Joseph Ansanelli

Chairman
Lookout, Inc.

Joseph has spent the majority of his career as an entrepreneur building unique solutions into successful companies by focusing on building and unleashing the talent of great teams. He co-founded and served as CEO of three companies: Trio Development, Connectify, and Vontu. He is currently the Chairman of the Board of Lookout, an innovator in smartphone security and protection, and a board member of Smartling, a realtime translation company.

Additionally, Joseph serves on the Board of the Homeless Prenatal Program, a non-profit helping homeless families to have healthy children and find permanent housing, and is a member of the Undergraduate board of the Wharton School and the University of Pennsylvania. Most recently, as co-founder and CEO of Vontu, the company became the market-leading provider of Data Loss Prevention (DLP) solutions and was acquired by Symantec, Inc in November 2007 for $350 million. Founded in 2001, the company was instrumental in establishing and defining this new category of security solutions. With a mission to reduce the risk of data loss, Vontu helped organizations ensure public confidence, demonstrate compliance and maintain competitive advantage.

As a result of the leadership position which Vontu achieved in the DLP market, the U.S. Congress called on Joseph multiple times to testify before legislative hearings on identity theft and information security. Prior to Vontu, Joseph was the Vice President of Marketing at Kana Communications, Inc. during which time the company went public and grew from $14 to $120 million in revenues with hundreds of Global 2000 customers. He joined Kana in August 1999 by virtue of Kana's acquisition of Connectify for ~$300 million post IPO. Connectify was a provider of electronic direct marketing software that he co-founded and served as its CEO. Additionally, he has held various product management and business development positions with companies including Netscape, Etrade, and Macromedia. Apple acquired his first venture, Trio Development and the software was licensed to Palm to serve as its desktop integration solution for the Mac.

Joseph holds four patents and received a Bachelor of Science in Applied Economics from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. He resides in San Francisco, CA, is an avid cyclist and occasionally writes about startup life at his blog – www.ansanelli.com/blog.