Management Team

The Blazent senior management team blends significant experience and expertise across a variety of technology and enterprise businesses. Working together as a core team since the company’s inception in 2001, they lead a successful organization that is focused solely on providing outsourcing governance solutions for infrastructure outsourcing relationships. The company is thriving under the consistent leadership and guidance of its executive team.

Executive Staff

Gary Oliver
President & Chief Executive Officer

Gary Oliver brings an important combination of management experience to Blazent, both as a successful software leader, and as a senior-level IT executive. This first-hand experience allows him to clearly understand the business needs of today's IT executive, and then to manage the delivery of solutions to directly meet those needs.

Gary joins Blazent from Peregrine Systems, where he was Vice President and General Manager of the Infrastructure Management Business Unit, responsible for Peregrine's application solutions. These solutions were installed in over 92% of the Fortune 500. Prior to Peregrine, Gary served as Vice President and General Manager of the IT Service Management business at Remedy Corporation, with more than 10,000 customers worldwide.

Prior to Remedy, Gary was Sr. Vice President at Visa International, responsible for the company's internal technology environment. In this role he established the important balance of running IT as a business while delivering high levels of service and speed. Prior to Visa, Gary held several marketing and sales management positions at IBM, including the management of worldwide sales and marketing of IBM's data management solutions.

Gary graduated from the University of California at Los Angeles with a BA in Economics.

Tom Drotleff
Chief Financial Officer

Tom runs the financial side of Blazent with more than 20 years of experience in finance and operations. Tom has held the top financial post at several companies, including Computerland, where he served as Senior Vice President and CFO and was responsible for a staff of 100 people. He has done business planning for Sun Microsystems and built a successful consulting practice as interim CFO for a variety of growing companies. Skilled in operational controls, banking relations, raising capital, budget planning, and mergers and acquisitions, Tom brings unique experience and talent to Blazent.

Tom graduated with a BS in Accounting from California State University, Hayward, and is a Certified Public Accountant

Jim Cyb
Vice President, Products and Marketing

Jim brings an extensive background in designing, implementing, and selling complex software solutions. As an early member of the Blazent team, he has contributed in-depth knowledge of product development and customer requirements that have improved product functionality. His innovative style and knowledge of outsourcing have driven company-wide efficiency and sales success.

Before joining Blazent, Jim was instrumental to the launch of four start-ups in Silicon Valley and also worked as a consultant with Accenture.

Jim graduated from the University of California, Santa Barbara, with High Honors in Mechanical Engineering.

Lou Salfi
Vice President, Sales

Since Blazent's inception, Lou has been a principal contributor in all aspects of the sales team. As Vice President of Sales, he leads a very capable and articulate team focused on capitalizing Blazent's unique product offering.

Lou has been a top performer in enterprise software sales and sales management for more than 12 years. Prior to Blazent, Lou was a key contributor at Vitria Technology, leading to a highly successful IPO. Lou was instrumental in successfully launching the company's Latin American operations in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Before Vitria, Lou was a revenue leader for Computer Associates.

Lou graduated with a BA from Stephen F. Austin State University in Texas.

Christofer Schneider
Vice President, Technical Operations

Chris has been a heralded member of the Blazent team since 2003. Chris is charged with adapting Blazent solutions to meet the unique and complex needs of Blazent's enterprise and service provider customers. Chris leads Blazent's Implementation Services, Technical Support, and Engineering departments and is responsible for the ongoing services operation at Blazent as well as providing strategic and tactical customer insight.

Prior to Blazent, Chris has held leadership and oversight roles in services, support, and development at companies focused on large-scale, data-intensive and enterprise business intelligence applications and projects. This includes his role as Vice President of Product Development at FASTECH and Director of Professional Services at Advanced Systems International. He has also held Senior DBA positions at Seagate and Oracle.

Chris graduated with a BS in Mathematics from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.