Shaping the Future of Video
Synamedia exists to continually improve the world’s most complete, secure, and advanced end-to-end video delivery solution, empowering Pay TV Operators to constantly shape the future of video.
Our Executive Team
Yves Padrines
Chief Executive Officer
Yves Padrines is Synamedia’s Chief Executive Officer who comes from Cisco, where for over six years as Vice President of Global Service Provider for Europe, Middle East, Africa and Russia, he was responsible for all Cisco products and services business for major telecommunications, mobile and cable operators, broadcasters and media companies as well as cloud and managed service providers. He has also held general management and senior executive roles during his previous tenure at NDS from 2004-2012. Before joining NDS, Yves served in various capacities in sales, product management, finance and management consulting with large international companies in the media and technology industries such as Vivendi, Creative and PriceWaterhouseCoopers.
Yael Fainaro
Senior Vice President, Commercial and Corporate Development
Yael Fainaro is SVP Commercial and Corporate Development. In her role Yael is responsible for Synamedia’s commercial office, corporate development, and is Chief of Staff for the business. Yael has over 18 years’ experience in the security technology industry in the areas of strategy, M&A, innovation, business development & post-merger integration. Prior to joining Synamedia, Yael served as VP Corporate Development of CyberArk Software (NASDAQ: CYBR) where she was responsible for leading the company’s strategy and for generating new growth activities through organic and in-organic initiatives. Prior to that, Yael held the position of Director, Corporate Development and Integration at Cisco, which she joined through the NDS acquisition in 2012.
Rick Medlock
Chief Financial Officer
Rick serves as Chief Financial Officer and brings more than 30 years of experience in the financial management of large international technology companies. Rick comes to us from Worldpay where he held the position of chief financial officer. Rick joined Worldpay from Misys where he was also chief financial officer. From 2004 to 2013 Rick was chief financial officer of Inmarsat plc and prior to that he was chief financial officer and company secretary of NDS Group plc. The early part of his career was spent in a variety of roles as chief financial officer of a number of private equity backed technology companies in the U.K. and the U.S. Rick has extensive experience of transforming businesses while under private equity ownership, and has overseen a number of IPOs both in the US and the UK, including Worldpay’s own listing on the London market in October 2015.
Ismat Levin
Senior Vice President and General Counsel
Ismat Levin is Synamedia’s General Counsel. Ismat has over 20 years of broad ranging experience and expertise in creating and negotiating multi-million dollar, long-term IP licensing solutions, managing in-bound IP licensing programs, managing a company secretarial portfolio for over 30 affiliated entities, and managing a worldwide IP portfolio and patent team. Prior to joining Synamedia, Ismat worked at Cisco as Senior Director of Legal Services supporting the VSS business, reporting in a dual capacity both into the Legal function as well as into the Business Unit. The role entailed significant interaction with global customers in legal and business roles and a variety of internal global Cisco functions including Commercial Finance, Sales Account Teams, Finance and Tax. Ismat joined Cisco through the 2012 acquisition of NDS where she served as VP and General Counsel, responsible for the running of the Office of the General Counsel with an in-house team of 7 lawyers worldwide.
Jean-Marc Racine
Chief Product Officer and General Manager of EMEA
Jean-Marc Racine serves as Chief Product Officer and General Manager of Europe, Middle East, Africa and Russia (EMEAR). Jean-Marc has extensive experience in the broadcast media technology sector. Through his consultancy activities as Managing Partner at Farncombe Technology and more recently as Senior Vice President of Video Advisory Services at Cartesian, Jean-Marc supported clients as they implemented next-generation hybrid TV platforms and adopted cloud models. In his 20+ years’ in the industry, Jean-Marc has advised media and technology clients on technical strategies and is an expert on private equity due diligence projects. He has also advised various industry consortiums and broadcasters on the definition and implementation of TV everywhere platforms, as well as the challenges and opportunities resulting from the growth of OTT platform and cloud based infrastructures.
