Executive Team

Allen Salmasi

Chairman, Chief Executive Officer & Founder

Prior to co-founding Veea in 2014, Mr. Salmasi was the Chairman, Chief Executive Officer, and President of NextWave Telecom Inc. and, its spin-off, NextWave Wireless Inc. (“NextWave”), a San Diego-based company. In partnership with MCI Communications Corporation, NextWave developed and substantially implemented the first Mobile Virtual Network Operator (“MVNO”) service in the US. NextWave Telecom was acquired by Verizon in 2005 and its spin-off NextWave Wireless was acquired by AT&T in 2013.

Prior to NextWave since 1988, he served as the first President of QCT (wireless business division), Chief Strategy Officer and a member of the Board of Directors at Qualcomm Incorporated, where he initiated and led the business development activities for the first digital cellular 2G products, including its chipset and handset developments and production, based on Code Division Multiple Access (“CDMA”) technology, which became the first global wireless standard as 3G and gave birth to smartphones. Prior to Qualcomm, from 1983 to 1988, Mr. Salmasi was the Chief Executive Officer and President of Omninet Corporation, which developed and launched OmniTRACS product and services in 1985. As the first large scale commercial application of spread spectrum communications incorporating CDMA, OmniTRACS became the world’s first and largest commercial terrestrial mobile satellite communications service for two-way messaging and position reporting service through 2000s.

He holds two Bachelor of Science degrees with honors in Electrical Engineering and Business Management and Economics from Purdue University and two Master of Science degrees in Electrical Engineering and Applied Mathematics from Purdue University and the University of Southern California, respectively. He then completed the coursework at University of Southern California towards a Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering.

Janice K. Smith

Executive Vice President and Interim Chief Financial Officer

Janice Smith is the interim Chief Financial Officer and our Chief Operating Officer.  She assumed the position of interim Chief Financial Officer in September 2024 and has held the position of Chief Operating Officer since 2019.  Prior to joining Veea, Janice was the Chief Administrative Officer of NLabs Inc., an affiliate of Veea. Prior to joining NLabs, she held the position of Senior Vice President, Chief Risk Officer, and Head of Governmental Affairs for Overseas Shipholding Group, Inc., formerly the largest NYSE-listed crude oil and petroleum product transportation company, where she was responsible for the enterprise risk management function, including establishing and managing the company’s “internal review board” with oversight of $2+ billion projects, executing the company’s legislative agenda, managing the firm’s political action committee and supervising outside lobbyists. Prior to joining Overseas Shipholding Group, Janice was a corporate partner in the New York office of the global law firm Proskauer Rose where her practice focused on mergers and acquisitions, corporate finance, and securities law transactions. She holds a BBA from Iona University, and a JD from Fordham Law School.

Michael Salmasi

CEO, Veea Solutions Inc., & Veea Inc. Co-Founder

Michael is the CEO of Veea Solutions Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Veea, and a co-founder of Veea Inc. In his role as CEO, Michael spearheads initiatives and engages with partners to deliver edge computing solutions to customers in a range of verticals, including Smart Retail, Smart Buildings, and Smart Agriculture. Michael holds a MBA from New York University Stern School of Business, and previously held positions UBS Financial Services.

Mark Tubinis

Chief Commercial Officer

Mark Tubinis has been Chief Commercial Officer of Veea since 2020. He is a seasoned technology executive recognized for building and managing global product and services organizations. He has broad experience in virtualized and cloud-based fixed and mobile service delivery (voice, video, data and IoT), and has worked in engineering management, product management, business development, and strategic planning throughout his career. He previously served as Senior Vice President of SeaChange International, an OTC-listed supplier of video delivery software; as the Chairman of the Board of Airfusion, a private AI driven data analytics company; and as a director of Classco, Inc., a specialist in Calling Line ID technologies. He holds an MSEE/Computer Engineering and Communications from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and a BSEE from Boston University.

Board of Directors

Allen Salmasi

Chairman

Prior to co-founding Veea in 2014, Mr. Salmasi was the Chairman, Chief Executive Officer, and President of NextWave Telecom Inc. and, its spin-off, NextWave Wireless Inc. (“NextWave”), a San Diego-based company. In partnership with MCI Communications Corporation, NextWave developed and substantially implemented the first Mobile Virtual Network Operator (“MVNO”) service in the US. NextWave Telecom was acquired by Verizon in 2005 and its spin-off NextWave Wireless was acquired by AT&T in 2013.

Prior to NextWave since 1988, he served as the first President of QCT (wireless business division), Chief Strategy Officer and a member of the Board of Directors at Qualcomm Incorporated, where he initiated and led the business development activities for the first digital cellular 2G products, including its chipset and handset developments and production, based on Code Division Multiple Access (“CDMA”) technology, which became the first global wireless standard as 3G and gave birth to smartphones. Prior to Qualcomm, from 1983 to 1988, Mr. Salmasi was the Chief Executive Officer and President of Omninet Corporation, which developed and launched OmniTRACS product and services in 1985. As the first large scale commercial application of spread spectrum communications incorporating CDMA, OmniTRACS became the world’s first and largest commercial terrestrial mobile satellite communications service for two-way messaging and position reporting service through 2000s.

