Meet our team

Vijay Sikka is the Founder, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Sikka Software Corporation. Under his leadership, Sikka Software has grown from a start-up to have over 35,000 practice installations and 120m patients on its platform for healthcare on the demand side and over 50 companies which have built applications on the supply side. Prior to Sikka Software, Vijay has worked in Artificial Intelligence and decision systems for more than 25 years of experience with large scale projects at Intel Corporation, National Institutes of Health, Glaxo Smith Kline, Roche and UCSF affiliates. In 1996, Vijay founded IBrain Software, Inc. that used to compete with Informatica, Hyperion and Cognos and served as its CEO until its acquisition in 1998 by Entigen Corporation, a healthcare information company that later became part of Roche. After that Vijay co-founded Bodha.com that was acquired by Peregrine Systems/Remedy that later became part of BMC Software. Vijay holds an M.S. degree in EE and AI from Syracuse University, New York, pursued doctoral studies in neurosciences at Stanford University (incomplete Ph.D), and is a Registered Continuing Education Provider in California. He is a frequent speaker at big data, AI, healthcare, technology and quality meetings. Vijay’s book on Maximizing ROI on Software Development was published by Taylor and Francis International and earns him a proud royalty check every few months.

Vijay was invited keynote speaker at the Digital Health World Conferences in 2019 and 2020, AI Global Forum 2020 and Biohacking Congress in London in 2020. He has published and presented in many artificial intelligence and neural network meetings and conferences including International Joint Conference on Neural Networks, SPIE, IEEE, AAAI and CHMT and the precursor of NeurIPS.

Jasprit has over 20 years of experience building global teams, leading capital raising, driving growth and finance operations from inception through IPO, as well as leading financial and strategic exits. Prior to joining Sikka, Jasprit served as VP of Finance at Emergent Technology Holdings, an international block-chain FinTech focused on payments from emerging countries using a proprietary gold backed digital token, where he was responsible for building up the international finance and tax organization. Jasprit was a VP of Finance at Redbubble Inc., a global online art / consumer products marketplace, where he led the team from inception through an IPO. Prior to Redbubble, Jasprit served in various financial leadership roles in the Silicon Valley. He is a California CPA, who began in career at Ernst and Young and PricewaterhouseCoopers. Jasprit graduated from the Haas School of Business from the University of California at Berkeley.

Sally Takemoto has worked as VP of Human Resources for Network General Corporation and Proxim, Inc. and held management positions at Vitalink Communications Corporation and NCR. She holds a BS in Business Administration with a concentration in Management from Santa Clara University. She has extensive HR and Facilities management experience for companies of 1,000 employees in over 20 countries.

Michael Bingham has more than 20 years of extensive experience in customer success leadership, having worked in the tech space with the likes of Toshiba, Canon, Dell and DTS. By harnessing a vision-driven approach to decision making, strategic planning, and tactical implementation, Michael is deft at maximizing business development, building relationships, increasing revenue through a sincere and dedicated focus towards optimal client satisfaction and retention. Throughout his career, he has been instrumental in understanding customer needs, finding ways to improve both relationships and processes—solving issues, developing, maintaining and executing strategic campaigns within his customer success departments. Never willing to settle for an ordinary level of accomplishment, his teams have routinely delivered net renewal rates (NRR) of 132% and a logo retention rate (LRR) of 97.9% or better. He graduated from the Brimhall School of Communications at BYU with an emphasis in public relations and international business.

As a lover of the outdoors, Michael’s passions lead him and his family into the mountains where skiing, mountain biking, hiking and boating is plentiful.

Prasad is the Head of engineering at Sikka. He is responsible for Sikka’s technical strategy and global oversight of all engineering development and operations teams. Prasad Joined Sikka in 2014 as a Software engineer where he led Sikka’s flagship product “Practice Optimizer”. Prasad has extensive experience in software engineering and lifecycle. Prasad has won Sikka’s internal hackathon competition for consecutive two years. He has been awarded as the best performer for his excellent work at Sikka multiple times. Prior to Sikka Prasad worked for four years at iBrain Decision Software, India as Sr. Software Engineer. Prasad did his masters in computer science from the University of Pune, Maharashtra, India.

