Executive Management

Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer
Since co-founding Synopsys in 1986, Dr. Aart de Geus has expanded Synopsys from a start-up synthesis enterprise to a world leader in electronic design automation (EDA). Aart has long been considered one of the world's leading experts on logic simulation and logic synthesis. Among the numerous industry honors Dr. de Geus has received was being named Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) in 1999. He was honored for pioneering the commercial logic synthesis market with the IEEE Circuits and Systems Society Industrial Pioneer Award in 2001 and in 2007 was awarded the IEEE Robert N. Noyce Medal for his "contributions to, and leadership in, the technology and business development of Electronic Design Automation." Electronic Business magazine named Dr. de Geus CEO of the Year in 2002, and in 2005 selected him as one of "The 10 Most Influential Executives." In 2008, he was presented with the Phil Kaufman Award for distinguished contributions to EDA, and in 2009 he was awarded the GSA "Morris Chang Exemplary Leadership Award. Dr. de Geus is active in the business community as a member of TechNet, and serves on the Boards of the Silicon Valley Leadership Group (SVLG), Applied Materials, the Global Semiconductor Alliance (GSA), and the Electronic Design Automation Consortium (EDAC). His leadership was recognized in 2007 when the Silicon Valley Leadership Group (SVLG) awarded him with their "Spirit of the Valley" Lifetime Achievement Award.

President and Chief Operating Officer
Dr. Chi-Foon Chan shares responsibility for running the company with Synopsys Chairman and CEO Dr. Aart de Geus. Dr. Chan is focused on driving the company's internal operations and worldwide field organization. He joined Synopsys in 1990 as Vice President of Applications and Services. Previously at NEC Corporation, Dr. Chan was General Manager of the microprocessor group, responsible for marketing all NEC chip devices in North America. Prior to NEC, Dr. Chan was an engineering manager at Intel Corporation. He holds an M.S. and a Ph.D. in Computer Engineering from Case Western Reserve University.

Chief Financial Officer
Brian Beattie joined Synopsys as Chief Financial Officer in January 2006, bringing over 25 years of financial operations and management experience to the company. Mr. Beattie is responsible for Finance, Information Technology, Business Operations and Legal. The Finance team includes the controllers group, treasury, internal audit, tax, mergers and acquisitions, financial planning and analysis and investor relations. Prior to joining Synopsys, Mr. Beattie served as Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President of Finance and Administration at SupportSoft since October 1999. He took the company from a start up to public entity in 2000 and was instrumental in growing the business from $6 million to more than $60 million in annual revenues during his tenure. Mr. Beattie began his career at Nortel Networks Corporation where he served for 19 years in a number of financial and operational roles. Over the years he had increasing corporate responsibilities and rose to become the finance executive responsible for the company’s merger and acquisition strategy. Previously he was the group vice president of Nortel’s multi-billion dollar PBX business and had responsibility for manufacturing operations in the Enterprise business unit. Mr. Beattie also serves on the Board of Directors of Openwave Systems, a global software innovator delivering context-aware mediation and messaging solutions. He earned both his Bachelor of Commerce degree and MBA in International Finance and Management from Concordia University in Montreal, Canada.

Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary
Brian Cabrera manages and oversees all legal matters for Synopsys and serves as corporate secretary. He joined Synopsys from Callidus Software Inc., where he took the company public in 2003 and served most recently as Senior Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary. Prior to joining Callidus, Mr. Cabrera ran the worldwide field legal organization as Chief Operations Counsel for PeopleSoft. Prior to PeopleSoft, he was Senior Counsel for Netscape, Legal Counsel at Silicon Graphics Inc., and a litigator with the law firm of Bronson, Bronson & McKinnon in San Francisco. Mr. Cabrera has also held positions with the California Attorney General's Office, the U.S. Attorney's Office and the United States District Court for the Central District of California. He holds both Bachelor's and Master's degrees from the University of Southern California, as well as a Juris Doctorate from the USC Law School.

Senior Vice President, Marketing & Strategic Development
John Chilton is responsible for all of the company's marketing functions, including Product Marketing, Solutions Marketing, Corporate Marketing, Corporate Development, Strategy, and Planning. Prior to his current role, Mr. Chilton served as General Manager of Synopsys’ IP, Professional Services, and System Level Design Businesses. Prior to Synopsys, Mr. Chilton served as CEO of Arkos Design, which was acquired by Synopsys in 1995, and Datalogic/EMS, an early producer of RFID technology. Mr. Chilton holds a B.S.E.E. from UCLA and an M.S.E.E. from USC.

