About

Ike Syed joined KiwiTech from the U.S. Department of State, where he advised the senior leadership on digital economy, cyber policy and emerging technologies. Before entering public service, he spent almost two decades in the private sector in roles ranging from technology entrepreneur in Boston, software architect in Silicon Valley and B2B/B2C venture capital investor on Wall Street and Middle East.

Ike’s startup experience includes ACC (acquired by Ericsson for $285M), Nexabit Networks (acquired by Lucent Technologies for $900M) and Connectloud. With experiences as a B2B technology entrepreneur, an enterprise operator and a VC investor, he has unique insights on what makes VCs invest in B2B startups and what drives enterprises to buy from them. By specifically drawing on his interactions with the analyst community (Gartner, Forrester, etc), Ike has developed engagement models, marketing collateral and compelling messaging techniques that B2B startups can use to successfully attract both VC investment and enterprise buyers.

From 2012 to 2016, Ike co-founded and worked as a Vice President of Corporate Strategy and Business Development at Connectloud, a next-generation Cloud Platform company. Before Connectloud, he was a management consultant at Oliver Wyman and a venture capital executive at Fidelity Investments in New York, where he advised startups and corporate leaders globally on critical strategic and finance issues. As an experienced veteran of the ICT industry, Ike has led product development and technical research initiatives at Cisco Systems in Silicon Valley in the past.

In 2012, Ike was selected to be part of Boston Chamber of Commerce’s Future Leaders program. He received his BASc in Electrical Engineering from the University of Waterloo in Canada and an MS in Computer Science from Boston University. A licensed Professional Engineer, Ike obtained his MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management. He is excited to join KiwiTech and help startups scale and innovate their way to become world-class organizations.