The SS8 management team brings together diverse backgrounds and valuable skill sets.  With experience that encompasses small and large companies, both private and public, the team shares in-depth knowledge of the telecommunications industry and a passion to deliver valuable, differentiated and reliable products to our customers.

Dennis Haar	President and Chief Executive Officer
Dr. Bülent Erbilgin	Vice President, Engineering
Dr. Cemal Dikmen	Vice President and General Manager, Lawful Intercept
Jim Della Chiesa	Vice President, Global Sales & Marketing
Dirk Speas	Vice President, Global Customer Operations
Michele Wrath	Vice President, Business Operations Messaging
Kam Wong	Chief Financial Officer

Dennis Haar
President and Chief Executive Officer

Dennis has spent over 25 years in high technology with leadership roles in global networking, voice, and computing companies. Prior to SS8, Dennis was president and CEO of GoDigital Corporation, a leading provider of line-powered broadband network access products. At GoDigital, he led three successful financing rounds, built a significant customer base in the North American carrier market, and streamlined manufacturing and administrative operations. Before GoDigital, he was president and COO at Aspect Communications, a provider of contact center solutions. During his 11-year tenure at Aspect, he held multiple executive positions in marketing, sales and engineering as the company evolved from a start-up to a publicly owned entity with over $500 million in revenue. Earlier, Dennis worked in various managerial roles of increasing importance at Rolm Corporation and Hewlett Packard. Dennis is also a former president and current advisor to the board of the Children's Discovery Museum in San Jose, California. He has a BS degree in electrical engineering and an MBA from Stanford University.

Dr. Bülent Erbilgin
Vice President, Engineering

Bülent is a 21-year veteran of the computer industry who has held numerous technology leadership and management positions. His background includes development of products ranging from software applications and ASIC chip sets to massively-parallel computer systems and core routing switches at companies such as Pluris, NetFrame, Zycad and HP Labs. Immediately prior to joining SS8, he was Vice President of Platform Engineering for Brocade where his team developed and delivered best-in-class, multi-protocol switching platforms. Bülent holds a master’s degree in Computer Science and a doctoral degree in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University.

Dr. Cemal Dikmen
Vice President and General Manager, Lawful Intercept

Cemal has been with SS8 Networks since 1995 and began leading the design and development team in charge of the IP-capable CALEA products in 1998. Prior to joining SS8, Mr. Dikmen held software engineering and business development positions at TelSoft and Telenity. A renowned expert and thought leader in lawful intercept, Cemal has been a frequent speaker at various industry conferences during the past 10 years. Dikmen holds BS, MS, and Ph.D. degrees - all in electrical engineering.

Jim Della Chiesa
Vice President, Global Sales & Marketing

Jim Della Chiesa has over three decades of sales and sales management experience, including positions at Xerox Corporation, Octel Communications and VMX.  Before joining SS8 as VP of Global Sales, Jim served as Vice President of Sales for the Americas for IEX, a NICE systems company, where he helped grow the software solutions business over the past 5 years to record breaking performance levels.  Previously, he served in a variety of senior level management roles at Aspect Communications, a provider of business communications solutions. These roles included central U.S. and Canadian vice president of sales and general manager of EMEA (Europe, Middle East, Africa) business development. As central U.S. and Canadian vice president of sales for Aspect, he generated the region’s highest ever revenues. Jim holds a BA from Indiana University.

Dirk Speas
Vice President, Global Customer Operations

Dirk has more than 25 years of experience in the communications business, with multi-functional executive management responsibility. Before joining SS8, he was SVP, Worldwide Services at TuVox, Inc, where his teams were responsible for developing leading edge enterprise speech applications. Prior to this, Dirk was vice president at Aspect Communications, a leading provider of contact center solutions. During his time with Aspect, Dirk held several executive management roles, including support, manufacturing, product development, and international sales, where he led Aspect’s entry into Germany, Japan, Asia Pacific, and Latin America. Prior to the company’s acquisition by Concerto, he had senior vice president responsibility for the company’s $250M professional services, education, and support businesses. Dirk was also vice president for international sales and then for support at Latitude Communications, a voice and web conferencing company acquired by Cisco Systems. He began his high tech career at ROLM Corporation. Dirk holds BS (Industrial Engineering), MS (Operations Research), and MBA degrees from Stanford University; he also has a CPA certificate.

Michele Wrath
Vice President, Business Operations Messaging

Michele has over 20 years of experience in the communications sector including senior leadership roles in Customer Operations, Product Line Management, and Sales.  Prior to joining SS8 she served as the Vice President of Product Line Management at Tumbleweed Communications where she led a team responsible for the delivery of Tumbleweed’s suite of Secure Content Management software products to the Global Enterprise marketplace.   Michele served as the Senior Director Product Line Management at Lucent where her team was responsible for delivering new Voice and Unified Messaging products to the Global Service Provider business.  Prior to Lucent she served as the Director of Product Line Management for Octel Communications Voice Information Services group, responsible for core voice messaging systems that contributed $280 million in annual revenue to the Global Service Provider Market.   Michele holds a BS Business Management and MBA from Golden Gate University.

Kam Wong
Chief Financial Officer

Kam brings a wealth of high-tech financial and administrative expertise to the SS8 team.  He was chief financial officer and vice president for administration at GoDigital Networks, a leading provider of line-powered broadband network access products that was recently acquired by Communications Test Design Inc.  He also spent 16 years at Sumitomo Sitex Silicon, a $1 billion silicon wafer producer. His  most recent assignment at Sumitomo was as controller and director of information systems. Wong has also held executive financial positions at Peak XV Networks and  Hewlett Packard.  In addition to owning all things financial, Kam is responsible for SS8 human resources and information technology.