Management Team

Dr. Chi-Foon Chan - President and co-Chief Executive Officer

As Synopsys' co-CEO, Chi-Foon shares responsibility for crafting vision and strategy, leading the company, and ensuring execution excellence in support of our customers' success. As the company's President and COO, a role he held for 14 years prior to his 2012 appointment to President and co-CEO, he guided internal operations and worldwide field organizations. Chi-Foon joined Synopsys in 1990 as Vice President of Applications and Services where he helped build the Technical Field organization. He has sponsored several key initiatives such as entering the IP market, and he personally facilitated key acquisitions such as Avanti, Virage Logic, Magma Design Automation, and SpringSoft. In 2014 he led Synopsys' entry into the software testing market with the acquisition of Coverity, and into the software security market with the acquisition of Codenomicon. Prior to Synopsys, Chi-Foon contributed to industry-leading companies like NEC Corporation, where he was General Manager of the microprocessor group, responsible for marketing all NEC chip devices in North America. Prior to NEC, he was an engineering manager at Intel Corporation. He holds an M.S. and a Ph.D. in Computer Engineering from Case Western Reserve University; and a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Rutgers University.

Sassine Ghazi - Chief Operating Officer

Sassine first joined Synopsys in 1998 and currently serves as the chief operating officer. In this role, he leads our market-leading EDA and IP business groups, our exceptional sales and marketing organization, and the industry’s finest customer success teams, delivering technology differentiation and high-value innovation to enable our customers’ ambitious objectives. Sassine brings multiple decades of experience in chip design, applications engineering, customer support, sales, and business management. Most recently, he was general manager of the Design Group. Before Synopsys, he worked at Intel as a design engineer. Sassine received his bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from Lebanese American University; a B.S.E.E from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 1993; and an M.S.E.E. from the University of Tennessee in 1995.

Trac Pham - Chief Financial Officer

Trac serves as our Chief Financial Officer and is responsible for Finance, Information Technology, Business Operations, and Strategy and Corporate Business Development. Previously, he was Vice President of Corporate Finance and Vice President of Financial Planning and Strategy at Synopsys. During his tenure, Trac has helped Synopsys achieve profitable growth by developing strategic and operating plans that prioritize investments across multiple business units. Before joining Synopsys in 2006, he held leadership roles in strategy and business development and finance at Juniper Networks. Earlier in his career, Trac was sales controller, division controller, and finance and accounting manager for multiple business groups at 3Com. He holds a BA, Economics from UC Berkeley and an MPIA from UC San Diego where he was a Schoepflin Fellow. He is an active status California CPA.

Deirdre Hanford - Chief Security Officer, Corporate Staff

Deirdre serves as the Chief Security Officer for Synopsys. In this role, she works collaboratively to safeguard Synopsys. In addition, she leads efforts to drive industry awareness and enablement for secure design from software to silicon to support our business in EDA, IP and Software Integrity. She previously served as co-general manager of Synopsys’ Design Group, responsible for leading the development and deployment of our physical design, implementation, and analog/mixed-signal product lines. Deirdre has held a number of positions at Synopsys since joining the company in 1987, including leadership roles in customer engagement, applications engineering, sales, and marketing. She earned a B.S.E.E. from Brown University and an M.S.E.E. from UC Berkeley. In 2001, Deirdre was a recipient of the YWCA Tribute to Women and Industry (TWIN) Award and the Marie R. Pistilli Women in EDA Achievement Award. Ms. Hanford served as the Chairman of American Electronics Association in 2008. She currently chairs Brown University's Engineering Advisory Committee and serves on the Engineering Advisory Board for UC Berkeley's College of Engineering. Deirdre also serves on the Board of Directors of Cirrus Logic, Inc.

Sriram Sitaraman – Chief Information Officer

Sriram joined the Synopsys team in 1997 and currently serves as the Chief Information Officer leading Synopsys’ global information technology teams. He brings over 20 years of experience in scaling IT and R&D infrastructure, operations and business processes, while also enabling employee productivity to support the growth objectives of the company. As a seasoned change agent, Sriram has overseen several transformations in engineering infrastructure, such as enabling high performance computing and adoption of cloud computing, changing out the service management stacks for both internal and external customers to improve, and enabling sustainable collaboration at Synopsys. Additionally, he holds multiple patents in areas of IT operations, distributed processing and monitoring. Sriram has a Master’s of Science in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa.

