Leadership
Leadership: Executive Management
We’re extremely fortunate at MaxVal to have a leadership team whose experience and expertise are both deep and complementary. It starts right at the top: we are the only leading IP solution provider whose CEO is a practicing IP attorney.
Whether it’s drawing upon the experiences of developing IP strategy for a Fortune 500 company, sitting on invention review committees, or pursuing international filing strategies, the leadership team has a “walked a mile in your shoes” degree of familiarity with our clients’ IP challenges and opportunities.
D. Bommi Bommannan, PhD, JD
Founder and CEO
Bommi founded MaxVal in 2004 to help companies optimize the management of patent lifecycles and maximize the value of their patents. His initial efforts in monetizing patents in the life sciences arena led to a sophisticated approach at MaxVal for processing patent portfolios in various sectors for monetization. Bommi has assembled a talented leadership team that operates globally to develop high quality, cost-effective solutions for patent groups.
Bommi’s patent experience started as an inventor while a graduate student, then becoming a patent agent at his job as a research scientist, followed by various stints at the Bay Area’s many prestigious law firms such as Morrison Foerster, Cooley Godward, and Thelen Reid & Priest, and in-house at companies like Alza. Bommi’s exposure to patent practice at law firms and in-house has given him a unique perspective that has laid the foundation for many of the solutions offered by MaxVal. Before founding MaxVal, Bommi was the CEO at NTERO Surgical, Inc., a medical device company that he co-founded with support from Menlo Ventures, where he learned to handle the challenges of raising capital, assembling a top notch team and developing products.
Bommi’s work experience includes research and management positions at Merck, Cygnus, and Alza. He is an inventor on more than 20 patents and has published more than 50 articles in scientific journals. He is a registered patent attorney (USPTO and California).
Education
J.D. Stanford Law School (Order of the Coif)
Ph.D. Bioengineering. Joint program between UC San Francisco and UC Berkeley
M.S. Chemical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur
B.Tech. Chemical Engineering. Anna University
Rob Dellenbach, JD
General Counsel
Rob has represented MaxVal as legal counsel since 2014 and joined as General Counsel in 2021. Rob’s legal career spans more than 30 years advising start-up and venture-backed software and other technology companies as a lawyer and partner at Fenwick & West LLP and Reed Smith LLP, and as the founder of Dellenbach Venture Counsel. Rob has also served as General Counsel of Accela, Inc. and as outside general counsel to hundreds of other clients in Silicon Valley and around the world.
Education
JD, Stanford Law School
B.A. Honors, Political Science, summa cum laude, University of Utah
Murali Kalyanthaya
SVP, Professional Services
As head of the Professional Services Organization, Murali is responsible for representing client interests and implementing MaxVal products and services, including Symphony, Max-IDS, and Annuity Payment products.
Murali brings more than 25 years of technology leadership experience in optimizing business processes and implementing enterprise software solutions for industry-leading organizations.
Most recently, Murali was CPO at PayPal where he oversaw the implementation of technology solutions for multiple legal applications, including eDiscovery, Legal Operations, Contracts Management, Law Enforcement, and IP Management. Prior to PayPal, he managed eBay’s legal enterprise technology strategies and Altera’s ERP implementation.
Education
Master of Technology. Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur.
B.Eng. Sri Jayachamarajendra College of Engineering
Suresh Kumar U
General Manager
Suresh leads our India operations driving overall delivery, performance, quality, growth and process improvements. He brings with him over 22 years of highly diverse experience in managing business operations, offshoring, managed services and technology outsourcing. Suresh also has vast experience in Global Transitions having worked with large US corporations such as GE and SGS across geographies managing large cross functional teams and solution designing. He is a Six sigma champion and has mentored several projects and lean initiatives.
Education
Masters in Management. EMPI Business School, Delhi
B.Eng Andhra University
Stuart Recher
President, Services Business
As President of the Services Division at MaxVal, Stuart is responsible for Renewals, Search & Analytics, and Paralegal & Docketing Services.
Previously, Stuart was Vice President of Intellectual Property Services at Clarivate, where he led the significant growth of the organization’s services business for both law firms and corporations around the globe. He has also previously held senior positions at CPA Global, Thomson Reuters, and Nstein Technologies (now a division of Open Text).
Education
Masters in Business Administration from Duke University
Kurt Wedel
Chief Revenue Officer
As head of Sales and Marketing, Kurt is responsible for all customer-facing messaging and business development, ensuring professionalism with all interactions.
