Erik Pounds

In March 2020, NVIDIA acquired SwiftStack and I am excited to join a very talented team doing amazing work creating products and solutions to drastically accelerate computing. Now at NVIDIA, I lead the product marketing efforts focused on Data Science, where we are working to GPU-accelerate modern analytics, machine learning, and other data science workflows.

At SwiftStack I lead the marketing team, with the primary responsibility of helping enterprises and organizations discover data storage and management solutions that help them progress by becoming more data driven. SwiftStack is recognized as a leader in object and file storage with SwiftStack Storage and as an edge-to-core-to-cloud data management platform with SwiftStack 1space. I manage all marketing functions including inbound, content creation, design, social, AR/PR, and velocity sales. Check it out at swiftstack.com.

Created and put in place a product development and global go-to-market strategy for BitTorrent Sync, focused on file sync and share for businesses and individuals. With an amazing team, led the Sync product through the beta phase to become a commercial offering, which has been used by millions of people. Optimized a team that was evenly split between San Francisco and Belarus to efficiently create a fully-private syncing solution supporting over 15 different platforms.

Created and owned the product strategy and roadmap for all Drobo storage products, targeting individual professionals, small to medium sized businesses, and departments of larger enterprises. Drove the development of new storage technologies, like Drobo’s Data-Aware Tiering, and the innovative Drobo 5D, 5N, and Drobo Mini products. Led an organization that is responsible for product management, program management, technical marketing, technical publications, and business development.

Led the marketing roll-out of next-generation Ethernet technologies for the emerging virtualized data center that will enable future cloud architectures. Developed and drove the Ethernet storage strategies around iSCSI and NAS to maintain Brocade’s position as the leader in storage networking. Helped bring proven Brocade solutions down-market through the expanding network of channel partners. Managed core marketing efforts around Brocade’s Fibre Channel switches business, which held a strong 80% market share.

Product Manager in the Storage Solutions Group, which develops the award-winning Snap Server line of network attached storage solutions.

Drive the data protection strategy for EMC’s SMB-focused product line, EMC Insignia. Manage the product roadmap, author PRDs, and lead the cross-functional teams to deliver new versions of the award-winning Retrospect backup and recovery software. Defined the vocabulary and workflows for the entire UI of the next generation Retrospect product in UEML, an in-house developed XML-based markup language, by utilizing knowledge of the existing and competitive products. Identified additional products for the EMC Insignia product line including a hardware accelerator for compression and encryption, SAN connectivity solutions, and tape storage, driving them from inception to launch.

Managed the team responsible for business development and technical relationships with storage partners including ADIC, Apple, Dell, IBM, HP, and Quantum. Strengthened the Storage Device Integration department by organizing it into groups focused on tape storage solutions, consumer OEM devices, and SMB-class SAN disk storage. Developed a business model and created a database to manage storage device integration priorities on an ongoing basis. Released monthly product updates which allowed Retrospect to support over 90% of the storage devices intended for small and medium businesses.

Created and managed the Storage Device Integration department to handle a broad range of responsibilities including business development, product integration, and customer support. Defined additional roles within the team and hired certification engineers to fill them. Architected and managed a cross-departmental process to achieve optimal efficiency and increase output. Performed competitive research and utilized innovative thinking to define enhanced storage-focused features for Retrospect to ensure its market leadership. Provided team members with business and technical leadership to maximize our department’s output. Developed and enhanced OEM relationships and drove the strategic relationship with Apple Computer.

Reorganized and improved the storage device certification process, to prepare the Hardware Certification group to accept expanded tasks. Led two device certification engineers and drove the strategic technical relationships between Dantz and storage hardware manufacturers including ADIC, HP, IBM and Quantum. Designed the database that houses Retrospect storage device compatibility information for internal planning and external consumption via Dantz web site, providing customers with up-to-date device support information. Worked closely with the sales team to increase the number of Retrospect OEM customers by adding support for their devices in a timely fashion.