David Longaker
Senior Vice President, General Manager, Americas
Dave Longaker leads Synamedia’s customer-facing organization and activities in the Americas region, including sales, marketing, partners and delivery. He is responsible for driving customer intimacy and success, developing partners, and the growth of Synamedia’s business in the Americas. An accomplished executive with over 20 years experience in the pay TV industry, Dave has repeatedly led organizations through periods of high growth and transformation. As Chief Revenue Officer for TiVo and Rovi, Dave was responsible for the global sales organization as the companies integrated their operations and launched new offerings in content discovery and advertising analytics. Prior to that, he held leadership roles in both Alcatel-Lucent and Nortel, where he helped both companies build and scale their pay TV businesses in the Americas.
Sue Couto
Senior Vice President, General Manager, Asia Pacific
Sue is Senior Vice President and General Manager of Asia Pacific. She has joined the executive team to drive growth and expand customer relationships across Asia Pacific. She has overall responsibility for sales, marketing, partners, and delivery in the region. Sue brings over 20 years’ experience in senior leadership roles in the TV and broadcast industry in Asia Pacific, most recently as Senior Vice President of APAC Sales for TiVo, where she was responsible for overall sales strategy for software solutions. Prior to this, Sue was Senior Vice President, Video Software Solutions, APJC at Cisco, and at NDS before its acquisition by Cisco. She has built and led the teams which have been instrumental in winning key customers and enabling them to grow their businesses. Many of these players are now amongst the largest DTH platforms in the world.
Fin O'Kane
Senior Vice President and General Manager for EMEA Key Accounts
Fin O’Kane is General Manager for our major Accounts with Sky and Liberty Global. Fin comes to us from Cisco where he was responsible for the Cisco portfolio relationship into the Cable Media and Video sector in Europe. Before Cisco, Fin had senior roles in Ericsson and Lucent mainly in the Service Provider sector looking after both Sales and Delivery Phases across his accounts.
Julien Signes
Senior Vice President and General Manager, Video Processing
Julien Signes leads Synamedia’s Video Processing business. One of the industry’s foremost experts on video processing, Julien advised emerging video technology businesses on financing and helped them scale globally before joining Synamedia in early 2019. He also provided advice to Atlantic Bridge, a global venture capital firm. Julien founded Envivio in 2000 and as CEO he led the company through private equity financing and a NASDAQ IPO to create the global leader in software-based video encoding. Ericsson acquired the business in 2015. While at France Telecom (now Orange) in the 1990s, Julien led the development of the MPEG-4 standard, resulting in multiple patents for MPEG-4 virtual reality and 3D graphics support.
Alok Gera
Chief Technology Officer
Alok Gera is Chief Technology Officer for Synamedia. Alok comes to the role from Cisco where he was Director and the CTO of Cisco’s Service Provider Platforms and Applications business. Prior to this role, Gera was a Senior Engineering Manager for systems engineering, working with Comcast Cable. He has worked across multiple architecture and market transitions, including migration to the cloud, evolved service offerings and the transition to IP video.
David Burleson
Senior Vice President, Engineering
David is Synamedia’s Senior Vice President of Engineering coming from the position of Vice President of Engineering in Cisco’s Service Provider Platforms and Applications business where he led a global team of engineers developing cloud-based video products. David joined Cisco through the Scientific Atlanta acquisition. His career has focused on leading global product development teams. He holds 8 patents in technologies such as graphics, networking, video games and virtual memory.
Dr. Ken Morse
Senior Vice President, Services
Ken is Senior Vice President of Services and comes from Cisco where he was responsible for delivering leading edge video solutions to market leading Service Providers such as Sky Europe and Liberty Global. Prior to this role he held CTO roles for the Video Software and Solutions Group, Connected Devices Group and the SP Video Technology Group delivering end-end video, security and IoT solutions to Service Providers worldwide. Before joining Cisco, Ken was Vice President, Client Architecture for Scientific Atlanta and responsible for driving the client architecture of Scientific Atlanta’s software and hardware solutions and instrumental in winning and delivering to Service Providers such as Time Warner Cable, Cablevision, Comcast and Telewest.