Rick Runkel - General Counsel

Rick joined Synopsys as General Counsel in May 2014. In this role, he manages and oversees all legal matters and corporate affairs for Synopsys and serves as Corporate Secretary. From October 2008 to March 2013, Rick served as Executive Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary of Affymetrix, a leading developer of genomic analysis tools. He served as Senior Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary of Intuitive Surgical, Inc., a provider of minimally-invasive robotic surgery technology, from 2006 to 2007. From 2004 to 2005, Rick served as Senior Vice President of Business Development and General Counsel of VISX Incorporated, a provider of laser vision correction technology, and as Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary from 2001 to 2004. Prior to that, he was a partner at the law firm of Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton LLP for eleven years, where he specialized in complex commercial litigation and served as managing partner of the firm's San Francisco office. Rick holds a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and a Juris Doctorate from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Joe Logan - Chief Revenue Officer

Joe heads the Sales and Customer Success Group, the organization which is focused on bringing the company's high-value software tools, IP, and design service solutions to our worldwide market, and building strategic business and support relationships based on enabling our customers' success. Joe joined Synopsys in 2001, first leading Sales for North America East, before moving to the worldwide sales responsibility. Prior to Synopsys, he spent five years at Avanti Corporation where he was head of North American Sales and Support. Joe has more than 20 years of engineering and sales experience in the EDA/electronics industry, and holds a B.S.E.E. from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

Shankar Krishnamoorthy - General Manager Digital Design Group, Corporate Staff

Shankar is the general manager of the Digital Design Group, responsible for the digital design platform including synthesis, signoff analysis, place-and-route, test automation, and formal verification solutions. Most recently, he served as senior vice president of the Digital Implementation Group, delivering several game-changing innovations including Fusion Compiler, RTL Architect, 3DIC Compiler, TestMAX solutions. Shankar has more than 25 years of experience leading world-class teams that have delivered the industry’s premier IC physical design and logic synthesis solutions. Before rejoining Synopsys in 2017, he was at Mentor Graphics where he served as general manager of the IC Design Solutions Division. He joined Mentor in 2007 as part of the acquisition of Sierra Design Automation, where he was the founder and CTO. Prior to Sierra Design, Shankar led Synopsys’ Physical Synthesis and Logic Synthesis R&D organizations. He began his career at Synopsys in 1992 working on logic synthesis technology. Shankar received his M.S. in Computer Science from the University of Texas, Austin in 1992, and his bachelor’s degree in Technology and Computer Science from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay in 1990.

Manoj Gandhi - General Manager Verification Group, Corporate Staff

Manoj joined Synopsys with the company's merger with Viewlogic in December 1997. In his current position, he and his organization are responsible for Synopsys' verification solutions including simulation, prototyping, emulation, debug, verification IP, and static and formal technologies as part of the Verification Continuum Platform. He has more than 30 years of HDL simulation and verification experience, having begun his EDA career at Gateway Design Automation in 1986. Manoj has a B. Tech. in Computer Science and Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, and an M.S. in Computer Science from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

Dr. Howard Ko - General Manager Silicon Engineering Group, Corporate Staff

Howard joined Synopsys in June 2002 and is currently general manager of the Silicon Engineering Group. He manages products and solutions that address semiconductor manufacturing technology needs. These solutions include TCAD, yield management, fracturing, and lithography. In his previous role as vice president of Sales, Asia Pacific, Howard built a continuously increasing revenue stream, improved Synopsys' leadership position in the region, and increased collaboration with leading foundries. Before joining Synopsys, he served as Avanti's executive operating officer since July 2001. Previously, he was general manager of Avanti's mixed technology division and head of the system product line. Howard has also held senior management roles at Analogy, Inc. and Mentor Graphics. Dr. Ko received his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from UC Berkeley, and graduated with a B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from the National Taiwan University.

Joachim Kunkel - General Manager Solutions Group, Corporate Staff

Joachim joined Synopsys in 1994 and serves as general manager of the Solutions Group. In this capacity, he oversees the business unit responsible for Synopsys DesignWare intellectual property (IP). Before joining Synopsys, Joachim was co-founder of CADIS GmbH in Aachen, Germany. There, he served as managing director and performed myriad duties in engineering, sales, and marketing. Before co-founding CADIS he was a research assistant at the Aachen University of Technology, where he conducted research in system-level simulation techniques for digital signal processing, with special emphasis on parallel computing. Joachim holds an M.S.E.E. degree, the Dipl.-Ing. der Nachrichtentechnik, from the Aachen University of Technology.

