Executive
Leadership
Phu Hoang
Founder & CEO
Phu Hoang leads Virtium by instilling core values of integrity, customer focus, quality, accountability, and teamwork. Phu is passionate about improving the world we live in and sharing that sensibility with customers, vendors, employees, and the community. His leadership philosophy focuses on enhancing the lives of others, creating lasting relationships, and offering value-added partnering resources.
He is committed to sustainable and profitable business practices and believes in balancing family and career. Phu’s management and entrepreneurial background comes from seven years with Vistage International, a leading CEO training organization. He earned his MBA from Northern Illinois University and has a B.S. in Computer Engineering from the University of Waterloo, Canada.
He also currently holds two U.S. patents. In 2008 and 2014, Phu won the EY Entrepreneur of the Year award in Orange County, California. In addition, in 2013, Phu was selected as a winner of the Orange County Business Journal’s Excellence in Entrepreneurship Awards. Phu is also the founder of Savice, a non-profit education foundation established to enable better futures for underprivileged children through educational assistance in rural Vietnam. Phu’s awards include OC Business Journal’s “Innovator of the Year, 2017” and “Excellence in Entrepreneurship, 2013” – as well as, Ernst Young’s “Entrepreneur of the Year, 2014”.
Chinh Nguyen
Founder & COO
Chinh Nguyen directs day-to-day operations as well as the overall technology advancements and supply chain needed to keep Virtium building the best storage and memory innovations, on budget and on time.
Chinh’s background includes five years with Vistage International, a leading CEO training organization. Chinh earned his B.S. in Electrical Engineering from California State Polytechnic University, Pomona and is an inventor – holding several U.S. patents. Chinh is also an active member of the industry standards group JEDEC and contributes leadership and expertise in developing new embedded industry standards and form factors.
As director of Savice, a non-profit education foundation, Chinh is devoted to helping underprivileged children improve their lives with greater access to educational resources in rural Vietnam.
Thomas Magee
CFO
Thomas Magee leads the finance team, ensuring strong and stable financial performance and structure to support Virtium’s business. He ensures the company maintains its strong values and its keen focus on performance to compliment the well-developed controls environment.
Tom has more than 25 years of executive, operational, and financial management experience with leading organizations. He has served as VP Finance, CFO, or a business unit leader for a number of technology and professional service firms:
International Rectifier (NYSE: IRF), a global manufacturer of power semiconductors EY, where he was an executive in the Center for Strategic Transactions in Palo Alto and the San Jose accounting organization Accenture Strategic Services, a global management consultancy, where he advised clients on operational and strategic matters ARCO (British Petroleum), the global refining and marketing firm
Tom received his MBA from the University of California, Los Angeles, and graduated summa cum laude from Fordham University with a B.S. in Business Economics.
Gary Drossel
CTO
Gary Drossel leads Virtium’s product strategy. He ensures the company’s product roadmap is strategically aligned to meet the dynamic requirements of Virtium’s customers, while ensuring the longest possible product lifecycles. Gary has more than 25 years of experience in embedded computing and solid-state drive technology and holds ten U.S. patents. Prior to joining Virtium, Gary was director of SSD product planning at Western Digital. He has held various positions in product management, engineering, technical marketing and executive leadership with SiliconSystems, STEC, Pro-Log, and Parker Hannifin. Gary earned his degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Wisconsin.
Dave Beasley
EVP of WW Sales & Marketing
Dave is responsible for leading and executing the company’s sales and marketing strategies to drive revenue growth and market expansion. He ensures the company is prioritizing the strategic importance of customer partnerships and navigating the complexities of the modern marketplace.
Dave has more than 25 years of experience in the Storage and Semiconductor industry with a focus on OEM’s. Prior to joining Virtium, Dave was managing Business and Segment Marketing at Western Digital. He was previously Vice President of Sales at SiliconSystems, Inc.
He worked in multiple sales and marketing roles at San Disk and Arrow Electronics. Dave earned a B.S. degree in Marketing from San Jose State University. He and his family reside in San Diego, California.
Michael Nilsson
SVP Business & Corporate Dev.
Michael Nilsson is responsible for business development for the company’s embedded SSD and industrial memory module solutions.
Nilsson brings more than 20 years of successful leadership and technology industry management experience to Virtium. His broad worldwide, multi-cultural knowledge has made him a recognized strategic business innovator and tactical director. Most recently, Nilsson led the sales team at sTec through a period of sustained growth and profitability. Before his tenure at sTec, he held senior sales management positions at NxtWave Communications and Fujitsu. Nilsson is a graduate of Stanford University.
Shane Mortazavi
VP of Operations
Shane Mortazavi has more than 25 years of experience in manufacturing operations and supply chain management, in profit-and-loss responsibility. He has served in the electronics, commercial, aerospace, automotive, oil and gas, and telecommunications industries. He most recently held the position of vice president of global operations at Emcore, Inc., where he was responsible for global manufacturing, supply chain and logistics. Mortazavi previously served as vice president of operations at sTec, Inc., a pioneer in enterprise-class SSDs and memory products that was acquired by Western Digital. Prior to sTec, he held operations-management positions at General Monitors and at Thomas & Betts Corp.
