James R. Scapa

Founder, Chairman, and Chief Executive Officer

James R. Scapa brings more than 35 years of engineering experience to his dual role of chairman and CEO of Altair, a title he has held since the company's inception in 1985.

Through Scapa's leadership, the company is now a global technology company that provides software and cloud solutions in the areas of product development, high performance computing (HPC) and data analytics. Today, the company employs over 3,000 engineers, scientists and creatives with more than 86 offices in 25 countries.

With more than 11,000 customers globally, Altair software enables customers to enhance product performance, compress development time and reduce costs.

Scapa earned a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from Columbia University and a master of business administration degree from University of Michigan.

Matthew Brown

Chief Financial Officer

As chief financial officer, Matthew Brown is responsible for Altair’s global finance organization. Over the past two decades, Brown has led finance teams at top technology companies, helping drive financial strategy and planning, accounting, reporting, and capital structure.

Prior to joining Altair, Brown previously served as interim chief financial officer at NortonLifeLock, a leading consumer cyber safety company, and chief accounting officer at Symantec, a leading provider of enterprise security software. He also held finance leadership roles at Blue Coat Systems, NETGEAR, and Brocade Communications, after starting his career at KPMG, LLP.

Brown is a certified public accountant with a bachelor’s degree in business administration from the Walter A. Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley.

Stephanie Buckner

Chief Operating Officer

As chief operating officer, Stephanie Bucker is responsible for Altair's corporate development efforts and field operations, sales, and technical support globally. Previously she served as senior vice president of corporate development where she was responsible for building strategic partnerships across Altair’s entire ecosystem including software, hardware, cloud, the Altair Partner Alliance, and with customers.

Earlier in her career, Buckner held senior management roles at Altair including director of strategic alliances where she surpassed aggressive new partner enrollment goals and was responsible for scouting, selling, onboarding, and managing relationships with third-party B2B software providers. Additionally, during her time at Altair, she also was the co-founder and chief executive officer of WEYV, a multi-content platform built on Altair’s patented digital content licensing model.

Prior to joining Altair, Buckner held analyst roles at Cisco Systems and American Express.

Buckner earned a bachelor’s degree in industrial and operations engineering from University of Michigan.

Nelson Dias

Chief Revenue Officer

As chief revenue officer, Nelson Dias is responsible for creating integration and alignment between all revenue-related functions, including marketing, sales, customer support, pricing, and revenue management.

With more than 30 years of technical sales and management experience, Dias has held several senior management roles at Altair including senior vice president of Altair’s operations in Asia Pacific and managing director of Altair India.

Dias earned a bachelor’s degree of engineering in computer science from the University of Mumbai.

Brian Gayle

Chief Accounting Officer

Brian Gayle has served as our senior vice president, chief accounting officer since September 2018 and also became our principal accounting officer in March 2021. From March 2015 to September 2018, Mr. Gayle served as our vice president-corporate controller. Prior to these roles, Mr. Gayle began his career at Deloitte & Touche, LLP. Mr. Gayle is a certified public accountant and holds a Bachelor’s degree of Accountancy from the Walsh College.

Srikanth "Sam" Mahalingam

Chief Technical Officer

As chief technology officer, Srikanth (Sam) Mahalingam is responsible for overseeing the development and dissemination of Altair’s simulation, HPC, and AI technology and portfolio of products and solutions.

With more than 20 years of experience in software development, software architecture, technical management, and project management, Mahalingam previously served as Altair’s chief technical officer for the company’s cloud and HPC strategy where he shaped current products and identified new solutions to ease cloud adoption and mobile strategies for Altair customers.

During his time at Altair, Mahalingam has worked on various products and projects across custom services and product teams. He then joined a start-up as a joint promoter to launch a disruptive virtual try-on product that was later acquired by a large software services firm in India. Mahalingam rejoined Altair in 2005 to spearhead new product initiatives and eventually became Altair’s thought leader for enterprise software strategies.

Mahalingam earned a bachelor’s degree in computer science and engineering and an executive master’s degree in business administration from the Indian School of Business.

Raoul Maitra

Chief Legal Officer

As chief legal officer, Raoul Maitra is responsible for Altair’s legal affairs including developing and leading corporate legal strategy to promote and protect the company's intellectual property and overseeing delivery of legal services and resources to accomplish corporate goals, strategies, and priorities.

Previously, Maitra served as Altair’s co-general counsel and deputy general counsel.

Maitra earned a bachelor’s degree in political science from University of Michigan and a juris doctor degree from the Mauer School of Law at Indiana University (Bloomington).

Jeff Marraccini

Chief Information Security Officer

As chief information security officer, Jeff Marraccini is responsible for strategizing and implementing Altair’s global security programs across all functions including Altair’s DevOps Center of Excellence, IT, legal, and services. Most recently, Marraccini served as Altair’s senior vice president of cloud strategy and technology where he focused on technical compliance, security controls, tools, cloud specialties, and security vendor operations. Prior to that, he held several leadership roles at Altair focused on IT, computer and network systems, and technology security since joining in 1997, including senior vice president of IT strategy and technology and senior vice president of global IT systems.

