Management Team

Dr. Parag Pruthi, Founder, Chairman and CEO

Dr. Pruthi brings over twenty-five years of expertise in the network security, wireless and applications analysis industry. Dr. Pruthi is the founder of NIKSUN which he has built from a startup to a highly successful global company leading the way in the cyber security, wireless and network monitoring markets.

Dr. Pruthi is widely recognized as the founding father of packet capture, stream to disk, bit vacuum, and other similar technologies which he brought to market in 1997 as NetVCR. He is also widely accepted as one of the leading innovators in the field of cyber security. In 2001 he introduced the NetDetector as the only device in the world capable of multi gigabits per second line rate recording and simultaneous analysis, reconstruction and replay in order to discover the source of security incidents and identification of potential information leakage. This invention led to the creation and growth of the field of network forensics.

Recognized as one of the foremost experts in advanced cyber security technologies, Dr. Pruthi advises on cyber defense strategies with some of the highest levels of governments and enterprises around the world. He is a frequent speaker on cyber security issues, including keynotes to delegates from across 28 NATO nations, agencies, and strategic commands at the NATO Information Assurance Symposium 2010 and 2011.

Dr. Pruthi holds a Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering and a Master’s in Computer Science from Stevens Institute of Technology. He also has a Doctorate in Telecommunications from The Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden, and his thesis, “An Application of Chaotic Maps to Packet Traffic Modeling,” was the first to apply chaotic and fractal or self-similar systems to accurately model the seemingly erratic nature of network traffic.

Dr. Pruthi has received many honors, is interviewed frequently by news and media and asked to write various articles on a diverse set of topics. Notable were his interview with General Norman Schwarzkopf on Cyber Security which aired on CNBC and various other media outlets; cover story "Securing You Against The Unknown" in Silicon India Magazine’s September 2011 issue; feature cover story in CIO Review's inaugural issue (April-May 2012); and a chapter on "Delivering a Long-Term Vision for Software" in the "Inside The Minds" series on "Growth Strategies For Software Companies." In 2012 SmartCEO magazine awarded Dr. Pruthi CEO of one of the BEST-RUN COMPANIES in the Mid-Atlantic. In the same year, Network Products Guide named Dr. Pruthi Outstanding Leader of the Decade in the Information Technology Industry. In addition to a host of awards, his most cherished award is that from his peers at the IEEE who honored him with the IEEE Region 1 Award of Managerial Excellence for his Leadership, Entrepreneurship, and Cybersecurity Vision.

Please click here to watch an interview with Dr. Pruthi by General Norman Schwarzkopf featured on CNBC.

Satish Pruthi, President, COO and CFO

Mr. Satish Pruthi has been actively involved with NIKSUN since the last quarter of 1998. He has a wide range of business experience, spanning over 36 years, with both small and large companies, and has participated in three business startups. He has also played a key role in turning around various divisions of large multinational companies in the U.A.E. Mr. Pruthi was the founder of, and has served as the President of various multinational companies such as, APEX USA INC, and WOTEK INC (New Jersey, USA). He has also served as the General Manager of Jumma-Al-Majid Est. and Al Futtaim Group in U.A.E., where he built-up market leadership in various divisions of these companies starting with a staff of around 20 to a steadily increasing staff of more than 400 within three years. Mr. Pruthi brings extensive practical experience in business operations, including but not limited to: operations, marketing, and financing. Mr. Pruthi is the guiding light which keeps NIKSUN on firm footing even at times of tremendous growth.

Chris Dervishian, VP, Operations

Chris Dervishian is NIKSUN’s VP, Operations. He holds multiple degrees in electrical engineering, with a hands-on engineering background. In addition, Chris earned a law degree, with commensurate experience negotiating high-tech transactions. This provides Chris with a balanced perspective to manage both operational and in-house legal matters, as senior counsel. Mr. Dervishian's area of expertise includes electronics and software technologies, intellectual property protection, semiconductor design and fabrication, computer architecture, networking and image processing. Prior to joining NIKSUN, Mr. Dervishian practiced at the law firm of RatnerPrestia, and worked as a Member of Technical Staff at Bellcore (now Telcordia) and as a Development Engineer at Moore Products, where he gained significant operations expertise. Mr. Dervishian graduated Cum Laude with a J.D. from the Widener University School of Law. He earned his Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering from Lehigh University and his Master of Science degree in electrical engineering from the University of Southern California.

