Management
Keyvan Mohajer
Founder, President & Chief Executive Officer
Keyvan leads the company's management, corporate strategy and operations. He is also the principal executive responsible for SoundHound’s technology development. With more than 12 years of executive experience as a visionary entrepreneur and a results oriented general manager, Keyvan has played a key role in taking multiple startups from basic concept to profitability. Keyvan has a master’s and Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Stanford University.
Majid Emami
Founder & Vice President, Engineering
Majid is responsible for managing the development of SoundHound’s core technologies. He has extensive experience in the fields of signal processing and information theory, and is one of the leading inventors of the SoundHound audio recognition engine, where he contributed to both the signal-processing front end and the algorithmic back end. Prior to SoundHound, Majid served as a key technology advisor to a number of companies in Silicon Valley. He has a master’s degree and Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Stanford University.
James Hom
Founder & Vice President, Products
James is responsible for managing all of SoundHound’s product development efforts and for overseeing finance and accounting operations. He has extensive knowledge of product design, development and testing, with a particular focus on mobile applications, human computer interaction, accounting and finance. He has a bachelor’s degree in computer science from Stanford University.
Amir Arbabi
Vice President, Business Development
Amir is directly responsible for corporate strategy, overall expansion, developing and expanding new business opportunities and strategic partnerships, forming and managing strategic alliances and business modeling. He also plays a leading role in maintaining SoundHound’s day-to-day operations. Amir has many years of experience working directly with both emerging-growth and later-stage companies across a number of industries. Prior to SoundHound, Amir was at Venture Law Group where he worked with numerous companies and venture capital firms in all aspects of business development, commercial transactions, operations, equity and debt financings, mergers and acquisitions, and intellectual property. He has a BA in economics from Stanford University and a JD from Harvard Law School.
Kamyar Mohajer
Vice President, Strategy and Planning
Kamyar is responsible for developing operations and expansion strategies, as well as evaluating and forming business partnerships. He is also responsible for developing SoundHound’s intellectual property strategy, including the identification and protection of the numerous inventions and innovations developed by the company. Prior to joining SoundHound, Kamyar practiced corporate and commercial law in Toronto, Canada, where he worked on complex commercial transactions such as mergers and acquisitions, share and asset purchases and sales, corporate financing, and security agreements. He received bachelor’s degrees in computer science and music from York University, Toronto, completed his graduate education in law at Osgoode Hall Law School, Toronto, and earned an MBA. from Schulich School of Business, Toronto.
Tim Stonehocker
Chief Technology Officer
Tim is responsible for the development and operations of SoundHound's music-related search technologies. He is also responsible for guiding software architecture and development decisions throughout SoundHound's engineering organization, ensuring robustness and reliability of core systems while enabling the organization to continue innovating at an industry leading pace. Tim's areas of expertise include search algorithms, music, large fault-tolerant systems, and code optimization. As a principal contributor to SoundHound's Sound2Sound Search Science, he has improved algorithm efficiency by orders of magnitude while continually improving accuracy. Prior to SoundHound, Tim was at A9.com and Amazon. He has a bachelor's degree in computer science from Stanford University and a master's degree in music from Stanford's CCRMA.
Kathleen (Katie) McMahon
Vice President, Sales & Marketing
Katie is responsible for delivering and growing top line revenue. She also provides leadership across product development and marketing. Prior to joining SoundHound, Katie was Vice President of Business Development at Shazam where she played an instrumental role in scaling the company and building Shazam’s brand. Prior to Shazam, Katie was the founder and managing director of Westport Communications Inc., a mobile data service company based in Tokyo. In 2002, she was recognized as the first western woman to launch a technology company in Japan. Prior to Westport, Katie worked with the executive management team at Japan Communication Inc. (JCI) on special projects including IPO preparations and investor relations. She has been named by Mobile Entertainment as one of the “Top 50 Women” in mobile content. Katie graduated with high distinction from the University of Virginia, with a bachelor’s degree in Political & Social Thought.
Cheryl Lucanegro
Vice President, Advertising Strategy & Sales
Cheryl is responsible for advertising sales and developing innovative campaigns for agencies, global brand leaders, and broadcasters. Before joining SoundHound, Lucanegro was senior vice president of advertising sales at Pandora, when it went public in 2011. Prior to that, Lucanegro was a publisher at Edutopia, part of George Lucas Educational Foundation. Her previous sales experience includes serving as senior vice president of sales at Salon Media Group and at Industry Standard, and as vice president of sales and associate publisher at Upside Magazine. Earlier, she served as regional sales manager at Ziff Davis Publishing Company. She has a BS degree in Journalism from the University of Florida.
Farhad Shakeri
Vice President, IT/Operations
Farhad is responsible for planning, designing and running SoundHound's global production and corporate IT infrastructure and network. Prior to SoundHound, he was Director of I.T. at Big Bear Networks and various other startups. He also spent 17 years as principal systems programmer at the Stanford University Computer Science Department and UC Berkeley. Farhad joined SoundHound in 2005 as employee #1.