Our Team

Board of Directors

 

Christopher Leidigh (President)

Christopher has been working with embedded systems and communications engineering for over twenty years and has been involved in a wide variety of networking technologies and products ranging from SCADA control networks to distributed TCP/IP appliance systems and low power wireless. As a co-founder of Alektrona, he has been focusing on guiding the company’s product development and business strategy in the emerging smart grid energy management market. Christopher represents Alektrona in the ZigBee Alliance and also significantly contributed to the ZigBee Smart Energy 1.0 Profile specification development.

Prior to Alektrona, Christopher was the Director of the Embedded Communications Business Unit at American Power Conversion. In that role he was the principle technical and business lead that drove the hardware and firmware development of four generations of Internet appliance platforms, one of APC’s core technologies. His involvement ranged from both key sales support for Fortune companies, business unit director and acquisitions technology research.

Prior to APC he also was part of a startup, Circuit Development, in New York that developed several products in the communications and video lab equipment areas. He also worked part time for several years during college in neurophysiology research at the Woods Hole Marine Biology Laboratory.

Christopher taught TCP/IP and other communications courses at The Embedded Systems Conferences for ten years and is the author of numerous articles on embedded design, debugging and Internet communications in publications such as EETimes, Embedded Systems Programming and Communications Systems Design. Christopher has traveled extensively and been involved in various aspects of the international business development and is fluent in Spanish from living abroad and has a working knowledge in Greek and Portuguese. He received his B.Sc. in Bio-Electrical Engineering from Brown University.

 

Jim Higgins (Vice President)

As Vice President and co-founder of Alektrona, Jim is focused on the company’s daily operations including business generating activities and new product development.

Prior to Alektrona, Jim served as Architect and Chief Engineer for APC's embedded communications team, which spanned five sites worldwide. He was responsible for APC's high volume, embedded network appliance platform. The appliance, used for power, cooling, and remote monitoring products, shipped several hundred thousand units per year. His responsibilities included expanding the appliance's core feature set to support new technology trends and customer requirements. Simultaneously he coordinated multiple development teams to leverage the appliance to rapidly bring new products to market. He was critically involved in the development and debugging of the ASIC design that comprises the appliance's core microcontroller and peripherals.

Jim received his B.Sc. in Computer Engineering from the University of Rhode Island. He has been a Speaker at the Embedded Systems Conference and also published a security article in Embedded Systems Magazine. He enjoys having fun with his family and has initiated the lifelong process of learning golf. Reducing his environmental impact has been a part time hobby and over the course of two years he was able to cut his family’s average electricity usage in half.

 

Gene Zimon

Gene is a noted visionary in information technology with over 30 years of experience in executive IT management positions. He established a national reputation for his innovative use of technology and IT management practices and is a frequent speaker, adviser, and contributor at conferences.

Gene is currently president of EDGE Advisers, which he founded in 2009. EDGE advisers provides advisory services to early-stage companies that are developing products and services to address the unmet needs in the marketplace that EDGE has identified. Areas of expertise and focus include user data management and security; digitization of retail records; and smart grid communications and data management. The objective of these services is to assist companies attain traction in the marketplace. Currently, EDGE is advising eight companies. EDGE also provides advisory services to established companies and venture capital funds seeking advice or guidance on investment opportunities. Gene presents thought leadership papers and participates in panels at conferences sponsored by organizations, such as IEEE, MIT, the American Capital Association, and TiE (The Indus Entrepreneur).

Gene is also Manager of JAZFund, LLC, a personal private equity fund focusing on early-stage investments in companies where EDGE Advisers is engaged, but also in medical technology. He is a co-founder of Boston CleanTech Angels, an active member of Launchpad Ventures and Walnut Ventures, two Boston-based angel investing groups; and a charter member of TiE, where he is co-chair of the CIO Innovation Exchange.

Gene retired from NSTAR, a Fortune 500 utility, in July 2009 where he was senior vice president and CIO for eight years. He was brought into NSTAR because the existing systems had been destabilized due to significant changes brought about by Year 2000 remediation, a merger of two utilities, and significant regulatory changes. After stabilizing the existing systems, Gene led a transformational upgrade and modernization of the application systems portfolio and the technical infrastructure that enabled NSTAR to achieve top quartile performance regarding customer service metrics and financial performance. Significant focus was placed on building transformational systems to improve customer service. NSTAR achieved first quartile performance in system reliability and customer service through the implementation of a new set of integrated network control systems (Outage Management, GIS, SCADA, EMS, and Distribution Automation). These were seamlessly integrated with a state-of-the-art multi-channel call center, which enabled customers to get network status via the IVR, the Web, or the call center.

