Songnian received a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of California, Berkeley in 1987, and subsequently took a faculty position at the University of Toronto as a Professor of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering.

Songnian's Ph.D. thesis established the field of distributed resource management, which provides the foundation for grid computing, hailed by industry experts as the next evolution of IT.

This research was the catalyst for the creation of Platform Computing, which he co-founded with two partners in 1992. Under Songnian's leadership, Platform has grown from a company of three employees to 500 strong, with 15 offices around the globe.

Songnian has been recognized for his excellence in leadership and innovation with the Ernst & Young Technology Entrepreneur of the Year Award in 2002. In 2001, he was elected a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering, and received the Innovation Award for Leadership in Product Development from the Information Technology Research Centre (ITRC) of Ontario for Platform LSF in 1995.

Peter Nichol has over 20 years of management experience in sales, marketing and general management focused on selling software solutions to multiple industries including electronics, pharmaceutical, oil & gas and chemical industries. Prior to joining Platform Computing in 2003, Peter was Vice President of Worldwide Sales at Antrim Design Systems and Vice President and General Manager of Professional Services at Cadence Design Systems in Japan. He has also held several senior management positions including Worldwide Head of Sales at Simulation Sciences Inc. Peter's business career spans across Europe, North America and Japan.

He holds a Bachelor of Engineering degree in Mechanical Engineering from University College Dublin.

Mr. Mancuso has over 20 years of experience in the Wall Street marketplace. Prior to joining Platform Computing, he served as Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing for CorrectNet a provider of a data consolidation and web reporting solutions to financial institutions.  There he grew sales tenfold, transforming the company into a dominant technology vendor to the alternative investments industry.  As, Vice President for the Atlantic Sales Region with Tumbleweed Communications, a secure messaging and email compliance solutions provider, he successfully built and managed the company’s most strategic sales region. Prior to that, he served as Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Neovision Hypersystems, a provider of visualization solutions for securities trading. He has also held senior sales management positions at companies including Clarify and Computer Associates.

Mr. Mancuso holds a Bachelor of Science degree from Fordham University.

Randy Clark
Chief Marketing Officer

Over the past 20 years, Randy has successfully led marketing and business development for both early stage and large public enterprise software companies. Most recently, Randy was VP Marketing at Symyx, a public software and systems company focused on the chemicals and life-sciences industries. Previously, he was SVP Market Development for PTC, a leading public company focused on product lifecycle management. Randy has also been an early management team member for two venture-backed software companies, Enigma and ClearForest, that built segment leadership in the content management and business intelligence markets. Randy's career began in consulting with Arthur D. Little and venture capital with Advent International before he moved to the operating side doing vertical marketing with Bay Networks.

Randy graduated from University of Pennsylvania in Economics and holds an MBA from Harvard.

Peter has more than 20 years of executive management experience. Prior to joining Platform Computing Corporation, Peter held various executive management positions, including Vice President of Operations and Vice President Human Resources for Digital Equipment both in Canada and USA. 

Peter holds accreditations from the University of Michigan in Organization Development and from INSEAD in the International Advanced Management program.

Tripp Purvis
Vice President, Business Development

Tripp has built a career in IT with a focus on partner-centric sales. In his role as VP of Sales and Services at Citrix, Tripp was instrumental in the success of bringing several new products to market. Tripp was VP of Sales at Net6, a startup VPN and wireless mobility software company acquired by Citrix Systems in 2004. Prior to Net6, he was in sales and channels management at Cisco Systems from 1995 to 2001. Tripp co-founded Logicom, a software and consulting company in medical management solutions.

Tripp is a graduate of North Carolina State University with double majors in Political Sciences and Philosophy.

Jingwen Wang
Vice President, Products

Jingwen was a founding member of Platform Computing in 1992. As Vice President, Products, Jingwen was responsible for converting the distributed systems research he had conducted with Songnian Zhou at the University of Toronto into a leading commercial product. Since then, Jingwen has built and managed Platform's engineering organization in order to develop industry-leading technologies and products for grid computing.

Jingwen has a Ph.D. degree in Computer Science from Northwestern Polytechnical University, China. He was also a post-doctorate fellow at Purdue University's Department of Computer Science.