Bobby Napiltonia joins Okera as President

Okera announced that recognized technology visionary Bobby Napiltonia has joined the company as President.

Known for disrupting the way businesses and consumers leverage technology, he brings more than 30 years of experience increasing revenue and building out some of the largest ecosystems that have transformed industries.

As a part of this announcement, Okera has elevated accomplished co-founder Nong Li to CEO, replacing Nick Halsey who departs the company for personal reasons. Li, who also maintains his role as CTO, will continue to drive Okera’s technology, vision, and roadmap. Napiltonia will manage day-to-day operations and spearhead the company’s rapid growth in response to the demand by organizations and consumers to safeguard sensitive and personally identifiable information (PII).

With a long, distinguished track record in revenue generation, Napiltonia is a true industry disruptor, having created the $1 Trillion dollar ecosystem, AppExchange. In addition, he helped establish valuable industry standards we all consume today. Earlier in his career, he was at the helm of State Software which produced JavaScript Object Notation (JSON), the ubiquitous, de facto format open standard for sending data between web servers and browsers and mobile applications.

Ethan Kurzweil, Okera Board Member and Partner at Bessemer Venture Partners, commented, “We invested in Okera because of Nong’s vision for providing organizations with secure data access and governance to enable innovation and growth, a market which Okera is forging and is poised for tremendous growth ahead. Now, as Okera is entering a new phase of growth, we are thrilled to have an experienced leader like Bobby Napiltonia aboard as President. Bobby brings a superb track record establishing new market categories and a proven ability to scale companies globally. We’re confident that he will be able to take Okera to new heights.”

Napiltonia was Twilio’s first CRO where he expanded the company’s market reach and footprint, while building out a global partner ecosystem, ultimately helping the company become the enterprise communications standard that democratized communications channels like voice, text, chat, video, and email.

As SVP Worldwide Channels and Alliances at Salesforce.com, Napiltonia designed, built, and scaled the world’s first and largest Cloud Partner Ecosystem. He launched the OEM program around force.com, allowing ISVs of all sizes to launch cloud businesses that could sell both into the Salesforce.com customer base and to new customers, ultimately spawning the Cloud 100.

Prior to his role at Salesforce.com, Napiltonia ran the Worldwide Channels and Alliances organization for BEA, which dominated the internet infrastructure and the companies that built upon it for the last decade.

“With cloud proliferation, and as we enter the realm of Web 3.0, organizations are realizing the critical importance of protecting and responsibly using consumer data and personally identifiable Information, as they have permeated into every crevice around the world,” said Napiltonia.

“As a trust disciple, I believe it must start with protecting our most personal information. I’m adamant that it’s not okay to be irresponsible with data; it’s not okay for companies to misuse consumer data; It’s not okay for them to not protect their employees; and it’s not ok for organizations to sustain fines, and in some cases, imprisonment for violations. Establishing ‘trust’ is the epicenter of this shift and I look forward to helping Okera create a layer of trust throughout every business.”