synopsys
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Ann Minooka Is Teaching Deep Tech to Speak Human
The Synopsys CMO built her career at the seam between engineers and everyone else. Her method is simple to state and hard to practice: translate the technology, measure the result, and stay curious enough to rewrite the story.
Dave Kelf
Dave Kelf is the CEO of Breker Verification Systems, a San Jose-based EDA company whose test suite synthesis technology automates verification of large, complex chips including more than half of the world's RISC-V processor core projects. A UK-trained engineer turned marketing and business leader, Kelf spent three decades across Cadence, Synopsys, Co-Design Automation, Novas, and OneSpin, where he helped introduce and grow the SystemVerilog language and the Verdi debug environment. He rose from Breker's chief marketing officer to chief executive in October 2021 and has since guided the company through back-to-back years of 35 percent revenue growth.
Gilad Tal
Gilad Tal is co-founder and CEO of DualBird, a Boston-based deep tech startup rebuilding the foundation of analytics and AI data infrastructure by running silicon acceleration as cloud-native software. A Technion-trained electrical engineer and physicist with 14 years in ASIC and software development, he previously founded and led TerrainEDA, an EDA startup acquired by Synopsys. At DualBird he and his co-founders use rewritable FPGA hardware to plug into Apache Spark and Iceberg environments, claiming up to 100x faster performance and up to 90% lower cost with no changes to existing workflows.
Sassine Ghazi
Sassine Ghazi is the president and CEO of Synopsys, the electronic design automation company whose tools underpin most of the world's advanced chips. He took the top job in January 2024 after 26 years inside the company and steered the $35 billion acquisition of Ansys to close in July 2025.