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RISC-V Executive Team
Calista Redmond
CEO
RISC-V International
Calista Redmond
CEO, RISC-V International
Calista Redmond is the CEO of RISC-V International with a mission to expand and engage RISC-V stakeholders, compel industry adoption, and increase visibility and opportunity for RISC-V within and beyond RISC-V International. Prior to RISC-V International, Calista held a variety of roles at IBM, including Vice President of IBM Z Ecosystem where she led strategic relationships across software vendors, system integrators, business partners, developer communities, and broader engagement across the industry. Focus areas included execution of commercialization strategies, technical and business support for partners, and matchmaker to opportunities across the IBM Z and LinuxOne community. Calista’s background includes building and leading strategic business models within IBM’s Systems Group through open source initiatives including OpenPOWER, OpenDaylight, and Open Mainframe Project. For OpenPOWER, Calista was a leader in drafting the strategy, cultivating the foundation of partners, and nurturing strategic relationships to grow the org from zero to 300+ members. While at IBM, she also drove numerous acquisition and divestiture missions, and several strategic alliances. Prior to IBM, she was an entrepreneur in four successful start-ups in the IT industry. Calista holds degrees from the University of Michigan and Northwestern University.
Mark Himelstein
CTO
RISC-V International
Mark Himelstein
CTO, RISC-V International
Before RISC-V international Mark Himelstein was the President of Heavenstone, Inc. which concentrated on Strategic, Management, and Technology Consulting providing hardware and software product architecture, analysis, mentoring and interim management. Previously, Mark started Graphite Systems, Inc (acquired by EMC) where he was the VP of Engineering and CTO developing large Analytics Appliances using highly integrated FLASH memory. Prior to Graphite, Mark held positions as the CTO of Quantum Corp, Vice President of Solaris development engineering at Sun Microsystems and other technical management roles at Apple, Infoblox, and MIPS.
Mark has a bachelors degree in Computer Science and Math from Wilkes University in Pennsylvania and a masters degree in Computer Science from University of California Davis/Livermore. In addition to publishing numerous technical papers and holding many patents, he is the author of the book “100 Questions to Ask Your Software Organization”.
Michele Clarke
Marketing Director
RISC-V International
Michele Clarke
Marketing Director, RISC-V International
Michele is Marketing Director at RISC-V International and a globally recognized expert in integrated strategic marketing and communications that span the corporate, financial, b2b and b2c marketing, regulatory, and employee engagement disciplines. She specializes in developing industry alliances and ecosystems for new and emerging technologies. She’s been a senior agency executive at four top-10 firms; directed in-house global strategic communications; and spent more than a decade as a leading business and technology journalist and editorial manager. Her editorial career spanned the electronics, OEM, Internet & Information Technology, and graphics and animation markets. Her RISC roots run deep. As a journalist at EDN and EE Times covering microprocessors and system architectures, she chronicled RISC’s beginnings, including breaking the news of the PowerPC and Sun’s SPARC-2. As a marketer, she launched the first SPARC microcontroller for Sun Microsystems, and has also created success for leaders including Intel, Mentor Graphics, Cadence, Rambus, Silicon Graphics, Motorola, Qualcomm, and numerous EDA companies. Michele speaks on integrated communications and media management strategies at national conferences and earned a Gold SABRE Award for Best Business-to-Business Marketing Program for work on behalf of PricewaterhouseCoopers. She has been quoted in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, New York Post and other media. She is a member of the Council of Communications Management and the Public Relations Society of America’s Counselors Academy, and has served as a judge of the PRSA’s prestigious Silver Anvil Awards.
Stephano Cetola
Director of Technical Programs
RISC-V International
Stephano Cetola
Director of Technical Programs, RISC-V International
Stephano Cetola is the Director of Technical Programs for RISC-V International. He has developed and managed numerous open source initiatives in software and hardware over the course of his 20 year career in technology. Stephano helped to form the Confidential Computing Consortium, a Linux Foundation project bringing together hardware vendors, cloud providers, and software developers to accelerate the adoption of Trusted Execution Environment (TEE) technologies and standards. Before joining RISC-V International, Stephano was employed at Intel contributing to Yocto Project embedded Linux systems and working on TianoCore open source firmware. He holds an M.S. ECE from Portland State University where he continues to be involved in research surrounding hardware security and threat modeling.