While at Altair, Marraccini’s teams have helped Altair transition to hybrid and public cloud computing, adopted global voice-over IP technologies, remote access for employee flexibility, diverse platform support for software development, engineering and scientific computing, various network technologies, and business systems. Prior to joining Altair, Marraccini worked at Oakland University, Electronic Data Systems, and has consulted at various organizations.

Marraccini holds a bachelor’s degree in economics, computer science, and anthropology from Oakland University.

Amy Messano

Chief Marketing Officer

As chief marketing officer, Amy Messano is responsible for Altair's global corporate marketing and communications strategy and execution. She has more than two decades of deep experience in all facets of marketing and communications in the fields of technology, advanced mobility, and energy.

Prior to Altair, Messano served as vice president of integrated marketing and communications at Aptiv (formerly Delphi), where she was a key player in launching the spin-off company. Previously, she held various senior roles at Microsoft and DTE Energy. Throughout her career, Messano has received countless awards for leading and launching innovative campaigns that have driven exceptional results through world-class collaboration.

Messano earned a master's degree in journalism from Northwestern University and a bachelor’s degree from the University of Colorado.

Gilma Saravia

Chief People Officer

As chief people officer, Gilma Saravia leads Altair’s global human resources organization, including workforce strategy, talent acquisition and development, and employee engagement.

Saravia joined Altair from Aptiv where she served as vice president, global corporate human resources and talent. Previously, she held various senior roles at U. S. Steel and Deloitte’s Human Capital consulting group.

Saravia has more than two decades of experience in leading large-scale, global teams in organizational effectiveness, talent acquisition and development, and HR transformation at major companies.

She earned a bachelor of business administration degree from the University of Texas at Austin and holds various certifications in talent, leadership development, diversity, and inclusion.

Dr. Uwe Schramm

Chief Visionary Officer

As chief visionary officer, Dr. Uwe Schramm is responsible for articulating and evangelizing Altair’s forward vision, advising product and market strategy, advising the company on M&A opportunities and trends, and providing customers with strategic counsel.

Previously, Dr. Schramm served as chief technical officer for Altair's solver, optimization, and multi-physics solutions.

For more than 25 years, Dr. Schramm held senior management positions at Altair including overseeing the development of Altair's solver and optimization technologies, leading the product management of Altair’s suite of simulation software, building a U.S. western region consulting practice, and serving as managing director of Altair’s operations in Germany.

Prior to joining Altair, Dr. Schramm had a career in academia at the University of Virginia and University of Rostock. He is recognized globally for his research contributions in structural and multi-disciplinary optimization.

Dr. Schramm holds a master’s and doctorate degree from the University of Rostock, Germany.

James R. Scapa

James R. Scapa brings more than 35 years of engineering experience to his dual role of chairman and CEO of Altair, a title he has held since the company's inception in 1985.

Through Scapa's leadership, the company is now a global technology company that provides software and cloud solutions in the areas of product development, high performance computing (HPC) and data analytics. Today, the company employs over 3,000 engineers, scientists and creatives with more than 86 offices in 25 countries.

With more than 11,000 customers globally, Altair software enables customers to enhance product performance, compress development time and reduce costs.

Scapa earned a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from Columbia University and a master of business administration degree from University of Michigan.

Jim Anderson

As an executive on Google’s Cloud team, Jim has more than 25 years of experience with some of the world’s leading technology companies including Hewlett Packard, Dell and Cisco. Jim works with customers to leverage emerging cloud, AI, and data analytics technologies to drive data-powered innovation and accelerate digital transformations. Known for his experience in helping companies take advantage of market transitions to meet growth opportunities, Anderson was selected by Savoy magazine as one of the “Most Influential Black Americans in Corporate America” in 2020.

Previously, Anderson held several transformational leadership roles, including serving as the vice president of Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s $1B+ Cloud Service Provider business; the president of the Americas for BAE Systems Applied Intelligence; global sales director of Unified Computing at Cisco; and vice president of enterprise sales for Dell’s Public Sector.

Anderson holds an MBA from The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, and a bachelor of science degree in electrical engineering and computer science from Princeton University. He previously served as an independent board director for the U.S. Olympic Synchronized Swimming as well as chairman of the board for Make-a-Wish of Central Texas. He is a board member for the Education Reform Network, a member of Executive Leadership Council, and a member of the GTM Advisory Board for CapitalG (Alphabet’s independent growth fund).

Shekar Ayyar

With more than 25 years of industry experience, Shekar is the chief executive officer of AdMY Technology Group, Inc. and a venture partner at NTTVC. He has a wealth of consulting, strategy, and technical expertise in electronics, telecommunications, and software markets and has an outstanding track record of efficiently scaling technology businesses including both organic and inorganic growth.

Shekar was most recently an executive vice president and general manager for VMware’s telco and edge cloud business unit and previously held other leadership positions at VMWare including as the company’s executive vice president of strategy and corporate development.

