Executive team - Cahit Jay Akin, Rajesh Mishra, Steve Schneider

Company - Leadership Team

Mushroom Networks team brings together a unique blend of management experience together with over 70 years of collective cutting edge research and development expertise from industry leading established companies, startup ventures and research institutes. The team has worked together for many years prior to Mushroom Networks on various occasions. Mushroom Networks team has a passion for bringing state-of-the-art advanced networking solutions to the market.

Dr. Jay Cahit Akin, Chief Executive Officer, Co-founder

Before founding Mushroom Networks, the industry leading SD-WAN company, Dr. Jay Akin was a venture partner at ITU Ventures for 7 years, the venture capital arm of Brownstein Schnel Holdings which has invested in over 50 companies. Previously, Dr. Akin has worked as a senior marketing consultant at Princeton Brand Econometrics – a boutique marketing consultancy firm on Wall Street – New York. Dr. Akin has managed the Adaptive Systems Laboratory within Qualcomm Institute, a $12 million project which spun off 2 venture backed startup companies. Dr. Akin received his Ph.D. and Masters degree in Electrical Engineering & Computer Science and Masters degree in Applied Mathematics from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. Dr. Akin has worked on technical and research aspects of communications for over 20 years including several patents and many publications. Dr. Akin was a nominee for the Most Admired CEO award by San Diego Business Journal. Dr. Akin is a recipient of the NATO Graduate Study Scholarship award and was a national team member for the International Mathematics Olympiad in 1993.

Mr. Rajesh Mishra, Chief Technology Officer

Rajesh Mishra has spent over 15 years driving innovations in the areas of data networking and wireless technologies. He worked as a Principal Researcher at California Institute of Telecommunications and Information Technology (Cal-IT2), where he played an integral role in the early formation of Mushroom Networks. As the functional head of the Wireless Networking group at Cal-IT2, he initiated several research and development projects related to mesh-networking and its applications for disaster recovery scenarios. Prior to joining Cal-IT2, he worked at Ericsson Research at UC Berkeley as a Senior Researcher where he focused on issues related to multiple access networks including GPRS and WLAN mobility integration. He joined Ericsson Data Networks in 1996 where he worked in the areas of IP routing and Network Management products. He previously worked at Cisco Systems and RiverRun Inc. He has several publications and patents in the field of bandwidth management. He holds a B.S. in Computer Science from Institute of Technology, Varanasi, India.

Steve Schneider, Chief Financial Officer

Mr. Schneider has been the chief financial officer of ITU Ventures, a private equity investment firm, since 2000. At ITU Ventures, Mr. Schneider was responsible for all accounting, financial reporting, cash management, tax and human resource functions. In addition he was responsible for negotiation and review of legal documentation for all of the firm’s investments in portfolio companies. During his time at ITU Ventures, he played an integral role in a public offering process. Prior to his term at ITU Ventures, Mr Schneider served as a vice president and assistant controller with Sun America Inc., where his responsibilities included corporate consolidation and SEC reporting. During such time, he also served as the controller for Sun America Inc.’s $300 million commercial real estate portfolio. Mr. Schneider is a certified public accountant. He received a B.S. in Business Administration from the University of California at Berkeley.