Senior Vice President, Human Resources and Facilities
People. Passion. Performance. This is the banner under which Jan Collinson leads Synopsys’ global Human Resources and Facilities/Real Estate professional teams, also known as TeamHR. Identifying the right talent—with that spark of curiosity and passion, capable of addressing the world’s toughest technical challenges—that’s TeamHR’s mission. Ms. Collinson’s commitment to Synopsys has spanned two decades and resulted in three distinct careers: Facilities Management, Real Estate Management, and since 2003, Human Resources Management. Having joined Synopsys in 1990, Ms. Collinson has played key roles in talent strategy development, acquisition integration and deploying critical programs and processes in support of Synopsys employees (also known as “Synopsoids”) and their performance. She was honored to represent Synopsys as a recipient of a 2008 YWCA Twin Award. Prior to joining Synopsys, Ms. Collinson enjoyed several roles in both start-up and established companies. She received a bachelor’s degree from California State University – Fresno (Go Bull Dogs!). Would you like to make an impact—moving technology forward, faster? Check us out in this video: “Take a Look Inside Synopsys.”

Senior Vice President and General Manager, Implementation Group
Dr. Antun Domic joined Synopsys in April of 1997. In his current position, Dr. Domic manages the Implementation Group, responsible for Synopsys' flagship synthesis and physical design solutions, test automation, signal integrity, power analysis and timing and formal verification products. Dr. Domic holds a Ph.D. in Mathematics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a B.S. in Mathematics and Electrical Engineering from the University of Chile.

Senior Vice President and General Manager, Verification Group
Manoj Gandhi joined Synopsys with the company's merger with Viewlogic in December 1997. In his current position, Mr. Gandhi and his organization are responsible for Synopsys' verification solutions, including simulation, testbench automation, hybrid formal verification, and system level design. Mr. Gandhi has over 15 years of HDL simulation and verification experience having begun his EDA career at Gateway Design Automation in 1986. He has a B.S. 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.

Senior Vice President, Global Technical Services
Deirdre Hanford is Senior Vice President, Global Technical Services. Her organization's mission is to ensure the successful adoption of the company's technology into customers' demanding environments. Ms. Hanford joined Synopsys in 1987 and has held a variety of positions, including leadership roles in applications engineering, sales and marketing. Ms. Hanford earned a BSEE from Brown University and an MSEE from UC Berkeley. In 2001, Ms. Hanford 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 Chairman of American Electronics Association in 2008. She currently sits on TechAmerica’s executive committee and national Board of Directors. Ms. Hanford serves on the Engineering Advisory Board for UC Berkeley’s College of Engineering and Brown University’s Engineering Advisory Committee.

Senior Vice President and General Manager, Silicon Engineering Group
Dr. Howard Ko joined Synopsys in June 2002 and is currently Senior Vice President and 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, Dr. Ko built a continuously increasing revenue stream, improved Synopsys’ leadership position in the region, and increased collaboration with leading foundries. Before joining Synopsys, Dr. Ko served as Avant!’s executive operating officer since July 2001. Previously, he was general manager of Avant!’s mixed technology division and head of the system product line. Dr. Ko 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.

Senior Vice President and General Manager, Solutions Group
Joachim Kunkel joined Synopsys in 1994 and is currently senior vice president and general manager of the Solutions Group. In that capacity, he manages the business units responsible for Synopsys DesignWare® intellectual property (IP), strategic market development and system-level design. Before coming to Synopsys, Mr. Kunkel 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, Mr. Kunkel 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. Mr. Kunkel holds an MSEE degree, the Dipl.-Ing. der Nachrichtentechnik, from the Aachen University of Technology.

Senior Vice President and General Manager, Analog/Mixed Signal Group
Dr. Paul Lo has served as Senior Vice President and General Manager, Analog/Mixed Signal Group since September 2006. He was previously Vice President of Engineering, Implementation Group from November 2002 to September 2006, and Senior Vice President of International Strategy from June 2002 to November 2002. In June 2002, Dr. Lo joined Synopsys with the acquisition of Avant! Corporation, where he had served as President from July 2001 to June 2002, and had held a variety of positions including Chief Operating Officer, Head of Engineering, Head of Asia Engineering and key Architect in product development. Dr. Lo has also held positions at Cadence Design Systems, Quickturn Design Systems, and Hughes Aircraft Microelectronics Center. Dr. Lo holds a B.S.E.E. from the National Taiwan University and an M.S. and a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Southern California.

Senior Vice President of Worldwide Sales
Joe Logan joined Synopsys in 2001 as head of sales for the North America East region. In his current position, he is responsible for the Worldwide Sales organization, which is focused on bringing the company's high value software tools, IP and design service solutions to market, and building strategic business relationships based on enabling our customers' success. Prior to Synopsys, Mr. Logan spent five years at Avant! Corporation where he was head of North American Sales and Support. Mr. Logan has over 20 years of engineering and sales experience in the EDA/electronics industry, and holds a BSEE (Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering) from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.