Sanjay leads technology and API development at sikka.ai. His experience includes real time high performing, high availability, and high reliability API platform processing billions of transactions. Sanjay received his bachelor's degree in Information Technology from C.U. Shah College of Engineering & Technology in India. He continued his studies with courses at Stanford and also received a postgraduate diploma in Information Technology from the Symbiosis Institute of Management Studies in India.

Xi Wang is the Data Science Leader at sikka.ai and holds an MS in Data Science from the University of the Pacific and a BS in Economics from Miami University. Prior to sikka.ai, Xi worked for Charles Schwab as a contractor data scientist.

Max is the Head of AI-Powered Marketing and Data Delivery at Sikka.ai. He currently leads Sikka's efforts to automate personalized marketing outreach across all business sectors using AI and data-driven solutions as part of the AI-Powered Marketing initiative. Max joined Sikka in 2021 as an intern and was quickly put in charge of Sikka's insights products for hedge fund partners, where he managed technical and business communications with customers while designing, running, and overseeing end-to-end data pipelines. Through continued success, Max's role was expanded to the Head of Data Delivery, where he now actively oversees the distribution of data insights with internal teams and external customers. Max is the winner of multiple internal hackathons at Sikka, creating top models for projects such as Customer Lifetime Value (CLTV) and dental-oriented AI chat bots.

Prior to this time at Sikka, Max obtained his master's in data science from the University of San Francisco while doing part-time data work for the American Civil Liberties Union. He also has his bachelor's in computer science from UC Santa Cruz. Outside of Sikka, Max is a practicing classical pianist, ex-collegiate soccer player, and enthusiastic cat owner.

Prachi Jain is Legal Counsel at Sikka.ai, where she focuses on commercial transactions, technology agreements, privacy and data governance, and regulatory compliance supporting the company's AI platform for retail healthcare. A dual-qualified attorney admitted in California and India, Prachi previously practiced immigration law in the United States, representing clients in complex removal defense and regulatory proceedings. She holds an LL.B. and LL.M. from India and brings a business-oriented approach to technology and healthcare data issues.

Lewis Goldman has over 20 years of experience in insurance and financial services, leveraging data for disruptive innovation across a variety of products and services, and is leading Sikka Software’s Life Insurance business. Before working with Sikka, Lewis served as executive of LendKey Technologies, a FinTech company. Prior to LendKey, Lewis worked for several years in insurance, including as head of marketing and product for Global Life Distribution and the MetLife direct to consumer life insurance business. He brings a track record of success nurturing and scaling businesses through marketing, new products, new channels of distribution, partnerships, and cross-sell at companies where he worked including Citigroup, LinkedIn, 1800flowers.com, Amazon, New York Life, and several FinTech and InsurTech startups. Lewis currently teaches marketing at St. Johns University, and is a graduate of Harvard University and Columbia Business School.

For over 10 years, Roger has worked with the executive team on large enterprise customers in the dental industry. He has also led the company IT strategy and Privacy teams. Prior to this, he worked in a busy dental office in Central California and at AT&T in Data Network and Networking Security. Roger has strong domain and cloud infrastructure experience as well as a deep understanding of data security and HIPAA compliance.

Nick is passionate about helping companies achieve their goals through strategic leadership, customer experience, and operational excellence. With over 17 years of experience in the dental industry, Nick has a proven track record of success in leading teams, driving growth, and improving profitability.

In his previous role as COO at Chrisad, Nick led a team of 70+ employees and oversaw all aspects of business operations. He successfully drove 13 years of financial and operational growth, mentored all sales and operations teams, and built sales processes and systems that resulted in increased revenue and stellar client engagement.

Nick is also an expert in developing and managing key customer relationships to ensure the results of our partnership are effective and impactful.

In his spare time, Nick enjoys spending time with his family, coaching and playing baseball and traveling.

Venesa Lewis has over 30 years of dental industry experience. Throughout her career, she has worked with both private and capitation practice management groups. Her various duties have given her the knowledge to understand and support dental practices by working with doctors and teams to implement innovative operational solutions that eliminate inefficiencies and improve practice bottom-line performance. Ms. Lewis has specialized in turnaround situations in which she identified practice problems and implemented corrective strategies.

Javier Lopez Carlos is the leader of API Partnerships and Data Insights initiatives at Sikka.ai. He focuses on expanding the company's technology ecosystem and unlocking the value of real-world healthcare data in the dental, veterinary, and optometry markets.

