Leadership Team

Dr. Anirudh Devgan is President and CEO of Cadence and is a member of the Board of Directors. Prior to becoming CEO in 2021, he was President of Cadence, before which he served as Executive Vice President and General Manager of the Digital & Signoff and System Verification groups. Under his leadership, Cadence has significantly grown its computational software and hardware portfolio, expanded into adjacent and new markets, and achieved several years of record revenue growth. Prior to joining Cadence in 2012, Dr. Devgan was Corporate VP and member of the executive staff at Magma Design Automation and earlier held management and technical roles at IBM.

Dr. Devgan is widely recognized as one of the leading authorities in electronic design automation (EDA) and successfully pioneered the application of massively parallel and distributed architectures to create several industry firsts and most impactful products in the areas of SPICE simulation, library characterization, place and route, static timing, power, and electromagnetics, among several others. He also drove the first common compiler architecture for emulation and prototyping platforms.

Dr. Devgan is an IEEE Fellow, member of the National Academy of Engineering (NAE), has written numerous research papers, and holds 27 US patents. He has won several awards, including the prestigious Phil Kaufman Award for his extensive contributions to EDA as well as the IBM Corporate Award and IEEE McCalla Award. Dr. Devgan serves on the boards of the Global Semiconductor Alliance and the Electronic System Design Alliance.

Dr. Devgan received a Bachelor of Technology degree in electrical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, and MS and PhD degrees in electrical and computer engineering from Carnegie Mellon University.

Tom Beckley is Senior Vice President of Strategic Technology Programs, helping drive Cadence's AI-enabled electronics and electro-mechanical development, while working closely with global technology ecosystem and governmental agencies. Prior to this role, Beckley served over a decade as Senior Vice President and General Manager of Cadence's Custom IC and PCB Group (CPG), where his responsibilities included leading research and development for analog, mixed-signal, RF, photonics, advanced IC packaging, PCB and multiphysics system analysis design solutions. Tom is an appointee to the NIST Chips for America's Industry Advisory Committee.

Beckley joined Cadence in 2004 via the acquisition of Neolinear, a technology spin-out of Carnegie Mellon University, where he served as President and CEO. Prior to Neolinear, Beckley was head of the Systems Division at Avant! Corporation, President and CEO of Xynetix, and held engineering and management positions at L3Harris Technologies and General Motors.

Beckley received his BS in mathematics and physics from Kalamazoo College and an MBA from Vanderbilt University.

Dr. Paul Cunningham has served as Senior Vice President and General Manager of the System Verification Group (SVG) of Cadence since March 2021, running the division since 2018. His responsibilities include logic simulation, emulation, prototyping, formal verification, Verification IP, and functional debug. Prior to this role, Cunningham was responsible for Cadence's frontend digital design tools including logic synthesis and design-for-test.

Dr. Cunningham joined Cadence in 2011 via the acquisition of Azuro, a startup developing concurrent physical optimization and useful skew clock tree synthesis technologies, where he was a co-founder and CEO.

Dr. Cunningham holds a MS and a PhD in Computer Science from the University of Cambridge in the UK.

Michael Jackson has served as Corporate Vice President and General Manager of the System Design and Analysis Group (SDA) group since 2024. In this role, Jackson is responsible for PCB, advanced packaging, and multiphysics simulation and analysis. Prior to this role, he led the research and development for PCB and advanced packaging products. Michael joined Cadence in 2019 and was responsible for research and development in the Digital and Signoff Group (DSG) for electrical and physical signoff products. Before joining Cadence, Jackson worked at Synopsys, leading R&D for synthesis, test, and physical design products. Prior to joining Synopsys, he led the advanced design technology group at Motorola's Semiconductor Products Sector.

Michael earned a BS in Electrical Engineering from the University of Arizona and a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences from the University of California at Berkeley.

Vinod Kariat has served as the Corporate Vice President and General Manager of the Custom Products Group (CPG) since 2024. In this role, Vinod is responsible for leading research and development of all analog, mixed-signal, RF, memory, and photonics design and simulation technologies. Prior to this role, Vinod held various leadership positions in custom IC design implementation and circuit simulation. Vinod joined Cadence in 2001 via the acquisition of CadMOS Technologies, a circuit design technology start-up that he co-founded in 1997, and has held multiple leadership roles in Custom IC and PCB Group and Digital and Signoff Group.

Prior to CadMOS Vinod was a Research Staff Member at IBM TJ Watson Research Center, where he developed solutions for custom digital design, covering noise analysis, static timing analysis, and floorplanning.

Vinod earned a BE in Electrical and Communications Engineering from the National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirappalli, and a Ph.D. in Computer Engineering from Syracuse University.

Yoon Kim serves as Corporate Vice President of Global Human Resources, leading all aspects of HR for employees worldwide. Kim previously served as Vice President and Chief of Staff to the CEO, working closely with the leadership team on key strategic initiatives to drive the company’s operations management for growth and innovation. Prior to that, she held leadership positions in product management, business development and operations.

Prior to joining Cadence in 2003 through the Verplex acquisition, Kim held key R&D positions at LSI Logic and HP, specializing in microprocessor and ASIC designs.

Kim received a BS degree in electrical engineering from MIT and a MS degree in electrical engineering from Stanford University.

Nimish Modi serves as Senior Vice President and General Manager of Strategy and New Ventures of Cadence and is responsible for corporate strategy, corporate and strategic marketing, and industry standards. Modi also heads New Ventures and in addition to leading corporate Mergers & Acquisitions, also heads the Molecular Sciences Group which includes the OpenEye Scientific business. Prior to this role, he was Senior Vice President of research and development for the System & Software Realization Group at Cadence where he had responsibility for products and solutions in the areas of systems design and verification, package and board design, hardware/software co-development, and system verification.

Prior to joining Cadence in 2006, Modi spent 18 years at Intel Corporation, where he was most recently a vice president in the Enterprise Platforms Group with responsibility for the company's server CPU development.

Modi holds a BE in electrical engineering from the University of Bombay and an MS degree in computer engineering from Virginia Tech.

Karna Nisewaner has served as General Counsel and Corporate Secretary of Cadence since September 2022. Nisewaner is responsible for Cadence worldwide legal operations, covering matters such as corporate governance, corporate social responsibility, commercial transactions, employment, export compliance, government affairs, intellectual property, litigation, mergers and acquisitions, and stock administration. Prior to this role, she was Corporate Vice President and Deputy General Counsel at Cadence where she led many key functions in the legal department.

Prior to joining Cadence in 2011, Nisewaner held in-house counsel roles at Intuit and IBM and was in private practice at Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett, and Dunner, LLP focused on intellectual property.

Nisewaner received her BSE in civil engineering and operations research from Princeton University and her Juris Doctor degree from UCLA Law School.

Boyd Phelps has served as the Senior Vice President and General Manager of the Silicon Solutions Group (SSG) of Cadence since 2023. He is responsible for the design and development of Cadence’s hard and soft IP portfolio, investments, and roadmaps, supporting customers throughout all markets and segments in silicon design.

Prior to Cadence, Phelps worked at Intel, where he spent more than 25 years responsible for client architecture and design development as well as x86 CPU research and development for all business segments. Phelps is recognized across the industry for his CPU development achievements, as well as his contributions to process and design technology co-optimization, and was instrumental in the development and optimization of numerous leading-edge process technologies and designs. In these capacities, he has driven significant growth as well as brought to market several new segments and advances in CPU architecture and design.

Phelps received a BS in electrical engineering from Brigham Young University and graduated from the Stanford Executive Accelerator program.

Tarak Ray has served as Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer of Cadence since 2022, running the IT division since 2020. His responsibilities include managing Cadence’s enterprise applications, compute farm, Data Centers, infrastructure including LAN, WAN, telephony, and site support. He also manages the Cloud Engineering and Cloud Marketing group responsible for developing Cadence Cloud solutions and marketing respectively.

Prior to this role, he was Vice President of Business Applications where under his leadership many mission-critical applications were developed by IT in collaboration with the business groups.

Tarak holds a BE in electrical engineering from the Indian Institute of Engineering Science and Technology and an MBA from Saint Mary’s College of California.

Paul Scannell has served as Senior Vice President of the Customer Success Team (CST) of Cadence since 2024. In this role, Scannell is responsible for the Sales, Services, Field Engineering, and Customer Support teams that manage customer relationships around the world, driving customer success via the Cadence Intelligent System Design strategy. Prior to this role, he held various leadership positions in CST, including most recently leading the North America and India Field teams, driving initiatives to strengthen the company’s relationship and grow business with the top strategic accounts in those regions.

Prior to joining Cadence in 2005 through the Verisity acquisition, Scannell served in key positions at Axis Systems, Synopsys and Viewlogic Systems. Scannell holds a MS degree in electrical engineering from USC, a BS degree in electrical engineering from Stevens Institute of Technology and an MBA from Pepperdine University.

Dr. Chin-Chi Teng has served as Senior Vice President and General Manager of the Digital and Signoff Group (DSG) of Cadence since 2018. Prior to this role, Teng held senior leadership positions in research and development in digital implementation.

Dr. Teng joined Cadence in 2002 via the acquisition of Silicon Perspective Corporation and subsequently led various research and development groups. He brought deep technical knowledge and more than 20 years of industry and academic experience to his role as leader of the IC Digital group.

Dr. Teng holds a BS in electrical engineering from the National Taiwan University and an MS and PhD in electrical and computer engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He holds seven patents, and has written many EDA papers, several deep learning papers, and a book,Electrothermal Analysis of VLSI Systems.

John Wall has served as Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of Cadence since 2017. He is responsible for the company’s overall finance, tax, and accounting functions, as well as business operations, enterprise data and analytics, investor relations, and global strategic sourcing. Wall also leads the Real Estate and Workplace organization, which manages over 50 Cadence sites worldwide. Wall previously served as Corporate Controller and in other positions for more than 20 years, starting in our Dublin, Ireland office before moving to our San Jose Headquarters in 2015. At the beginning of his tenure with Cadence, Wall implemented the company’s international corporate structure, and was instrumental in the creation of several of the company’s sales models and its transition to a recurring revenue model.

Wall is a Fellow of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants and holds an NCBS from the Institute of Technology, Tralee in Ireland.

Neil Zaman serves as Chief Revenue Officer and has been Senior Vice President of Worldwide Field Operations (WFO) of Cadence since 2015. As Chief Revenue Officer, Zaman is responsible for the Sales, Services, Field Engineering, and Customer Support teams that manage customer relationships around the world, driving customer success via the Cadence Intelligent System Design strategy. Prior to this role, he held various leadership positions in WFO, driving initiatives to strengthen the company’s relationship and grow business with the top North American strategic accounts.

Prior to joining Cadence in 1999, Zaman held key positions at Phoenix Technologies and IBM. Zaman attended SUNY Stony Brook and then California State University, Hayward, where he earned his BSc in finance.

ML Krakauer has served as a director of Cadence since 2022 and as Chair of the Board since 2023. Ms. Krakauer retired as Executive Vice President, Chief Information Officer of Dell Corporation, a global information technology company, in January 2017. Prior to that, she served in various executive positions at EMC Corporation, a global IT infrastructure company, which she joined in 2008, including Executive Vice President, Chief Information Officer in 2016; Executive Vice President, Business Development, Global Enterprise Services during 2015; Executive Vice President, Global Human Resources from 2012 to 2015; and Chief Operating Officer of the Technology Services & Solutions and Managed Services Businesses from 2008 to 2012. Ms. Krakauer also held executive general management roles at Hewlett-Packard Enterprise, Compaq Computer Corporation, and Digital Equipment Corporation.

Dr. Anirudh Devgan has served as President and CEO of Cadence since December 2021, and has been a member of the Board of Directors since August 2021. He served as President of the company from 2017 to 2021, overseeing all business groups, research and development, sales, field engineering and customer support, strategy, marketing, mergers and acquisitions, business development, and IT. Prior to becoming President, he was Executive Vice President and General Manager of the Digital & Signoff and System Verification groups at Cadence.

Prior to joining Cadence in 2012, Dr. Devgan was General Manager and Corporate Vice President of the Custom Design Business Unit at Magma Design Automation. Previous roles include management and technical positions at IBM, where he received numerous awards including the IBM Outstanding Innovation Award. Dr. Devgan is an IEEE Fellow, has written numerous research papers, and holds several patents.

Dr. Devgan received a Bachelor of Technology degree in electrical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, and MS and PhD degrees in electrical and computer engineering from Carnegie Mellon University.

Mark W. Adams has served as a director of Cadence since 2015. Mr. Adams has served as President and Chief Executive Officer of Penguin Solutions, Inc., a compute, memory, and LED solutions provider, since August 2020. Mr. Adams served as Chief Executive Officer of Lumileds Holding B.V., a light engine technology company, from February 2017 to February 2019. Mr. Adams served as President of Micron Technology, Inc., a semiconductor solutions company, from February 2012 to February 2016. From 2006 to February 2012, Mr. Adams served in several positions at Micron Technology, Inc., including interim Chief Financial Officer, Vice President of Worldwide Sales, and Vice President of Digital Media. Prior to joining Micron Technology, Inc., Mr. Adams served as Chief Operating Officer of Lexar Media, Inc. in 2006 and as Vice President of Sales and Marketing of Creative Labs, Inc. from 2002 to 2006. Mr. Adams also serves as a member of the Board of Directors of Penguin Solutions, Inc., and Seagate Technology Holdings plc, a leading innovator in mass-capacity data storage solutions.

Ita Brennan has served as a director of Cadence since March 2020. Ms. Brennan served as Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer of Arista Networks, Inc., a cloud networking solutions company, from May 2015 to February 2024. Prior to joining Arista Networks, Inc., Ms. Brennan held several key finance roles, including as Chief Financial Officer of QuantumScape Corporation, from March 2014 to May 2015, and as Chief Financial Officer of Infinera Corporation, from July 2006 to February 2014. Ms. Brennan serves as a member of the Board of Directors for Planet Labs PBC, a leading provider of daily data and insights about Earth, and Lam Research, a global supplier of innovative wafer fabrication equipment and services to the semiconductor industry.

Lewis Chew has served as a director of Cadence since March 2020. Mr. Chew served as Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Dolby Laboratories, Inc., an audio, voice, and imaging technology company, from 2012 to 2021. Mr. Chew served as Senior Vice President of Finance and Chief Financial Officer of National Semiconductor Corporation, a designer and manufacturer of semiconductor components, from 2001 to 2011. Prior to joining National Semiconductor Corporation, Mr. Chew was a partner at KPMG LLP, an accounting firm. Mr. Chew serves as a member of the Board of Directors for Arista Networks, an industry leader in cognitive cloud networking solutions for large data center and campus environments, and Intuitive, a leader in minimally invasive care and a pioneer of robotic surgery.

Moshe N. Gavrielov has served as a director of Cadence since January 2025. Mr. Gavrielov served as President and Chief Executive Officer of Xilinx, Inc., a programmable chips company, from 2008 to 2018. Prior to joining Xilinx, Mr. Gavrielov served as Executive Vice President and General Manager of Cadence’s verification division from 2005 to 2007, and Chief Executive Officer of Verisity, Ltd. from 1998 to 2005. He also served in a variety of executive management positions at LSI Logic Corporation, as well as engineering and engineering management positions at Digital Equipment Corporation and National Semiconductor Corporation. Mr. Gavrielov serves as a member of the board of NXP Semiconductors N.V., a global semiconductor company focused on automotive and IoT solutions, and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Ltd., a leading semiconductor manufacturer specializing in advanced chip fabrication technology.

Julia Liuson has served as a director of Cadence since 2021. Ms. Liuson has served as President of the Developer Division of Microsoft since 2021 and previously served as Corporate Vice President of the Developer Division since 2012. Ms. Liuson has served in several technical and executive roles since joining Microsoft in 1992, and currently sets technology and business strategy, as well as leads the development of products that include Visual Studio, .NET Framework, and developer platform services for Microsoft Azure. Ms. Liuson was the first woman promoted to Corporate Vice President of Development at Microsoft and is a role model and champion of improving diversity and inclusion in STEM—both at Microsoft and through her charitable work. In 2019, Women in Technology International inducted Ms. Liuson into the Women in Technology Hall of Fame.

Dr. James D. Plummer has served as a director of Cadence since 2011. Dr. Plummer has been a Professor of electrical engineering at Stanford University since 1978 and served as the Dean of the Stanford School of Engineering from 1999 to 2014. Dr. Plummer has received numerous awards for his research and is a member of the National Academy of Engineering. Dr. Plummer directed the Stanford Nanofabrication Facility from 1994 to 2000.

Dr. Alberto Sangiovanni-Vincentelli has served as a director of Cadence since 1992 and was a co-founder of SDA Systems, Inc., a predecessor of Cadence. Dr. Sangiovanni-Vincentelli has been a professor of electrical engineering and computer sciences at the University of California, Berkeley since 1976. Dr. Sangiovanni-Vincentelli was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 1998 and received the Kaufman Award from the Electronic Design Automation Consortium in 2001, the IEEE/RSE Wolfson James Clerk Maxwell Medal for his exceptional impact on the development of electronics and electrical engineering or related fields in 2008, the ACM/IEEE A. Richard Newton Technical Impact Award in Electronic Design Automation in 2009, and the EDAA Lifetime Achievement Award in 2012. Dr. Sangiovanni-Vincentelli also serves as a director of Cy4Gate SpA and KPIT Technologies Ltd.

Dr. John B. Shoven has served as a director of Cadence since 1992 and was Lead Independent Director from 2021 to 2023. He served as Chair of the Board from 2005 to 2021. Dr. Shoven is the Charles R. Schwab Professor of Economics, Emeritus at Stanford University, and served as the Director of the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research from 1999 to September 2015. He is also a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, fellow at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. Dr. Shoven joined the faculty of Stanford University in 1973, serving as Chair of the Economics Department from 1986 to 1989, as director of the Center for Economic Policy Research from 1988 to 1993, and as Dean of the School of Humanities and Sciences from 1993 to 1998.

Young K. Sohn has served as a director of Cadence since 2013. Mr. Sohn has served as a senior advisor at Samsung Electronics, a consumer electronics company, since 2021 and as a founding managing partner at Walden Catalyst Management LLC, a venture capital firm, since November 2021. Mr. Sohn served as Corporate President and Chief Strategy Officer of Samsung Electronics from 2012 to 2020. Mr. Sohn also served as a senior advisor at Silver Lake Management LLC, a private investment firm, from 2012 to January 2021. In addition, Mr. Sohn served as President and Chief Executive Officer of Inphi Corporation, a provider of high-speed mixed-signal semiconductor solutions, from 2007 to 2012. Before joining Inphi Corporation, Mr. Sohn served as President of Agilent Technologies, Inc.’s Semiconductor Group from 2003 until 2005, as Chief Executive Officer of Oak Technology, Inc. from 1999 until it was acquired by Zoran Corporation in 2003, and in executive positions at Quantum Corporation from 1992 to 1999, including co-President and General Manager. Mr. Sohn serves as a member of the Board of Directors of Arm, a British semiconductor and software design company.