"Kleer's digital radio transmission technology produces excellent sound quality which means that for the first time, we're in a position to offer our customers wireless earphones without compromising our special Sennheiser sound. Kleer's very low audio signal latency, coupled with extremely interference-free transmission also translates into considerably longer battery life than what you'd get with conventional transmission standards."
Stijn Jans, Managing Director of Sennheiser Consumer Electronics, Singapore branch
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Management Team
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Kleer is led by a veteran management team, possessing critical domain knowledge in consumer electronics, semiconductors, low power RF and mixed signal ICs.
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Levent Gun, President & CEO
Levent joined Kleer in December of 2003 in conjunction with the Company’s series A funding led by US Venture Partners. Levent had been an Entrepreneur in Residence (EIR) at USVP, helping the firm with investments in the communications area. Prior to USVP, Levent was President and CEO of Iospan Wireless, pioneer in MIMO technology acquired by Intel. Previously, Levent co-founded and led US Robotics’ Cable Data Business and transformed this start-up into a mature business after 3COM’s acquisition of US Robotics. Early in his career, Levent held various engineering management and leadership positions at Motorola and IBM, and held positions at several universities and research labs. Levent earned a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Maryland and undergraduate degrees in engineering and mathematics from Bogazici University in Turkey. He has published extensively in technical journals and holds 14 patents.
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Ralph Mason, P.Eng., Ph.D., Co-founder, CTO
Ralph is a founder of Kleer. Ralph is a recognized leader in the area of analog/mixed signal circuit design, and has been actively involved in integrated circuit (IC) related research and development for over 17 years. Prior to co-founding Kleer, he was the product line manager and senior analog IC design engineer with Philsar Electronics. Previously he was the CTO of Analog Design Automation (acquired by Synopsys), former product manager and senior engineer with Applied Microelectronics and a former IC designer with Siltronix and Litton Systems. He is a member of an IC research group with five faculty and 40 graduate students, has published more than 60 technical papers, and has taught graduate and undergraduate courses in areas of analog and mixed signal IC design. Ralph received his Bachelors of Science in Engineering and Physics, from St. Francis Xavier University, his Masters in Electrical Engineering from Carleton University and was awarded his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Dalhousie University.
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Ron Glibbery, VP of Marketing
Prior to joining Kleer, Ron was the President/Senior V.P. Marketing of Intellon Corporation, a fabless I.C. company focused on the development of high speed modems for in-home networking. Intellon has enjoyed significant growth in the home networking arena, with design wins at leading industry players such as Echostar Communications, France Telecom, and NetGear. Prior to Intellon, Ron was President/CEO of Cogency Semiconductor, a company also focused on in-home networking that was sold to Intellon in January, 2004. Previous to Cogency, Ron was the general manager of the set-top box group and a member of the senior management team at LSI Logic Corporation of Canada, a publicly traded semiconductor company with revenues in excess of $150M. Ron received a Bachelor of Electrical Engineering Science from the University of Western Ontario.
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Michael Van der Tol, VP of Engineering and Operations
Michael joined Kleer in January 2004. Prior to joining Kleer, Michael held the position of VP Engineering at IceFyre Semiconductor, a fabless semiconductor company focused on the development of a single chip 802.11a solution for wireless broadcast of HDTV signals. Before working with IceFyre, Michael held the position of VP Strategic Marketing & Product Management at WAVICS, Inc., a fabless RF semiconductor company located in Santa Clara, California. At WAVICS he was responsible for Series B fund raising, securing off-shore manufacturing, and product marketing & management. Prior to his role at WAVICS, Michael was responsible for starting up the Canadian operations for Stanford Microdevices (Sunnyvale, CA) - now Sirenza Microdevices. Michael's early career was spent at Nortel, where he was responsible for setting the technical and strategic direction in wireless hardware technology. Michael received his Bachelors and Masters of Science degrees in Electrical Engineering from the University of Manitoba, and a PhD in Electrical Engineering from the University of Waterloo in 1990.
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Brian Nelson, Vice President of Finance
Brian joined Kleer in August of 2005. Prior to joining Kleer, Brian served as an independent consultant providing financial and accounting expertise to emerging and established technology companies in Silicon Valley. Previously, he was V.P. of Finance at Silicon Access Networks, a fabless semiconductor company and held the same position for PlanetRx.com, which had a successful $110 million IPO. Early in his career, Brian was Corporate Controller at LinkExchange, and was an audit manager in the Silicon Valley practice of the public accounting firm of KPMG LLP. He has a B.S. in accounting from San Jose State and is a CPA in California. Brian also is an adjunct accounting professor at an area college.
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