With over 30 years of sales, marketing, product and customer service experience, with close to 20 of those in IP, Kurt joined MaxVal with a track record of success delivering technological value to customers and prospects. Kurt’s experience at Oracle, Netscape, MarkMonitor, and more recently First To File, CPA Global, and Lecorpio, have given him an appreciation of putting the customer first.
Education
MBA. Northwestern University. J. L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management
B.A. Vassar College
Ashwin Yadav
Chief Product Officer
Ashwin leads the product engineering team to achieve technology transformation of our products and solutions that adapt to the needs of an evolving global consumer and business.
Before joining MaxVal, he spent 12 years at Oracle where he developed and managed strategic programs including the IPR and Patenting Program. Ashwin was also an accredited trainer from the Licensing Executives Society International (LESI) for the foundation course in Intellectual Asset Management.
Education
MBA. (Marketing and Information Management). Management Development Institute, Gurgaon
B.Eng. (Hons). Birla Institute of Technology and Science
Leadership: Senior Management
We’re also extremely fortunate to have assembled a leadership team composed of highly accomplished individuals. Experts in their respective fields, they know exactly how to architect and develop exceptional software products and solutions that meet the needs of companies that search the globe for the very best and ultimately choose MaxVal.
Elisa Cooper
VP, Marketing
As the Vice President of Marketing for MaxVal, Elisa is responsible for overall marketing strategy and execution, including demand generation, brand awareness, PR, and communications.
Recognized as an industry thought leader in the IP management and brand protection space, Elisa brings with her 25 years of enterprise marketing experience. Having served in various executive leadership roles at Lecorpio, MarkMonitor, and Brandsight, Elisa brings extensive experience in patents, trademarks, and domains.
Education
MA, Communication Studies, San Jose State University
BA, Communication Studies, San Jose State University
Jonathan Garfinkel, JD
Patent Attorney
A registered patent attorney, Jonathan focuses on patent preparation and prosecution and classification of patent portfolios.
His technology expertise includes medical devices, biotechnology, and software. Experienced in large-scale patent portfolio analysis and evaluation, Jonathan specializes in post-grant patent matters including patent term adjustment calculations and petition drafting.
Education
J.D. Santa Clara University School of Law
M.Sc. Physiology. Georgetown University
B.Sc. Biological Sciences. Stanford University
Tom Giesler
Director, Patent Illustrations
Tom heads our patent illustrations group.
He began his career as a draftsman in 1995, working in-house at Heartport, Inc. After leaving Heartport, he started a small drafting firm and began providing patent illustrations to many established companies (IBM, Medtronic, Plantronics, etc) and prominent law firms (Fenwick & West, Townsend Townsend & Crew, Burns Doane). Tom and his team became part of MaxVal in 2006. His experience has been instrumental in growing this team and practice. Since 2006, the team has illustrated patents for an impressive roster of clients, including Apple, Abbott, Roku, RIM, Jawbone, Clif Bar, Thule, Intuitive Surgical and Google.
Education
B.A. Art/Technical Writing. Capital University
Umesh Kamath
VP, Human Resources
Umesh leads HR operations, HR business partnerships, talent acquisition, training and development, and performance management, among other things. He knows the business needs and develops a long-term, scalable HR strategy that promotes performance, growth, and retention.
Umesh has almost two decades of HR and people management experience, having worked for companies like Robosoft, Reliance, Allianz Insurance, Airtel, and UST Global. He led the HR Transformation and Shared Services team at UST Global, where he developed a Global HR shared service center and spearheaded the Diversity and Inclusion project.
Education
Management, Henley Management College, UK
Bachelor of Technology, Kerala University
Sugathan Kesavan
Sr. Director, InfoSec and IT Infrastructure
Sugathan is an IT Executive with more than two decades of experience in Application Development, Infrastructure Management, IT Operations, and Program governance. He specializes in information security, information risk management, business continuity, data privacy, and compliance.
Prior to joining Maxval, he worked for Allianz, Churchill Insurance, and Polaris Software Labs in India, the United Kingdom, Indonesia, and Sri Lanka. During that time, he held strategic positions such as Chief Information Officer, Deputy head of Assurance department, and Head of IT Projects.
He is a Certified Information Security Manager (CISM), Lead Auditor in ISO 27001, ISO 20001, and ISO 22301, Prince 2, PMP, CSM, SAFE, ITILV3F, and COBIT Foundation Practitioner, and he stays current with the IT industry.
