Meet Exterro’s Leadership

Ajith Samuel, Exterro's Chief Product Officer and cofounder of the company, leads the company’s product strategy team in creating innovative solutions to help large corporations identify and mitigate data risks.. Ajith has 15 years of experience in regulatory compliance and designing and architecting large-scale information systems for the futures industry. He holds a master’s degree in computer applications from St. Joseph’s in Trichy, India.

Anthony brings two decades of expertise in the Cybersecurity and technology industry to Exterro. Before joining, he led transformative programs at companies such as Merrill Lynch, J&J, Deloitte, IBM, Optiv Security Inc., Ernst & Young, and HSBC. His security practitioner and business leader background offers a unique perspective to help drive positive business outcomes for Exterro's clients. As the CISO, he manages and communicates risk, defines the strategy, and oversees the execution of the information security program at Exterro. If you have questions about Exterro's security program or want to talk about cyber, please reach out!

Clay Cocalis brings more than 25 years of sales management expertise in building and leading high-performing sales organizations within the legal services, financial services and information services industries. His leadership style carries a reputation for commitment to customers, especially in his diligence and responsiveness to their needs, long-term satisfaction, and customer partnerships.

Prior to joining Exterro, Clay served as the Chief Revenue Officer for Morae Global. Before joining Morae he was Executive Vice President of Sales at Epiq (formerly DTI), where he successfully drove revenue and business growth while unifying two of the industry’s largest eDiscovery sales organizations. Previously, in sales leadership roles at Dow Jones & Company, Factiva, and Tower Group, Cocalis orchestrated robust growth that outperformed key competitors at each of these organizations.

Jenny Hamilton is respected as an innovator in the legal profession for her award-winning approach to building legal operations and data governance programs. In recent years, her practice has focused on the intersection of e-discovery, privacy and cybersecurity. After graduating from University of Texas, she went into major account sales for Gateway Computers, where she was encouraged by in-house counsel to make a leap towards law school. Upon graduation from the University of Iowa College of Law, she moved to Chicago to practice commercial litigation. John Deere recruited her from private practice to spearhead the company’s e-discovery, investigations and data privacy. Early on, Hamilton’s team selected Exterro as their first e-discovery program, and Legal Technology News hailed Deere for their disciplined approach to technology acquisition. Hamilton continued on to receive c-suite recognition through the team’s transformative use of data analytics, building a scalable cross-border program for forensic investigations and e-discovery, and leading a law department-wide technology initiative to achieve operational excellence. Following her 14-year career at Deere, Hamilton served as general counsel and data privacy officer for a legal services firm, HaystackID, as a strategic legal advisor to the c-suite and board while building out their legal and compliance operations.

Dr. Thangasami is responsible for overseeing all functions at the Exterro R&D office, which includes software development, technical support and corporate management. With more than 10 years of research experience in distributed data sciences and doctoral degrees in computer science and engineering, she is ideally qualified to lead Exterro’s big data strategy and development of predictive and prescriptive analytics. In addition to her doctoral degrees, she also has earned a master’s degree in business administration.

Michelle Spencer oversees all finance and accounting functions for Exterro. During the past 15 years, she has led similar functions at global high-growth technology companies that provide cloud-based solutions and Software-as-a-Service systems. She has been instrumental in guiding companies to achieve significant growth and profitability. Earlier in her career, she held executive and senior level positions primarily with companies in legal, retail, distribution, and manufacturing industries. She earned an MBA from Duke University and holds a BBA in Accounting from The University of Texas in Austin. She is a licensed CPA.

Paul Valentino is the Chief People Officer for Exterro. Prior to Exterro, he spent 6 years at Proofpoint in human resources leadership roles, including as Chief People Officer. At Proofpoint, Paul was responsible for driving global business growth through people-centric human resources initiatives, including key talent development, DEI and wellness programs. Paul has over 30 years of experience, including a variety of human resources roles at Velodyne Lidar, Rambus, Juniper Networks, and Synopsys.

Paul is an accomplished Human Resource professional with extensive experience in all HR functions and recognized business acumen that integrates HR and business strategy with dynamic business environments. He is a proven partner with senior leaders ensuring a common direction and leadership for the business and is recognized for developing organizational structures and workforce plans that support change. Paul holds a B.A. in Political Science from the University of Missouri, Columbia.

Rick Valentine brings more than three decades of leadership experience to his role as Chief Customer Officer at Exterro.  His prior executive experience encompasses both large public enterprises and high-growth startups in the high-tech space, including Silver Peak Systems/HPE, Veritas/Symantec,  Intuit, and most recently Quantum. As CCO, Rick believes in instilling a customer-centric culture across the organization and guiding the full spectrum of customer experiences, from implementation and delivery of professional services through onboarding, training, partner enablement, and renewals. He partners cross-functionally to align the entire Exterro team with customer needs and expectations to sustain the highest possible levels of customer satisfaction, loyalty, and business growth. He's a big believer in using data mining and analytics to drive best-in-class customer service and retention results and to inform practical cost containment practices. If you're a customer, feel free to reach out!

Shashidhar Angadi serves as CIO/CTO and is also a cofounder of Exterro. He oversees innovation, development, infrastructure, and security. Shashi brings nearly 27 years of experience developing large scale enterprise solutions and platforms. He has been instrumental in driving technology direction and creating breakthrough solutions in creating a world class eDiscovery and information governance platform at Exterro. He manages a geographically dispersed team of world class engineers to drive rapid growth. Shashi has a bachelor’s degree in computer science from Bangalore University and an MBA from Jones School of Business, Rice University.

Bobby Jahanbani leads Exterro’s Enterprise Sales, Business Development and Sales Engineering teams. Bobby joined Exterro in 2013 and is a veteran corporate legal software sales leader with more than 25 years of experience. Prior to joining Exterro, Bobby held a variety of sales and management positions at iManage (Interwoven-Autonomy), CompuLaw, X1, Bridgeway, Mitratech and Datacert. Bobby holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science and earned an MBA from the University of California Irvine.