Jason Schmitt – General Manager, Software Integrity Group (SIG)

Jason Schmitt is a seasoned leader with a proven track record of deep technical knowledge, product development, insight into emerging and rapidly changing cybersecurity challenges, and go-to-market strategy and implementation. He brings more than 20 years of experience in security and enterprise product development and management. Jason most recently served as CEO of cloud security startup Aporeto, where he led the company from pre-revenue through a successful acquisition by Palo Alto Networks. He has a deep background in software development and application security– leading Enterprise Security Products at Hewlett Packard as Vice President and General Manager of Fortify and ArcSight. Jason combines security domain expertise with strong experience delivering SaaS/cloud-based solutions. Jason is a Louisiana native, who completed his Bachelor’s in Mechanical Engineering and Master’s in Computer Science at the Georgia Institute of Technology, and his MBA at Georgia State University’s J. Mack Robinson College of Business.

Antonio Varas – Chief Strategy Officer

Antonio leads the Synopsys corporate strategic planning process, fostering an actionable understanding of the market dynamics across the technology value chains, identifying new business opportunities, and driving strategic initiatives to accelerate the company's profitable growth and long-term value creation. Antonio brings more than two decades of investment banking, management and strategy consulting. Prior to Synopsys, Antonio was a Senior Partner and Managing Director of Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and the global co-lead of BCG Semiconductor practice. During his 18-year tenure at BCG, he served multiple leading global companies across the semiconductor value chain and end application markets. He also led BCG on the topic of globalization and geopolitics in the Technology industry. Antonio has an MBA from Stanford and a BSc in Finance and Economics from Deusto University in Spain.

Madeline Chan - Corporate Vice President, Sales Operations and Strategy Development

Madeline joined Synopsys in March 2004 and is currently Corporate Vice President, Operations and Strategy Development for the Sales and Corporate Marketing Group. Prior to Synopsys, she led business planning at both start-up and technology companies, including Hewlett Packard and Digital Island. Earlier in her career, Madeline was at The Boston Consulting Group, and held multiple finance and planning positions at General Electric as a graduate of GE’s Financial Management Program. She holds a BA in Economics from the University of California, Berkeley, and an MBA from The Harvard Business School.

Dave DeMaria - Corporate Vice President, Strategic Initiatives and Market Intelligence

Dave is Corporate Vice President of Strategic Initiatives and Market Intelligence, responsible for driving corporate strategy and the research and analysis of new and emerging markets for Synopsys and for the company’s competitive positioning across key growth areas like automotive, AI, IoT, cloud, and 5G. Dave joined Synopsys in 2013 as Vice President of Marketing for Verification products. He has more than 30 years of experience in EDA, IP, semiconductor, and enterprise software markets. Prior to Synopsys, Dave held senior executive positions spanning CEO, EVP/GM of business units, and VP/SVP of marketing at Cadence Design Systems, MoSys, Apache, Optimal, Viewlogic, Agile Software, and MatrixOne. Dave went to Boston University for a B.S. degree in Computer Engineering.

Siva K. Yerramilli - Corporate Vice President of Strategic Programs, Silicon Engineering Group

Siva K. Yerramilli is Corporate VP of Strategic Programs in the Silicon Engineering Group at Synopsys. In this role, he is responsible for driving cross–business unit initiatives including Design Technology Co-Optimization (DTCO), which is aimed at achieving better results (performance, power, and area) in the face of ever-increasing complexity by utilizing Synopsys’ capabilities from silicon to systems. Siva is also responsible for the photonics IC development business, which is poised well to power the high-speed I/O roadmap. Siva joined the company in 2019. Prior to Synopsys, Siva held several technical and management positions across various aspects of technology enablement and silicon product development at Intel. He has more than 30 years of experience in the tech industry. Siva received his Bachelor’s degree in electronics and telecommunications from Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University, India. He also studied computer science at the Indian Statistical Institute in Kolkata, India. Siva received his Master’s in computer engineering at Syracuse University and later completed the Executive Management Program at Harvard University.