In 2001, Gene worked for Oracle as vice president of business development for utilities. During his 10-month stint, Gene trained the sales and support staff on utility operations, developed the Oracle utility strategy, and worked with the sales force to rebuild relations with their customers at the CIO level. As a result, sales to utilities increased dramatically. Gene also developed the application footprint, which catalyzed several subsequent acquisitions and laid a basis for the establishment of the currently highly successful Oracle utilities application suite.

From 1996 to 2000, Gene was vice president and CIO of Boston Gas where he totally re-architected and transformed the entire systems environment. This included the implementation of a totally integrated work and asset management system and a highly advanced mobile communications platform that enabled real-time dispatching and status reporting by all field crews. Having a highly configurable and plug-and-play architecture enabled Boston Gas to quickly combine operations and achieve synergy savings from three completed acquisitions. When Boston Gas was acquired by Keyspan in 2000, many of the Boston Gas systems were adopted by the acquirer.

Jeffrey Weiss

Jeff collaborates with small technology startups in Rhode Island and Massachusetts to identify seed and venture capital, assist in hiring their management and engineering teams and solidifying their go-to-market strategy. He is also a board member of Scalable Displays, Andera Software, Solartrec and a board observer at Outsmart Power Systems.

Jeff is a member of the Clean Energy Venture Group in Cambridge, MA and a Venture Partner with Point Judith Capital in Providence, RI with a special focus on Clean Energy.  Jeff was VP of Engineering at Digital Light Circuits until 2005. Until 2002 he was VP of Systems Architecture at Ciena which, in 1999, acquired Omnia Communications, a company he co-founded. In the early nineties, he was VP Engineering of the Magnalink Division of Telco Systems which acquired Magnalink in 1992.

 

Thorne Sparkman

From 1996 to 1998, Thorne Sparkman was founder and CEO of Incubator, Inc., an angel-funded, Internet business incubator in Berkeley, California. The company's business model was to assist early-stage teams, especially those from the University of California at Berkeley, by providing a complete suite of start-up services in exchange for equity.

From 1995 through 1999, Mr. Sparkman was CEO of EScribe Corporation, a start-up which created online communities for upscale, outdoor enthusiasts. Mr. Sparkman began his electronic publishing career at Time Warner in 1993, where he developed on-line communities and commerce applications on the CompuServe Information Service, and helped launch Time Warner’s original Pathfinder service.

Mr. Sparkman holds a B.A. in Biological Anthropology from Harvard, and a Masters in Business Administration from the University of California Berkeley’s Haas School of Business.

 

Team

In addition, the following team members are also responsible for Alektrona’s daily operations including business development, sales, and marketing.

 

Joe Loberti

Joe has over 17 years of experience working in the High Tech and Consumer Environment. His most previous position was Senior Vice President for American Power Conversion (APC). Joe oversaw a $1.5 Billion Product Group spanning products that touched Consumers, Small Business and Enterprise. Among the recent initiatives was a launch of environmentally focused products for the consumer and small business — a first in the power protection industry. He was also responsible for developing roadmaps and product portfolios for UPS’s in the 0- 10kVA line, creating new mobile products line, technology cables and peripherals and new audio video surge protectors, line conditioners and UPS’s. He has also ramped up R&D facilities in Taiwan, China, India and Brazil.

 

Chris Catanzaro

Chris has over 20 years of senior level sales and marketing experience working in a wide variety of industries ranging from High Tech to Heavy Equipment. Chris was responsible for growing American Power Conversion’s consumer unit from $20 million to $110 million in a four year period. Recently Chris has created Navia, a business development firm, to share his expertise with a wider audience allowing them to achieve an unprecedented level of success.

John Thornell
John has 20 years marketing and management experience in the IT industry. Most recently, John was the President of The Uptime Institute, a leading data center education and consulting organization, where he directed efforts to expand the Institute’s educational services and revenue. Previously, John’s career included 16 years with American Power Conversion where he was Marketing Director, responsible for establishing marketing organization and operations in the company’s Asia-Pacific region. John brings a proven marketing track record in start-up environments including small businesses, business unit divisions, and growing geographies.