Board of Directors
Dr. Abe Peled
Chairman of the Board
Dr. Abe Peled is a Senior Adviser to the Permira Private Equity TMT Group, Chairman of the Board of TeamViewer, and on the Operating Committee of Metalogix, both Permira portfolio companies. Abe is also the Senior Independent Director on the Board of Inmarsat Plc. And a Partner at CyberCloud Ventures, a Consulting and Investment Company. From 1995, Dr. Peled served as CEO of NDS Group Ltd, and lead the company until its acquisition by Cisco in 2012.
Yves Padrines
Chief Executive Officer
Yves Padrines is Synamedia’s Chief Executive Officer who comes from Cisco, where for over six years as Vice-President of Global Service Provider for Europe, Middle East, Africa and Russia, he was responsible for all Cisco products and services business for major telecommunications, mobile and cable operators, broadcasters and media companies as well as cloud and managed service providers. He has also held general management and senior executive roles during his previous tenure at NDS from 2004-2012. Before joining NDS, Yves served in various capacities in sales, product management, finance and management consulting with large international companies in the media and technology industries such as Vivendi, Creative and PriceWaterhouseCoopers.
Rick Medlock
Chief Financial Officer
Rick serves as Chief Financial Officer and brings more than 30 years of experience in the financial management of large international technology companies. Rick comes to us from Worldpay where he held the position of chief financial officer. Rick joined Worldpay from Misys where he was also chief financial officer. From 2004 to 2013 Rick was chief financial officer of Inmarsat plc and prior to that he was chief financial officer and company secretary of NDS Group plc. The early part of his career was spent in a variety of roles as chief financial officer of a number of private equity backed technology companies in the U.K. and the U.S. Rick has extensive experience of transforming businesses while under private equity ownership, and has overseen a number of IPOs both in the US and the UK, including Worldpay’s own listing on the London market in October 2015.
Richard Sanders
Partner, Co-Head of Technology, Permira
Richard is a Partner. He is Co-Head of the Technology Sector team and a member of the Investment Committee. He spent the first nine years at Permira based in the London office, before relocating to the United States in 2008 to set up the Menlo Park office. Richard returned to London in 2011. He has worked on numerous transactions including Allegro Group, ABS, Freescale Semiconductor, Genesys, Inmarsat, Intelsat, NDS, TeamViewer and Teraco.
Prior to joining Permira, Richard worked for Morgan Stanley in London in the M&A and High Yield Capital Markets divisions.
Benoit Vauchy
Partner, Permira
Benoit is a Partner and a member of the Investment Committee and the Board. He is a member of the Financing Group and has worked on numerous transactions including Acromas (The AA & Saga), eDreams ODIGEO, Freescale Semiconductor, Iglo Group, NDS, Vacalians and Exclusive Group.
Prior to joining Permira, Benoit spent six years at JPMorgan in Frankfurt and London, arranging leveraged finance transactions. He also worked for Paribas in Frankfurt within the Media/Telecom team and in the Leveraged Finance department.
Ryan Lanpher
Principal, Permira
Ryan is a partner and focuses on investment opportunities in the Technology sector. He has worked on a number of transactions including Genesys, Informatica, and Metalogix. He is currently a Non-Executive Director at Genesys, Informatica and Metalogix.
Prior to pursuing his MBA, Ryan worked in Permira’s Menlo Park office for three years. Before that, he worked at Bank of America in the Healthcare Investment Banking Group.
Our Offices
To help serve our customers, you can find us globally. Headquartered in the UK, we have additional sites located in several countries such as Belgium, Canada, India, Israel, and the United States.
Information
North America sales-northam@synamedia.com
Greater China/APJ sales-gcapj@synamedia.com