Our Executive Team
MetroGuild was started in late 2006 by three high-tech executives who decided that there are plenty of companies that continue to develop new and ever more esoteric technologies; that they themselves are guilty of starting several of these; and that they are no longer challenged by the prospect of starting yet another one, nor would they enjoy it.
Rather, they thought, it might be exciting to use their substantial experience and understanding of current and future technology trends to help real ‘low-tech’ businesses to productively exploit the internet to generate more leads, attract more customers and make more money, and willingly and happily share a small percentage of additional revenue with MetroGuild.
Cyrus Irani
Cyrus, a co-founder of MetroGuild, has been in the high tech industry for over 25 years focused on marketing, PR, business development, sales and general management of innovative technologies across several market sectors, an important one of which was retail. Cyrus started at Xerox Corporation in a group that spun technology out of Xerox PARC to develop and sell the first PCs (with Icon based Operating Systems, 19" screens, and mice) and networked servers that are still the blueprint for PCs/Macs and servers today. He started as a systems engineer and quickly moved to managing an R&D group. This experience provided an outstanding foundation for innovation and systems design.
Since then, Cyrus has held product management, CEO or executive positions in operations and management of products and services in communications equipment and telecommunications software at Retix (Director Product Marketing), AT&T GIS (Product Line Manager), Alchemy Group (co-founder & CEO), Vertel (Telecommunications software and services) (CEO, President, COO, and/or Vice President) and Strix Systems (WLAN mesh networking systems) (co-founder, Sr. Vice President).
Etienne Coulon
Etienne Coulon, a co-founder of MetroGuild, is a seasoned and recognized business development expert in marketing, sales and business development across Europe and Asia. He's been serving as Director Business Development of Radware since 2006. He started his career as IT project manager at car manufacturer PSA. He then occupied various marketing and operational positions at Hewlett-Packard, Fore Systems, Xylan Corporation, ACT Networks, Access360 and Clarent Corp. He co-founded and served as CEO of Tempo Line, a business development and marketing service company. Etienne Coulon holds an engineering degree from INSA Lyon in France. Mr. Coulon is based in France.
Leonid Kalika
Prior to co-founding MetroGuild, Leonid Kalika was a co-founder of Strix Systems where he served, at various times, as COO, CTO and SVP of Product Delivery. His career includes senior management roles at several publicly traded technology companies and private technology startups including VP&GM of Mediation Business Unit at Vertel Corporation., co-founder and VP of Engineering at The Alchemy Group, Director of R&D at Retix Corp, and others. Leonid holds MSEE degree from Kiev Polytechnic University of Ukraine.
Vishal Parpia
Vishal drives the Indian software development arm of MetroGuild and has over 10 years of experience in the high tech industry. Educated in the Middle East and America (Purdue University, Indiana), he started as a software developer at Extentia Information Technology but quickly left to found his first start-up. He currently owns and operates ActivElement Software (Web application development) and Masterplan Architectural Services (Outsourced Architectural Design) both based in Pune, India.
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