network-management
(2)
Peyman Kazemian
Peyman Kazemian is the co-founder of Forward Networks, a Santa Clara-based enterprise software company that builds mathematically accurate digital twins of complex networks. His PhD dissertation at Stanford - which became the foundational Header Space Analysis framework - won the NSDI 2024 Test-of-Time Award and directly spawned a company now trusted by Fortune 50 enterprises and U.S. government agencies. A graduate of Sharif University of Technology in Tehran and Stanford's electrical engineering department under Prof. Nick McKeown, Kazemian helped develop OpenFlow and SDN before turning his research into a business that has raised over $140 million to transform how enterprises understand, secure, and manage their networks.
Mike Promotico
Mike Promotico is the President and CEO of ProTelesis Corporation, a San Diego-based managed IT services provider he has helped build into a West Coast powerhouse over 37+ years in telecommunications. Starting as a principal at INet Corp in 1987 and helping grow it into one of North America's largest Mitel resellers, Promotico has spent three decades bridging the gap between traditional telecom and modern IT - co-founding Technology Assurance Group, leading Standard Tel Networks, and ultimately guiding ProTelesis through eight strategic acquisitions including the 2025 cyber-physical convergence play with Amer-X Security. Under his leadership, ProTelesis manages over 100,000 endpoints for more than 10,000 customers across the U.S.