Education
MSc. Computer Science (Annamalai University)
BSc. (Victoria College)
Kelly McNulty
VP, IP Administrative Services
As Vice President of IP Administrative Services, Kelly manages the worldwide IPSS team and customer success. She has been instrumental in scaling our go-to-market strategy, onboarding clients, and collaborating with the sales team to drive the growth of IP Support Services (IPSS).
Kelly brings over 24 years of IP leadership experience and detailed client workflow understanding to the team. Prior to joining MaxVal, Kelly led the IP Admin business for Clarivate and before that, was a leader in the CPA Global IPSS business.
Education
B.A. University of Minnesota
Michael I Montembeau, JD
Director, Search & Analytics
An experienced IP problem solver, Mike manages our Search & Analytics team.
Mike has been providing solutions that satisfy customers’ critical IP management needs for 20 years. Mike has previous experience in IP and general litigation. Prior to beginning his legal career, Mike worked in engineering and geological sciences at Halliburton.
Education
J.D. Western New England College School of Law
B.A. Geology. Colby College
Lakshmikanth S
Sr. Director, IP Renewals
As Sr. Director of IP renewals, Lakshmikanth heads the renewals group in MaxVal .
He brings in 10+ years of IP segment experience at MaxVal servicing Renewals, IDS, Paralegal and Litigation and over 22 years of experience servicing global clients in diverse fields such as engineering, IT, software development, business development and ITES. Before joining MaxVal, he worked at Bosch, TUV and LMW.
Education
B.Eng. (ECE)
Diploma in Electronics (Instrumentation specialization)
Leon Steinberg
Advisor
Before joining MaxVal, Leon Steinberg was the Managing Director of North America at Dennemeyer, the Chairman of the Black Hills IP Group, CEO of FoundationIP, CEO of Intellevate, CEO of Meritas, and President of Law and Politics Magazine. He was also a partner at the Maslon law firm.
Leon Steinberg has spoken before dozens of audiences on business and IP topics. He has been a guest lecturer at several business and law schools, including Stanford, the University of Michigan, the University of Minnesota, William Mitchell, and St. Thomas. He has received numerous awards, including being a three-time recipient of the prestigious American Jurisprudence Award.
Education
J.D., William Mitchell College of Law
Bachelors in Economics, Accounting, Mathematics, University of Minnesota – Twin Cities
Paula Stone
VP, IP Renewals
As Vice President Renewals of MaxVal, Paula is responsible for IP Renewals.
As an industry veteran, Paula most recently held the position of Vice President, Customer Service at Clarivate, where she was responsible for the renewal service delivery team. She has deep and broad experience in IP, holding senior roles in patent and trademark renewal operations, account management, and customer service. She is known for creating and maintaining strong client relationships by understanding their needs, advocating on their behalf, and ensuring the business delivers on its promise.
She is licensed to practice law in the State of Michigan and is Lean Six Sigma Green Belt Certified.
Education
J.D., Wayne State University
B.A. Business Administration, University of Michigan
Balakrishnan Sukumaran
VP, Professional Services
Bala manages the Professional Services Organization at MaxVal. He started as the first employee of the India operations in 2005, rising to head the Services group. He has been instrumental in growing the India operations.
Education
MBA
Post Graduate Diploma in Patent Law
Mohit Thawani
VP, Product Management
Mohit has extensive experience in developing technology solutions for the legal and business services industry. He has been part of the founding team of two startups (acquired by Open Text and Intapp) that delivered legal compliance solutions to some of the largest global law firms.
With a deep focus on compliance and automation, he advised and helped implement compliance and risk management solutions at some of the largest law firms and consulting organizations in the US and Europe. Mohit has sold and implemented software solutions for 65% of the AMLAW 200 firms in the US, Magic Circle UK law firms and Big Four accounting firms.
Education
Executive MBA. Stern School of Business, NYU
B.Sc. Information Technology. University of Phoenix
A. Venkatachalam
VP, Technology and Product Eng.
Venkat heads our software development center in Coimbatore, India.
He has over 27 years of IT and leadership experience in custom software development, ERP implementation, technology solutions delivery and IT Professional Services for global clients. Prior to joining MaxVal, he delivered IT Solutions to a range of industries (banking, port management, supply chain, manufacturing and logistics).
Education
Post Graduate Diploma. Systems Design and Development
Certificate courses in IT Software Projects Management
B.Sc. (Mathematics)
Together, we help your organization succeed
Work with an IP partner who empowers you to get more done