At Sikka.ai, Javier collaborates with technology companies, healthcare innovators, and investors. His goal is to establish strategic API partnerships and deliver data driven insights that foster growth, enhance market intelligence, and drive product innovation.

Through his work, organizations gain a better understanding of healthcare market trends, optimize their operations, and identify new opportunities within the rapidly evolving retail healthcare landscape.

Daniel Effinite is a healthcare technology professional focused on helping DSOs and independent practices streamline operations, strengthen collections, and scale with connected data. He brings deep experience across practice-management and revenue-cycle/receivables workflows, bridging front office and back-office execution. He Has launched several integration platforms, and he earned national recognition for top performance supporting practice-management adoption. In his work with Sikka.ai’s Self-Driving Practice, Daniel helps turn real-time insights into automated actions that improve efficiency, profitability, and patient experience.

Clay has over 20 years of experience in the dental industry, spanning supplies, equipment, technology, patient financing, payment processing, and now AI. His broad knowledge enables him to quickly build trusted, long-lasting partnerships across the industry.

As a dedicated Sales Manager, Clay believes relationships come first. He specializes in developing strong partnerships with dental professionals, understanding their unique needs, and delivering solutions that help their practices grow.

Clay is passionate about supporting teams, driving results, and making the sales process both productive and enjoyable.

Outside of work, he enjoys spending time with his wife and four children, and they’re always on the go.

Mark Fernandes is a Managing Director at Sierra Ventures, a leading early stage Silicon Valley venture capital firm. He joined Sierra in 2002 and focuses primarily on the software sector. Some of his prior investments include Sourcefire (IPO; M&A – Cisco $2.7B), Ooyala (M&A – Telstra) Frontbridge and Opalis (M&A – Microsoft) and DynamicOps (M&A – VMware). Mark began his career as part of the founding team of a display company, followed by product roles at Seagate and Cisco. After his MBA, he was a research analyst covering the software sector at Robertson Stephens and Merrill Lynch. Mark holds a BS from Mangalore University (India), a MS from UC Berkeley, and a MBA from Harvard University.

Lokesh is the Managing Director at Moneta Ventures, a Sacramento, CA-based venture capital firm investing in early stage technology and healthcare businesses. Prior to starting Moneta Ventures, Lokesh was the Founder and CEO of Sparta Consulting, a global IT consulting firm focused on providing SAP technology solutions and services for corporations specializing in automotive, high tech, manufacturing and energy & utilities. Sparta grew to over $100M in revenue in just five short years and was acquired by KPIT Cummins.

Prior to starting Sparta, Lokesh served as the Chief Operating Officer at Rapidigm, Inc. and managed more than $250M in annual revenue. While at Rapidigm, Lokesh was responsible for cultivating their SAP business into one of the ten largest SAP consulting practices in the nation. Rapidigm was acquired by Fujitsu in 2006. Lokesh began his career at PricewaterhouseCoopers in San Francisco after graduating from the University of California, Berkeley with a degree in electrical engineering and computer science.

Dr. Vishal Sikka, founder and CEO of Vianai Systems, has explored, experimented and developed AI over the past three decades. His executive experience in leading large enterprises (as former CEO and Managing Director of Infosys and former Executive Board Member at SAP) and working with Fortune 500 companies, coupled with his PhD in AI from Stanford University, make him one of the world’s leading experts on AI and the future of work. Dr. Sikka’s advice is sought by many – serving on the Boards of Directors of Oracle and GSK, the Supervisory Board of BMW and on the advisory council of Stanford’s Human Centered AI initiative and among his Vianai systems startup colleagues and customers. Dr. Sikka has looked back on the past 10 years and has predictions about the opportunities and challenges in the next 10 years.

Vivek Sivathanu, Ph.D., is a Vice President on the Private Equity team at OrbiMed Advisors. His professional experience spans venture capital investing, company formation and operations, corporate development, and strategic planning in the biotechnology, medtech, diagnostics and healthcare industries. Prior to joining OrbiMed, Dr. Sivathanu covered the biotechnology industry as a member of the Evercore ISI biotechnology equity research team. Previously, he was a management consultant at Simon-Kucher focused on commercial strategy for biopharma and medtech companies. Dr. Sivathanu is a scientist by training with a Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and received a B.Tech from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras.