Leadership Team
The GhangorCloud leadership team is proud to offer advanced, robust automated turnkey solutions in cloud
security and regulatory compliance.
Many organizations and partnerships have recognized the team for providing “Best in Class” advanced
security solutions that enable sensitive critical operations without high risk.
The leadership team guides the new industry standard with a clear vision and focus, integrity in decision
making and implementation, and fearless bravery as a steadfast protector against malicious actors.
Tarique Mustafa
Founder, CEO & CTO
Tarique is the Founder, CEO and the ‘Brain’ behind GhangorCloud’s game changing technology and product. He is
recognized in the industry as the leading visionary and expert in Information Security, Advanced Persistent
Threat and Data Leak Prevention. Tarique’s groundbreaking innovation in Advanced Persistent Threat and
‘Malicious Data Leak Prevention’ has won international recognition – he is frequently invited as Keynote /
Guest Speaker at prestigious Security Conferences and Forums.
Most recently, Tarique was the founding CEO/CTO of nexTier Networks – a Silicon Valley company that has built
“Best of the Breed” award winning Data Leak Prevention solution and technology.
Tarique has more than 20 years of industry experience in technical leadership positions at Symantec,
DHL-Airways IT, MCI WorldCom, EDS, Andes Networks and Nevis Networks where he built industry leading
security products. Previously, Tarique founded Network Utilities (a Silicon Valley startup that built
wireless infrastructure & security platform) that was acquired by Andes Networks. Tarique also served as the
CTO of Andes Networks, architects of an SSL Security Appliance and acquired by Sun Microsystems in 2003.
Tarique also served as Principal Architect at Nevis Networks where he was responsible for building next
generation Security Monitoring and Security Event Correlation technology for IDS/IPS (Intrusion
Detection/Prevention) and SSL/IPSec.
Tarique has several patents (approved and pending) with USPTO and has published many research publications in
the areas of Information & Data Security, Computer & Network Security, Software Architecture, Database
Technologies and Artificial Intelligence. Tarique was awarded the prestigious Rotary International
Scholarship for his Doctoral Studies in Computer Science at University of Southern California (USC). Tarique
also holds Master’s Degrees in Engineering and Computer Science from University of Southern California
(USC), and a Bachelor’s Degree in Mechanical Engineering from NED University of Engineering &
Technology.
Bhanu Panda
Co-Founder, COO
Bhanu brings over two decades of leadership and success in the Silicon Valley, in areas of Networking,
Security & Storage. He has held leadership positions, and was an early member, at several successful startup
companies such as Array Networks, AlteonWebsystems and Auspex Systems. Bhanu has extensive experience in
driving an organization’s overall strategy, building a global partner eco-system, and driving customer
success.
At GhangorCloud, Bhanu holds the position of Chief Operating Officer and is a member of the Board. He is
responsible for the overall business side: Strategy, Sales, Business Development, Customer Success and
Operations.
Prior to GhangorCloud, Bhanu served as VP of Worldwide Sales, Business Development & Services for Array
Networks. Bhanu revamped Global Sales efforts to deliver consistently superior results, leading to
consecutive profitable quarters/years. Array had a successful IPO in 2009. He led the company into newer
regions in APAC and established Array as a leader in its market category.
Previous to his time at Array, Bhanu was an early member and held management positions at AlteonWebsystems
where he built and led the Customer Advocacy team as well as contributing significantly to BD activities.
Alteon was recognized for its Customer Satisfaction and Services. Alteon had a hugely successful IPO
followed by M&A with Nortel. Prior to Alteon, Panda managed the Customer Satisfaction organization at Auspex
Systems, with Fortune-500 clientele.
Bhanu holds a Master’s degree in Computer Science from Jackson State University.
John Racioppi
EVP, Business Development
John brings to GhangroCloud over 30 years of leadership experience in the security, software, and networking
arenas. He has driven strategy and direction for a number of organizations, most recently serving as CEO of
Enhanced Communications Delivery Systems, a SaaS company focused on multi- channel messaging as a platform
service. Prior to ECDS Mr. Racioppi served as General Manager, Data Leak Prevention Group, at Trend Micro as
well as AVP, Enterprise Business Unit. Mr. Racioppi helped develop Trend’s strategy in DLP and served on the
team which acquired Provilla, Inc. While at Trend he led the project team focused on long-term strategy and
direction. John has extensive functional experience in strategic planning, product assessment and planning,
go-to-market strategies, and revenue improvement.
John has been a leader in a variety of successful startup organizations as well as large public corporations
including Trend Micro, Borland, IBM, AT&T and early stage companies including Infravio, Moonlight Systems,
Lutris, and DASCOM. John also has experience in the consulting arena as part of Ernst & Young’s
Telecommunications and Network consulting practice. John has led the strategy and planning activities of
several global software vendors as they assessed new market opportunities. John received his MBA from the
University of Pittsburgh.
John Metzler
Chief Systems Architect
John is a 30+ years veteran of Silicon Valley high-tech industry. He started his career in key technical
positions with the pioneers of the high-tech industry such as 3-Com and Juniper where he developed the core
foundational components of high performance Router Kernel and OS. More recently John has been in lead
technical roles in multiple security companies including ArcSight-HP, PGP-Symantec, LogLogic,
Netscreen-Juniper, Nevis Networks, nexTier Networks and Accellion.
Mixing abstract and production points of view, he has been involved in Data security, Data Communications,
Custom Databases, Embedded Systems, Web Services, Platform Engineering, OS Internals and File Systems,
Cryptography and Complex Event Processing. John has been a contributor to the software industry’s Open
Source initiatives where he has made substantial contributions to the widely recognized Gnu-based software
development and debugging platforms. John was a key member of the main GDB team at Cygnus. John holds a
Bachellor’s Degree in Computer Science from University of California Irvine.