Chris Mac-Stoker, Distinguished Engineer and ED, Product Management

Chris "Skip" Mac-Stoker is a twenty-year technology industry veteran with depths in the large-scale networking, infrastructure, high-performance & super-computing industry sectors. As Distinguished Engineer and Executive Director, Product Management, Chris steers the technical direction of NIKSUN's product portfolio. Together with the Product Management and NIKSUN Innovation Centre teams, Chris executes prototypes of future product releases with a hands-on, practical approach. Prior to NIKSUN, Chris began his career on Wall St. as a NOC Manager, becoming a consulting design engineer for trading infrastructures generating billions in revenue at tier one banks and hedge funds, specializing in high availability, data integrity / security issues, and multi-discipline failure analysis. Chris also maintains a non-profit service provider, keeping ties to the FOSS, OSDN, *BSD and cybersecurity communities.

Dr. TK Srinivas, VP of Engineering

Dr. TK Srinivas brings significant software development experience to NIKSUN. Previously, he was an entrepreneur, leveraging his background in building large scale software systems in a variety of roles spanning three decades at Bell Labs and Avaya Labs. In these past roles, Dr Srinivas directed and managed the development and enhancements of systems involving millions of lines of code, from requirements through global deployment and maintenance – utilizing fast but effective processes to ensure the timely delivery of quality code. Dr Srinivas is experienced in building systems for Enterprise and Service Provider customers. He has a proven track record for building and managing teams across multiple international locations as well as creating long-term strategic relationships with business partners and vendors. Most recently, Dr Srinivas held roles such as Director of Architecture & Engineering at Avaya and before that served as Chief Architect for the Avaya Global Services organization, which was a two billion dollar business. Dr Srinivas has an MSc in Physics from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) at Kanpur and an MS degree in Computer Science and PhD in Theoretical Condensed Matter physics from the State University of New York at Buffalo.

Andrew Heybey, VP, Chief Architect

Mr. Heybey is Chief Architect at NIKSUN Inc. and is responsible for the design, architecture and implementation of NIKSUN's core technologies. He has over 20 years of experience in operating systems, networking and software engineering. A core member of the NIKSUN team, Mr. Heybey has led NIKSUN's design and development efforts since 1998 and has been instrumental in bringing the company's patented technology to market. He has extensive experience in implementing and leading complex multi-faceted projects involving extremely high rate network traffic processing, data warehousing, application analytics, forensics and security.

Mr. Heybey received his BS and MS in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He has worked in research at MIT and Telcordia (formerly Bellcore) before joining NIKSUN as Chief Architect.

James Van Bokkelen, VP, Security Forensics

Mr. Van Bokkelen joins NIKSUN with 28 years of experience in operations, sales, marketing and software development. He has been an entrepreneur with broad interest in networking and communication. His recent focus has been on recognition, analysis, forensics and visualization of network traffic and data.

Prior to joining NIKSUN, Mr. Van Bokkelen was Founder and President of Sandstorm Enterprises Inc., a developer of IP network and security monitoring solutions and telephone systems scanning software. Mr. Van Bokkelen was with Sandstorm from its inception in 1998 to its acquisition by NIKSUN in 2010. At Sandstorm, he also served as the primary architect of NetIntercept, a network forensics analysis tool. Previously, he had been a founder of FTP Software, a pioneer in the internet access field, serving at various times as President, VP Sales and Marketing and VP Engineering. Earlier in his career, he worked as Manager of Software Development at Perception Technology, a pioneer in the Voice Response area.

Mr. Van Bokkelen attended Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His publications include internet RFCs and other contributions to the IETF.