Company Management

 

Jack Waters, President and CEO

Mr. Waters is Chief Executive Officer of XipLink, Inc. In July 2007 XipLink was spun-off from the aerospace company Xiphos Technologies and new capital invested into the company. Mr. Waters was chosen to lead the XipLink team due to his long term success in data communications technologies, his past focus with growth strategies for high technology companies and the positive outcome for employees and investors after the sale of his latest venture to Singapore Technologies, for $165 Million Dollars, in November of 2005.

Most recently, Mr. Waters was Senior Vice President of Global Sales at iDirect Technologies, Inc., where he helped lead the turnaround of a failed “dot com” company, starting in 2001 with sales under $1 Million Dollars, to a leader in the IP Broadband VSAT business. While at iDirect, he was primarily responsible for creating the strongest sales and distribution organization in the satellite equipment market.

Mr. Waters joined iDirect from CoManage Corporation, a software developer of OSS Systems for ISP’s, CLEC’s and Alternate Carriers where he served as Vice President of Worldwide Sales, building the initial sales team to 12 members, assisting with closing two rounds of venture funding and developing initial traction in the telco marketplace. Prior to joining CoManage, Mr. Waters was Director of Worldwide ISP and CLEC Sales at Argon Networks, a manufacturer of large carrier-class core routers, which was later acquired by Siemens and renamed Unisphere (now Juniper Networks). Before his tenure at CoManage, Mr. Waters served as Director of the Mid-Atlantic Region at FORE Systems, where his team consistently obtained awards as the top performing region with a company that grew sales volume from $25M in 1994 to over $500M by 1998. Prior to FORE Systems, Mr. Waters held regional sales positions at Network Systems Corporation from 1984 to 1994 and Wang Computer from 1980 to 1984. Mr. Waters is a proud graduate of Michigan State University, holding a B.S. in Accounting and named Captain of the MSU Ski Team in 1979.

Charlie Younghusband, Founder & SVP Product Management

Charlie Younghusband, SVP of Product Management, founded XipLink in the year 2000. He oversees all product product managementt, support and operations work. Beginning in elementary school, his teachers frequently accused of taking too many shortcuts, but XipLink allows him to translate this obsession with optimization into value.

Previously to his XipLink work, Mr Younghusband worked as a field consultant for Ingenia Communications in the development of IP networks and Internet technologies. Prior to that, he worked at Nortel Networks. As a consultant, he took a leading role in introducing the Canadian Department of National Defence to the benefits of Internet technology. He co-founded Virtual Ventures, a cyberspace camp for youths, which went on to be developed nationally throughout most Canadian universities. He has been using the Internet since before there was a graphical World Wide Web and Linux before there was a 1.0 release. He holds a degree in Electrical Engineering with a Concentration in Management from Carleton University and a diploma from the Canadian Operational Research Society.

Mr. Younghusband has published numerous papers at peer-reviewed papers and conferences worldwide, including at the American Institute of Aeronautics and Aerospace, the Ka and Broadband Conference and the Personal Satellite Services (PSATS) conference. He co-authored the Inter-Operable Performance Enhancing Proxy standard (I-PEP) as published by SatLabs. He has also made contributions to NASA’s Internet In Space series of conferences and the European Space Agency’s sponsored conferences on PEPs.

Bruce Bednarski, Senior Vice President of Business Development

In this key role, Mr. Bednarski is responsible for developing strategic global relationships in order to expand XipLink’s overall market opportunity and corporate development. Mr. Bednarski brings more than 20 years of diverse telecommunications and networking experience to the position and has a proven history of bringing together innovation, creativity and execution to achieve breakthrough results.

Mr. Bednarski began his career as a systems engineer for Nortel Communications (formerly Northern Telecom), where he designed and installed both Central Office-class switching platforms. Mr. Bednarski next served as a member of the systems design team for the United States Senate, where he managed the Senate’s complex telecommunications infrastructure. He further developed his technical expertise at Verizon (formerly Bell Atlantic) as a member of the marketing technical support group, where he supported cutting-edge network and fast packet data services for Verizon’s largest clients. He continued his career by becoming one of the four founding partners of Net2000 Communications. Net2000 grew from a small private company to a public company (NASDAQ – NTKK) with more than 1,000 employees and a market capitalization of more than $1.6 billion at its initial public offering in March 2000. Mr. Bednarski worked intimately in many facets of building the business into a full facilities-based competitive local exchange carrier (CLEC) with a customer base of 3,000 clients and annual revenues of $150 million.

Following his role at Net2000, Mr. Bednarski joined iDirect Technologies in April 2002 in a board-led effort to restructure the executive management team. Through successfully redrafting and executing a new business plan, iDirect was propelled from a minor position in the VSAT router industry to a leadership role within a very short time. During this period, iDirect grew revenues from a 2001 level of $1.5 million to more than $125 million in 2006 with industry-leading gross margin and net income percentage.

 

Jaco Botha, Senior Vice President Engineering

Jaco Botha, Vice President of Engineering for XipLink, has has more than twenty years of experience in the conceptualization, development, and commercialization of computer and networking security products. Mr. Botha started his career in the SCADA and control systems area at South Africa’s Electricity Utility ESCOM. Mr Botha then spent over a twelve years at Nanoteq, a well-known South African Security Technology company where he managed several roles, including Project Manager, Director PC and Network Security and Director of Product Strategy. He was also directly involved in Nanoteq’s expansion and market development thrust into Germany and the UK, Jaco was responsible for developing and bringing to market several PC and network security products such as; KeySafe – a security management system for a pay-tv operator; SecureData – A hardware encryption product with smart card user authentication offering disk and directory encryption on DOS, Windows and OS/2 systems; CFSS – A centralized File Security system that secured (encrypted) files at an enterprise level; NetSeq – A firewall and VPN Appliance based on FreeBSD, and IP-Granite – A multi-platform IPSec VPN comprising Appliances, Windows based clients and a Centralized Management and configuration system.

The IP-Granite product was transferred to Trispen Technologies, during a successful and friendly MBO in 1999. Moving into Trispen, Mr. Botha managed the evolution of the IP-Granite product suite over a period of nine years. With wide deployment (roughly 2000 installations) of the IP-Granite product family in Southern African governments, law enforcement and specialist financial institutions.

One of follow-on products that was launched under Jaco’s direction at Trispen is an innovative subscription service offering that combines peer-to-peer networking and VPN security technologies. This product – @TheOffice Wherever! forms part of an asset transfer agreement reached between Trispen Technologies and XipLink Inc. Jaco holds a B Eng. (Hons) degree in Electronic Engineering from the University of Pretoria.