He holds B.S. degrees in Industrial Engineering and Operations Research (with honors distinction) and an M.S. in Industrial Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley. Shane also received a professional designation in IT and Systems Analysis from the University of California, Los Angeles, and is CPIM-certified by the American Production and Inventory Control Society.
Ahmed Salem
VP of Engineering
Ahmed Salem leads Virtium’s engineering organization. A seasoned technology executive with a passion for innovation and a track record of driving success in the dynamic field of memory and storage. With a career spanning 30+ years, Ahmed has consistently demonstrated exceptional leadership, technical expertise, and strategic vision. Prior to Virtium, Ahmed spent 18 years with Western Digital for the most part in the Enterprise Storage segment; starting with HDD to later transition to SSD in early 2015. Major portion of my career has been in product deployment, customer qualification, customer engagements on concept and design reviews along with gap analysis, and product support postproduction. Ahmed is committed to driving innovation that will shape the future of technology and envisions Virtium as a trailblazer in the memory and storage industry, continuously pushing boundaries and delivering solutions that redefine the possibilities in data storage.
Known for his collaborative and empowering leadership style, Ahmed believes in fostering a culture of creativity and excellence within his team. He prioritizes talent development, recognizing that the key to success in the ever-evolving tech landscape lies in nurturing and empowering the next generation of engineering talent. Ahmed is also adept at building strong relationships with key stakeholders, ensuring alignment between engineering goals and broader business objectives.
Ahmed earned his Bachelor and masters degrees in electrical and computer engineering from Wayne State University.
Scott Phillips
VP of Marketing
Scott directs the marketing strategy for Virtium, which includes market and product forecasts, technical marketing, corporate communications, go-to-market strategy and channel development.
Scott has more than 20 years of experience working with many of the industry’s largest, multinational technology OEMs including Canon, Intersil, Conexant and HGST supporting a variety of storage, communications and system-level technologies. Scott most recently spent nearly 10 years at sTec/HGST managing embedded and industrial solid-state storage solutions. Scott holds an M.S. in Business Administration and specializes in delivering compelling technology solutions that squarely address customer and market needs.
Paul Martin
VP of Technology Strategy
Paul Martin serves as VP of Technology Strategy. He has over 30 years of broad industry experience with knowledge across engineering and business with extensive customer facing interaction. Paul was an executive at Western Digital with roles including the Senior Director of Worldwide Field Engineering, Senior Director of SSD Strategic Marketing and more recently Senior Director of Technology Strategy.
Paul brings his passion for technology and innovation to Virtium to help develop Virtium’s strategy for integrating new technologies into its product portfolio to grow its future revenue.
Paul holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Oklahoma State University.
Eli Tiomkin
VP of Sales and Business Dev.
Eli Tiomkin serves as the VP of Sales and Business Development at Virtium, driving a spectrum of marketing, business development, and sales endeavors. Renowned for his sales prowess, Eli has consistently secured pivotal programs, directed channel activities, and cultivated burgeoning markets for an array of prominent storage companies, including Solidigm, NGD Systems, Western Digital, StoreOne, Violin Memory, STEC, and M-Systems.
Throughout his 26-year tenure in flash storage sales, Elihas been instrumental in the transformation of this technology, establishing its integral position within data centers. Notably, he has overseen numerous sales campaigns from inception to achieving multimillion-dollar success, shaping the landscape of flash storage solutions.
Eli holds an MBA in International Business and Organizational Behavior from Oakland University (Rochester, MI) and is a distinguished speaker, having shared insights at prominent industry events such as the Flash Memory Summits, OCP US Summit, SDC, and other significant gatherings.
As VP at Virtium, Eli continues to steer the evolution and application of flash storage solutions, setting new standards for innovation and industry excellence.
Tinh Ngo
VP of Business Development
Tinh Ngo, VP of Business and Technology development at Virtium oversees the acquisition of new business ventures and the alignment of technology to market needs.
He has over 20 years of experience in strategic marketing and business development with extensive knowledge of the semiconductor space, specifically in the storage (Flash, SSD) and memory (DRAM, Packaging) markets. Prior to joining Virtium, he was responsible for leading sales, business development and marketing at Netlist and Viking Technology (Sanmina), with previous positions as Director, Marketing for HGST/STEC.
Tinh Ngo was also Marketing Chair for the Storage Networking Industry Association’s (SNIA) Solid State Storage Initiative (SSSI) and is currently on the Executive Board of CCC, the organization that develops conferences such as Open Server Summit, Software Defined Infrastructure and Flash Memory Summit.
Harrison Yoo
VP of Strategic Alliances
Harrison Yoo performs strategic relationship building and business development services with suppliers and customers in South Korea and the broader Asia Pacific region. He has more than 25 years of semiconductor Memory industry experience, having most recently held senior management positions in Sales, Marketing, and Supply Chain Management.
Prior to joining Virtium, Harrison worked in the Korea Headquarters and in the North America Division of Samsung Electronics, successfully managing customers in multiple market segments, including Channel, SMB (Small & Medium sized Businesses) and multi-national OEMs.
Harrison earned his BS in Business Administration from Korea University and his MBA from Michigan State University. He and his family reside in Seoul, South Korea.