He holds two Bachelor of Science degrees with honors in Electrical Engineering and Business Management and Economics from Purdue University and two Master of Science degrees in Electrical Engineering and Applied Mathematics from Purdue University and the University of Southern California, respectively. He then completed the coursework at University of Southern California towards a Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering.

Michael Salmasi

Director & Co-Founder

Michael Salmasi is a co-founder of Veea Inc. and currently serves as the of CEO of Veea Solutions Inc., a subsidiary of Veea Inc. In his role, Michael spearheads initiatives and engages with partners to deliver edge computing solutions to customers in a range of verticals, including Smart Retail, Smart Buildings, and Smart Agriculture. Michael holds a Master of Business Administration from New York University Stern School of Business, and previously held positions working at UBS Financial Services.

Douglas Maine

Director

Douglas Maine joined International Business Machines Corporation (“IBM”) in 1998 as Chief Financial Officer following a 20-year career with MCI (now part of Verizon) where he was Chief Financial Officer from 1992-1998. He was named General Manager of ibm.com in 2000 and General Manager, Consumer Products Industry in 2003 and retired from IBM in 2005. He previously served as a director of the following public companies: Acreage Holdings, Albemarle Corporation, Orbital-ATK, BroadSoft, and Rockwood Holdings. He is a former two-term member of the Standing Advisory Group of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board. He holds a BS from Temple University and an MBA from Hofstra University. He is also a Columbia Business School Executive in Residence.

Gary Cohen

Director

Gary Cohen is an experienced business leader with a background in global management. He currently serves on the Board of Trustees for Northwell Health and previously served on the President’s Council for Union College, the Global Advisory Board of Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT and Harvard, the Global Advisory Council of African Leadership University, US Advisory Council of African Leadership Academy, and Director and Treasurer of Gift of Hope USA. He previously led IBM Corporation’s $12 billion business with telecommunications, energy and utilities, and media and entertainment clients worldwide, with particular focus in leading the development in Africa. Prior to that he served as General Manager of IBM’s Pervasive Computing (IoT) business unit and before that was Vice President of Strategy. He holds an MBA in Finance from New York University and a Bachelor of Science in Economics and Psychology from Union College. 

Kanishka Roy

Director

Mr. Roy is a technology and finance veteran, with over 25 years of experience as a technology investment banker, public company executive, and growth investor. Mr. Roy is a co-founder and Managing Partner of Plum Partners, a late-stage investment company, and Chairman and CEO of Plum Acquisition Corp. III – a special purpose acquisition company traded on Nasdaq. Mr. Roy was previously the Chairman and CEO of Plum Acquisition Corp. I. From 2010 to 2019, Mr. Roy advised leading Software and Internet companies with mergers and acquisitions (M&A) and capital markets transactions. Mr. Roy served as the Global Head of Tech M&A Origination for Morgan Stanley, where he was responsible for initiating large, industry-transforming  mergers, helping clients take a long-term view of the competitive landscape and implementing large, industry-shaping M&A transactions. Over his career, Mr. Roy has participated in over $100 billion of M&A transactions. From 2019 to 2020, he was Global CFO at SmartNews, a multi-billion-dollar AI company with over 20 million monthly average users, and led the strategic finance and growth of a rapidly growing company across multiple geographies. Mr. Roy started his career as a software engineer at two software startups, both of which were acquired by larger public companies, and also worked in executive strategy roles at IBM. Mr. Roy holds an undergraduate degree in Electrical & Computer Engineering and an MBA from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth.

Allan Black

Director

Alan Black founded Surfspray Capital, LLC in 2017 through which he has advised over a dozen companies including Looker Data Sciences where he served on the Board and was Chair of the Audit Committee (acquired by Google in 2019); Bill.com Holdings (2019 IPO), HashiCorp (2021 IPO), and private software companies including Intercom, Komodo Health, Mattermost, Netlify, Nozomi Networks, and others. He brings more than 35 years of experience as an executive leading public and private software enterprises, including IPO experience as CFO at Zendesk (2014 IPO) and Openwave Systems (1999 IPO). He currently sits on the boards of Nextiva’s, Matillion and Plum Acquisition Corp. III, a special purpose acquisition company traded on NASDAQ. He holds a Bachelors of Commerce and a Graduate Diploma in Public Accountancy degrees from McGill University in Montreal, Canada, and co-chair’s McGill’s Board of Advisors for the Western United States. 

Helder Antunes

Director

Helder Antunes has served as the Chief Executive Officer of Crowdkeep since 2022. A seasoned Silicon Valley technologist and executive with over 35 years of experience, Antunes is recognized for his leadership in the edge computing and internet of things (IoT) spaces. He served as a Cisco executive for 20 years, leading flagship initiatives such as Connected Vehicles, Network Security, and Corporate Innovation. Antunes speaks at numerous conferences and symposiums around the world every year and has presented to the U.S. Congress, Norwegian Parliament, and the Assembly of the Portuguese Republic on the topics of data security, IoT, edge computing, and disruptive innovation. Antunes has also served as an advisor to the Governments of Portugal and the Regional Government of the Azores, on matters concerning science, technology, education, and economic development.

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