RISC-V Team
Bill McSpadden
Formal Verification Engineer
RISC-V International
Bill McSpadden
Formal Verification Engineer, RISC-V International
Bill joined RISC-V International in January of 2022. He came from Seagate where he worked on the verification team for their RISC-V cores. He worked for intel for much of his career. And he has also worked for IBM, Verilab (an RTL verification consulting group) and Starkey Hearing Technologies. He has lived in Chanhassen, MN, for the past five years where he is learning to adapt to the cold (Oct-Apr) and the mosquitoes (May-Sept). Prior to moving to Minisoda, he lived in Oregon for 30+ years.
Bill is a Formal Verification Engineer. (No it doesn’t mean he wears a tux.) He is working on the formal definition of the RISC-V architecture in the hopes that some day we can have a self-consistent, provable definition of the architecture.
Brett Preston
Senior Program Manager
RISC-V International
Brett Preston
Senior Program Manager, RISC-V International
Brett Preston is a program manager for RISC-V International. Along with working at RISC-V, he works on the Zephyr Project. An operations ninja, he focuses on arming others with systems, tools, processes and best practices to make their work more efficient and effective. Brett has been with The Linux Foundation since 2014, working on such projects as AllSeen Alliance, CNCF, and LF Edge. Brett lives in Portland, OR and you’ll usually find him with a coffee in hand.
Deb Giles
Event Manager
RISC-V International
Deb Giles
Event Manager, RISC-V International
Deb has over fifteen years of event management experience and has been with RISC-V since 2019, overseeing events including RISC-V Roadshows, RISC-V Forums, RISC-V Summit, and RISC-V’s presence at tradeshows around the world. Living in Nashville, Deb spends her free time with her dog, sitting on patios, trying new restaurants, and exploring the area.
Helen Lau
Program Coordinator
RISC-V International
Helen Lau
Program Coordinator, RISC-V International
Helen Lau joined The Linux Foundation in March 2022 and works as a Program Coordinator for RISC-V International. She also works on the Confidential Computing Consortium (CCC). Previously, Helen worked at the Practising Law Institute as a Senior Pro Bono Program & Membership Coordinator. Helen is excited to transition from helping the pro bono community to the open source community. In her spare time, Helen likes to lift weights in her home gym and aspires to return to powerlifting following the birth of her son. Helen currently resides in Salt Lake City with her family.
Jeff Scheel
Technical Program Manager
RISC-V International
Jeff Scheel
Technical Program Manager, RISC-V International
Jeff Scheel joined the Linux Foundation in May 2021 as a Technical Program Manager for the RISC-V Foundation. He brings over 30 years experience in the Software Engineering industry, spending most of his career at IBM where he predominantly established, grew, and led Linux for IBM Power Systems. Other experiences included I/O adapter firmware development and logical partitioning (LPARs) for the AS/400. He was a charter member of the OpenPOWER Foundation, serving as the Chair of the System Software Work Group and the Technical Steering Committee.
Jeff holds a Bachelor’s of Science in Computer Engineering from the University of California at Davis. He also has work experience with HP and Canonical. He loves open source development and world-wide innovation.
Megan Lehn
Learn, Advocacy, and Alliances Manager
RISC-V International
Megan Lehn
Learn, Advocacy, and Alliances Manager, RISC-V International
Megan Lehn is a program manager for RISC-V International and works as an Event and Meeting Planner at the Linux Foundation. Megan comes from a diverse hospitality, event marketing and sales background and is excited to join the RISC-V International team.
Racepoint Global
Analyst & Media Contact
RISC-V International
Racepoint Global
Analyst & Media Contact, RISC-V International
Racepoint Global (RPG) is the analyst & media contact for RISC-V International.
Inquires should be directed to: riscv@racepointglobal.com
Thea Clay
Marketing Content Manager
RISC-V International
Thea Clay
Marketing Content Manager, RISC-V International
Thea Clay is a marketing content manager for RISC-V International where she works to support the visibility and reach of the RISC-V community’s activities. In addition to her work for RISC-V International, Thea is an Ambassador for the Zephyr Project. Prior to joining the Linux Foundation Thea worked to support open geospatial and open source for social impact ecosystems.