Prior to joining VMware, Shekar held executive positions at BindView and Instantis, and advised executive management through roles at Lucent Technologies and McKinsey & Company. He also was an assistant professor of electrical engineering at Lafayette College and conducted research at Bell Laboratories.

Shekar earned a master of business administration degree from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania; a PhD and master of science degree in electrical engineering from Johns Hopkins University; and a bachelor of science degree in electrical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay.

He has advised on the Boards of MobiledgeX, Cohere, U.S. India Business Council, Puppet, and the VMware Foundation. He is currently on the California board for Room to Read.

Mary C. Boyce

Mary C. Boyce is a noted educator, researcher, and leader. She is provost of Columbia University in the City of New York where she was most recently dean of The Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science and the Morris A. and Alma Schapiro Professor of Engineering. Prior to joining Columbia, Boyce served on the faculty of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) for over 25 years, leading the Mechanical Engineering Department from 2008 to 2013.

Boyce’s research focuses on materials and mechanics, particularly in the areas of multi-scale and nonlinear mechanics of polymers and soft composites. Her work has been documented in more than 170 archival journal articles spanning materials, mechanics, and physics. She has mentored over 40 M.S. thesis students and over 25 PhD students and has been widely recognized for her scholarly contributions, including election as a fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the National Academy of Engineering. Boyce leads the education and research mission of Columbia Engineering with more than 200 faculty, 15,00 undergraduate students, 2,500 graduate students, and 100 postdoctoral fellows.

Boyce earned a bachelor’s degree in engineering science and mechanics from Virginia Tech, and a master’s degree and PhD in mechanical engineering from MIT.

Sandy Carter

Sandy Carter has more than 20 years of experience of demonstrated success in the technology industry and has held leadership roles in some of the most prominent companies in the world, including Amazon and IBM Corporation. Currently, Sandy is chief operating officer and head of business development at Unstoppable Domains Inc., a software company that specializes in building domains on blockchains.

Previously, she was the vice president of Public Sector Partners and Programs at Amazon Web Services (AWS) where she secured some of AWS Public Sector’s largest partnerships, innovated new revenue streams, and implemented business strategies that increased partner participation by 54% on average. With AWS, she also spearheaded organizations that prioritized racial and gender diversity and created the Women of EC2 group, the Women of the C-Suite group, and founded the Think Big for Small Business program, which “offers small and/or minority-owned public sector organizations unique access to business, technical, and marketing support.”

Sandy also holds a position on the board of Girls in Tech, a global nonprofit organization of more than 60,000 that’s dedicated to eliminating the gender gap in the international tech industry, and she’s an adjunct professor at Carnegie Mellon Silicon Valley. And outside of her corporate and academic ventures, she’s authored five books about business, social media, and marketing, was named to Forbes’ “Global Top 40 Marketing Masters” list, and CNN’s “10 Most Powerful Women in Tech of M2M” list. She’s an international speaker and influencer, and has presented on topics like artificial intelligence, machine learning, and cloud computing in more than 80 countries.

Carter earned a Master of Business Administration degree in marketing/technology management from Harvard Business School, and a Bachelor of Science degree in computer science from Duke University.

Steve Earhart

Steve Earhart is a CPA/MBA with a career that includes more than 40 years of finance and operating experience focused on technology and consumer companies, publicly and privately held. His specialties include business strategy, acquisition optimization and corporate finance.

Earhart retired from Motorola, Inc. in 2003 as senior vice president of finance where he made contributions in the launch of the cellular industry, the opening of Japan, China and several European markets to cellular technology, venture investment for market development, and capital formation for overall corporate stability.

Post Motorola, Earhart joined SSA Global Technologies as executive vice president and chief financial officer. During his tenure revenue grew three-fold largely through acquisition achievement. He led SSA's initial public offering and later led the company’s sale to Infor Global Technologies where he became chief financial officer of Infor Global post-closing. In 2009, Earhart joined Torex Ltd. as executive vice president and chief financial officer with a focus on the company's operational turnaround. In 2012, Earhart joined World Kitchen LLC as chief financial officer and he held this position until 2017.

Earhart earned a bachelor’s degree in accounting science from University of Illinois and a master of business administration degree from University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Trace Harris

Trace Harris is a finance, strategy, and business development executive who has spent 20 years managing transactions, leading teams, and serving as a board member for global media and technology companies.

Harris serves as director on the boards of Ziff Davis [ZD], a digital media and internet company; Anzu Special Acquisition Corp I [ANZUU], focused on transformative technologies for industrial applications; Bungie, the video game developer of Halo and Destiny; and USA Climbing, the national governing board of the sport of competition climbing.

Harris' professional experience includes 13 years with Vivendi, ultimately as its senior U.S. executive for strategy, finance, M&A, and business innovation. She was previously senior vice president of strategic development for Universal Studios Television Group, where she was responsible for international television strategies and launched its first international television network. Prior to Universal Studios, Harris was director of finance and channel operations for Warner Bros. International Channels. She began her career at JP Morgan in New York.

Harris earned a bachelor's degree in economics from Stanford University and an MBA in finance from Yale School of Management.