Tim Mather
Advisory Board
Tim Mather is a long-time Information Security practitioner, who has served in executive roles as CSO of
Cadence, Advisory Director Information Protection at KPMG, VP & Chief Security Strategist at RSA Security,
VP & CISO at Symantec, Security Manager at Verisign, and Manager Information Security at Apple. Tim is a
Board Member of the Silicon Valley Chapter of the Cloud Security Alliance.
Tim has co-authored two books on information security: “Cloud Security and Privacy: an Enterprise Perspective
on Risks & Compliance” (O’Riely) and “The Executive Guide to Information Security: Threats, Challenges and
Solutions” (Addison-Wesley). Tim is a CISSP, CISA and CISM. He holds Master’s Degrees in Information
Assurance form Brandeis University, National Security Studies from Georgetown University, and International
Policy Studies from Monterey Institute of International Studies. He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Political
Economics from the University of California at Berkeley.
Mike Rogers
Advisory Board
Mike is a Strategy, Corporate and Business Development expert with a 25+ year background in Banking, Digital
Media and Cybersecurity. Mike is a veteran consultant to early stage companies, having formed and built two
management consulting practices in Silicon Valley, after successful Executive Strategy, Corporate and
Business Development roles at OpenTV, Cyberguard, Secure Computing, and Lumension Security. Mike has a BA in
Economics from the University of Michigan, and an MBA in International Finance from Thunderbird.
Levent Arabaci
Advisory Board
Mr. Arabaci has over 30 years of experience in leadership and transformation and spent last 17 years of his
career at Hitachi Ltd. and held leadership positions in multiple functions. At Hitachi, Mr. Arabaci held the
Chief Transformation Officer (CTrO) Global Operations and GM of Human Capital Group at Hitachi Ltd. Mr.
Arabaci was also a member of the Board of Directors in Hitachi America Ltd. (HAL). Mr. Arabaci was
responsible for driving and executing the transformation across HR, Finance, IT, Procurement, and Facilities
and is tasked with creating best-in-class operations across the enterprise.
During his tenure at Hitachi, Mr. Arabaci had a successful career and notable accomplishments. Hitachi
Vantara was recognized as the best place to work in 2009, 2010, and 2012. In addition, Vantara was listed on
the Fortune 100 “Best Companies to Work For” in 2012 and was recognized as the top 40 “Best Companies for
Leaders” in 2012. Mr. Arabaci was asked to lead the global HR transformation for the entire Hitachi in April
2012. He has developed and executed a global HR strategy supported by the Workday end-to-end (Human Capital
Management) HCM platform for over 250,000 employee base. These initiatives resulted in $500M in savings to
Hitachi while creating an accountability and growth mindset culture where every employee has an equal
opportunity to unleash their full potential.
Later, Mr. Arabaci was assigned to lead Hitachi’s transformation for entire back-office functions in 2019 as
the Chief Transformation Officer. In this capacity, Mr. Arabaci has launched the first Global Expense
Management and Global Business Services (GBS) platform and identified multiple mission-critical projects
across all functions to achieve $750M savings to prepare Hitachi for the next 100 years.
Before Hitachi Ltd., Mr. Arabaci held senior-level positions at Hitachi America Ltd., Hitachi Vantara, Cisco
Systems Inc., Nestle, and Pepsi Co. in various functions such as operations, finance, internal audit, and
primarily human resources. Mr. Arabaci holds a master’s degree in general management from the University of
Istanbul, and an MBA in Marketing from the California State University, San Bernardino. He is a member of
various advisory boards and earned awards and recognition for the work he has produced in various positions
during his career.
William Stewart
Advisory Board
Bill Stewart, currently serves as a consultant, board member and technical advisor focused on the development of cyber security products and solutions. He has over 30 years of experience leading businesses that manage and mitigate cyber risk. His previous experience includes Senior Vice President of Strategy for Mandiant, responsible for developing new offerings and relationships to accelerate business growth. Bill also held several other senior corporate positions including Executive Vice President for Booz Allen Hamilton and Chubb Insurance.
As an EVP for Booz Allen Hamilton, he led the Commercial Cyber Security Business. In this role he led teams that developed strategy, provided consulting, and implemented solutions for today’s most complex cyber security problems. Mr. Stewart also led Booz Allen’s commercial financial services business and led several large cyber businesses for intelligence community clients in the national security market.
In his position as Division President of Chubb’s Global Cyber Risk Practice, Mr. Stewart was responsible for the development and implementation of Chubb’s strategy to deliver the full suite of property and casualty cyber insurance offerings worldwide. This included Chubb’s risk transfer, loss mitigation and incident response services, all designed to mitigate the rapidly evolving threats faced by businesses of all sizes as well as individuals.
Mr. Stewart is an experienced business developer and leader, having grown several large businesses in both the public and private sectors. He maintains deep client relationships in multiple industries including: Financial Services; Retail; Energy; High Tech Manufacturing and Health Care as well as the U.S. Department of Defense and Intelligence Community.
As an experienced strategist and leader, Mr. Stewart created enhanced security best practice for public and private sector clients. For example, he worked to develop public key and privilege management technology that now forms the basis of much of today’s industry best practice in the discipline.
Mr. Stewart also worked for a major electronics firm where he developed communications security and key management devices. He also served as a Signal Officer, Battalion Commander, Brigade/Battalion S-3, and Company Commander in the US Army.
He holds an M.S. degree in electrical engineering from Drexel University and a B.S. degree in engineering from Widener University.
