co-founding Blackwave, Branko served as Vice President of Research and Chief Technology Officer at SeaChange International, where he drove the company’s strategic direction in new business and product development. His vision was largely responsible for the company’s becoming the leading provider of end-to-end solutions for the world’s television, video-on-demand, and IPTV industries.

Earlier in his career, Branko directed research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the MIT Media Laboratory in areas related to digital television, broadband to the home, cable television, cable modems, DSL, wireless, Internet video servers, and electronic commerce.

Branko began his career at Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC), where he was a consulting engineer at the company’s Research Group and a strategic advisor to the company’s Executive Committee, exploring the emergence of digital television, cable television, cable modems, and convergence technologies.

Branko is a member of ACM, IEEE, SCTE, and SMPTE. He holds several issued and pending patents. He received his BS in Physics from Brandeis University and completed graduate coursework in Physics, Formal Logic, and Computer Science at Brandeis and Harvard Universities.
return to top

Lyn Braz, Chief Financial Officer

Lyn Braz has over twenty years of financial management experience, including the most recent ten years as a senior finance executive at both venture capital and high-growth technology companies. Prior to joining the Blackwave management team, Lyn was the VP of Finance at DG Fast Channel, where she led all activities related to financing, M&A, integration, and the eventual merger with publically traded Digital Generation Systems. Prior to Fast Channel, Lyn was the Director of Finance for Quantum Clicks, a venture-backed Internet marketing company, and held leadership positions at Summit Partners, Advent International, and Microcom. Lyn has a B.S. in Accounting and Finance and M.B.A. from Northeastern University.
return to top

Muriel Medard, Chief Scientist

Muriel Medard is a Professor in the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department at MIT. She was previously on the Electrical and Computer Engineering faculty at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and at MIT Lincoln Laboratory in the Optical Networking and Advanced Networking groups. Her interests are in communications and networking, with emphasis on network coding, reliability and wireless systems. She is a Fellow of IEEE. She has been awarded the IEEE Kirchmayer Prize, the MIT Edgerton award and the National Academy of Engineering Gilbreth Lectureship. She has been associate editor and guest editor for several publications in information theory and networking, and participated or chaired on the technical program committee of many conferences in this area. She is a frequent invited speaker and has consulted to several networking companies. She has over 200 publications, some of which have won awards, and holds several patents.

Muriel Medard received a B.S. in EECS, a B.S. in mathematics, a B.S. in humanities, a M.S. in EE and a Sc.D. in EE, all from MIT.
return to top

Jim Hurley, Vice President of Engineering

Jim Hurley manages Blackwave's innovative engineering team, leveraging over 20 years of leadership experience in enterprise computing. His background includes adapatable and scalable distributed systems, grid-based architectures, enterprise systems and network management, operating systems, and open source and communities. Before joining Blackwave, Jim held a variety of management and engineering roles at Sun Microsystems as well as Prime Computer and Data General. Jim holds a BS in Electrical Engineering from the University of Buffalo.
return to top

Andrew Hayden, Vice President of Sales and Marketing

Andrew (Drew) Hayden leads all of Blackwave's business development and marketing activities. He brings to Blackwave broad expertise and experience as an entrepreneur, investment banker, and corporate attorney.

Drew has established and grown several successful technology companies. He was Co-founder and Vice President of Marketing and Development for QuantumClicks, a successful startup that pioneered live workshops designed to teach consumers about online shopping and drive Web traffic for its clients. In addition to setting strategy and leading business development operations, he was responsible for the company’s fundraising activities.

Drew participated in financing and merger and acquisitions transactions exceeding $2 billion during his tenure with the Technology Investment Banking Unit of Advest, the law firm of Hutchins, Wheeler & Dittmar, and the law firm of Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson.

Drew received his BA with honors from Stanford University and his JD, magna cum laude, from the Boston College School of Law.
return to top

Brett Cooper, Director, Product Management

Brett Cooper manages all of Blackwave’s customer outreach and customer support activities. Brett brings Blackwave over 15 years of experience in marketing and product management at enterprise storage and networking companies.

Prior to joining Blackwave, he served as Director of Marketing at Intermine, Inc., a provider of user file management solutions for Fortune 1000 enterprises. While at Intermine, he chaired the first Enterprise Information World, sponsored by the Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA.org).

Before joining Intermine, Brett architected the strategy for Information Lifecycle Management and Compliance Solutions at enterprise storage solutions leader Network Appliance (NetApp). While at NetApp, he also oversaw delivery of the industry's first iSCSI solutions to over 5,000 organizations. 

Earlier in his career, Brett delivered SANPoint Control, the first enterprise storage resource management solution at VERITAS Software. During his tenure at VERITAS, Brett founded the VERITAS Press, where he acted as technical advisor for the storage reference book Storage Area Network Essentials: A Complete Guide to Understanding and Implementing SANs.

Brett received his BA in Business Administration from Ithaca College.
return to top

Laura Jacobs, Vice President Human Resources

Laura Jacobs leads Blackwave's Human Resource activities. She’s experienced in addressing the various challenges associated with fast growth and emerging markets and the impact they have on the success and culture of a company. Prior to joining Blackwave, she founded her own company, which focused on the strategic human resource needs of growing companies for clients ranging from high technology and life sciences to financial services. Laura has held a number of senior human resource positions at companies including Sun Microsystems, Inc., Bay Networks, Inc., Cognos and Wang Software, Inc. She brings expertise in the areas of Organizational Development, Compensation, Employee Relations, Change Systems and Merger and Acquisitions. She has a passion around helping organizations develop strategies that result in improved profitability and employee retention.
Laura holds a B.A. degree from Northeastern University.

return to top