About / Management
Dr. Mark J.F. Allen
President, Chief Executive Officer, Founder
Dr. Allen founded Corticon in 2000. Under his leadership, Corticon has become the leading independent business rules platform. Prior to founding Corticon, Dr. Allen developed rules-based systems to assist healthcare workers with clinical decision support. Dr. Allen's experiences with the shortcomings of traditional business rule engines led to the discovery of several key innovations, making rules technology far easier to use for business process automation. These innovations provide the foundation for the Corticon solution, which is now applied across diverse industries such as financial services, government, manufacturing and insurance.
Dr. Allen has a B.S. in Applied Physics from Columbia University, and an M.D. from the University of California Los Angeles, where he resigned from an Emergency Medicine residency program to found and lead Corticon.
Pedram Abrari
Chief Technology Officer, Founder
Mr. Abrari is considered by many as one of the brightest innovators and thought leaders in the Business Rules domain. He has collaborated with Ronald G. Ross on his publication Principles of Business Rule Approach. He has over 15 years of experience in enterprise software, including eight years as a technical lead and architect. Prior to founding Corticon, Mr. Abrari was an independent consultant at Western Asset, where he performed the first successful integration of a Java application server and an inference engine. Prior to that he founded and built the engineering team at PeopleMover Inc., an enterprise software startup in Manhattan Beach, CA, which was later acquired by Opus360 (NASDAQ: OPUS). Mr. Abrari began his career at Rockwell International, where he worked on mission critical applications for the space shuttle and other rockets. Mr. Abrari has a B.S. in Computer Science from UCLA and an M.S. in Computer Science from USC. He was also an instructor at California State University Northridge.
John Sines
Chief Financial Officer
Mr. Sines has over 25 years of experience in finance and management in the high-tech industry. His expertise in public and private financing has raised a combined total of $370 million in debt and equity financing. Mr. Sines most recently served as Chief Financial Officer and Vice President of Operations for ClairMail, a private start-up, where he helped to reposition the company from enterprise mobile access to selling to major financial and insurance institutions for secure mobile customer access. Mr. Sines has served as CFO for E-H International (EHI) and President to one of their four subsidiaries; CFO for AppStream, Viquity, Cofix, Versity.com. Mr. Sines received his California CPA designation in 1979 while in public accounting at Eadie & Payne CPA's, and holds a bachelor's degree from California State University, San Bernardino with a dual concentration in finance and accounting.
Mike Bleyle
Senior Vice President of Client Services
Mr. Bleyle comes to Corticon with 11 years of experience in professional services, marketing, and operations management in both high technology hardware and software companies. Prior to Corticon, Mr. Bleyle ran technical sales and implementation teams in North America for ECNET, a global supply-chain management software firm, supporting the mission-critical procurement and logistics requirements of major electronics manufacturers. As a Senior Marketing Manager at Applied Materials, Inc., Mr. Bleyle was responsible for three teams of project managers and marketing engineers, delivering semiconductor capital equipment worth more than $500 million annually to customers in North America, Japan, and Korea. Prior to Applied Materials Mr. Bleyle served as a Naval Officer aboard nuclear-powered cruisers, with responsibility for the safe maintenance and operation of reactor electronics, as well as the ship's nuclear training program. Mr. Bleyle holds a B.S. in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Virginia, and an M.B.A. from the Haas School of Business, University of California at Berkeley.
Garth Gehlbach
Vice President of Marketing and Product Management
Mr. Gehlbach brings over two decades of high-tech product, marketing and alliances leadership experience to the role of VP of Marketing. He has shaped Corticon’s product, marketing, and corporate strategy in his service as Director of Product Management, and now applies his expertise to all outbound and inbound marketing activities of the company. Prior to Corticon, Mr. Gehlbach has held senior management positions at Chordiant Software, a customer experience enterprise software vendor, and at Knowledge Impact, a leading e-learning software and services firm. Mr. Gehlbach was also instrumental in pioneering the Partner Relationship Management software space while running Marketing and Product Management at OnDemand, Inc. Mr. Gehlbach’s early career includes critical product-centered management roles with trailblazing companies in videoconferencing (Compression Labs), and network-attached storage (Auspex), as well as Amdahl Corporation. Mr. Gehlbach holds a Bachelor’s Degree and a Master’s Degree in Engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, plus a Masters of Management Degree (MBA) from MIT’s Sloan School.
Don Ames
Vice President of Industry Solutions
Mr. Ames comes to Corticon with over 20 years of IT leadership experience, specializing in product management and technology strategy in the insurance industry. Mr. Ames most recently was Chief Technology Officer for Precedent Insurance, where he was responsible for creating Precedent’s award-winning website, which employed Corticon’s BRMS to deliver instant underwriting decisions to consumers. As Director of Production Support for M-Plan, Indiana’s largest provider-owned HMO, Mr. Ames was responsible for managing all strategic outsourced software and services. Previously, Mr. Ames was Director of Product Management for ChannelPoint (acquired by The TriZetto Group in 2002) where he was responsible for managing web-based customer acquisition products. Prior to joining ChannelPoint, Mr. Ames held management positions at MCI Communications, ConAgra Foods and Stanford University.
Al Powell
Senior Vice President WW Field Operations
Al brings over 30 years of field operations experience with both large and early stage technology companies including IBM, HP, Intershop, and Postini. Al most recently served as Vice President, Worldwide Sales at Engate Technology where he was instrumental in hiring and managing the N. American Enterprise Sales Team and selling enterprise-class security solutions to F2000 customers, OEMs, ISPs, and resellers worldwide. As a founding member of HP’s Enterprise Channel Sales Organization, Al recruited hundreds of channel partners and ISVs and grew revenues to over $1B during an eight year period. As the first VP of N. American Sales for Intershop, Al built a US and International field sales organization that exceeded their revenue goals and helped lead the company to a successful IPO. At Postini, Al hired and managed an enterprise sales team that sold managed security solutions to F2000 companies including UBS, Eli Lilly, Anheuser Bush, Perot Systems, BASF, Dow Jones, and Bausch & Lomb. During his tenure, the company’s annual revenues doubled and his team helped launched three major new product offerings. Al has built and managed both direct and channel sales organizations that have successfully launched and sold new enterprise software products and services on a worldwide basis.
