Akamai Speakers

Dr. Robert Blumofe is Executive Vice President of the Akamai Platform organization and General Manager of the Enterprise Division. As General Manager, he is responsible for the creation and sale of products and services for major enterprises to secure and improve performance for their users and applications as they move to the cloud.

As Executive Vice President of the Akamai Platform organization, Dr. Blumofe is responsible for developing and operating the distributed system underlying all Akamai products and services. Dr. Blumofe also leads the teams responsible for the global strategy and deployment of Akamai's network infrastructure, as well as Akamai’s internal IT department.

Dr. Blumofe joined Akamai in 1999 to lead the Company's first performance team. Serving as one of Akamai’s chief architects, Dr. Blumofe was instrumental in the early design and development of the Akamai Platform, which now handles trillions of Internet requests daily. He has led all of Networks and Operations since 2004.

Prior to Akamai, Dr. Blumofe was an Associate Professor of Computer Science at the University of Texas at Austin. He is widely published in the areas of algorithms and systems for highly distributed and parallel computing. He holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from MIT and a Bachelor of Science degree from Brown University.

Paul Joseph is Senior Vice President, Global Media & Carrier Sales at Akamai. He is responsible for managing a global team of sales, pre-sales, and channel sales professionals who support some of the largest global brands in the Broadcast, Video Distribution, Online Gaming, Publishing, High Tech, and Social Networking industries.

Prior to this role, Mr. Joseph served as Vice President, Field Business Development, and was instrumental in developing global partnerships for the Media division, managing its largest strategic customers and leading the execution of Akamai's global cloud service provider strategy.

Mr. Joseph joined Akamai in 2000 and spent his first 10 years in sales and account management before moving into Corporate Development, where he worked on acquisitions and strategic investments. He also led partnership activities with the company's Carrier Products, Web Experience and Emerging Mobile Products business units.

Mr. Joseph next took leadership roles in Global Alliances and Americas Channels, where he was first directly responsible for implementing Akamai’s global partner strategy for AT&T, IBM and Telefonica, followed by leading the development of Akamai's channel strategy in North America and South America.

Prior to Akamai, Mr. Joseph worked for Unisys in business development. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Lafayette College and has completed several executive programs at Boston University and MIT Sloan School of Management.

Adam Karon is Executive Vice President & General Manager of the Media and Carrier Divisions at Akamai. In the role of General Manager, Mr. Karon is responsible for leading the Media and Carrier Division’s core functions of engineering and product development, product management, sales, channels, sales engineering, and marketing, focused on enabling today’s leading media, gaming and software companies to deliver the best possible experiences – at scale – to their customers on any device, anywhere, and helping carriers operate high-performing and cost-efficient networks.

Leading Akamai’s Media Division, Mr. Karon oversees Company strategy and product direction to support Akamai’s customers with their over-the-top (OTT) video, live events, and streaming video optimization requirements. Throughout his time at Akamai, Mr. Karon has worked extensively with the world’s largest broadcasters and media businesses, and has helped launch new digital media technologies and services including Akamai’s award-winning Broadcast Operations Control Center (BOCC).

As GM for Akamai’s Carrier Division, Mr. Karon has global responsibility for solutions sold to network operators and carriers looking to leverage CDN, DNS and enterprise security capabilities within their own networks. Akamai also partners with the world’s largest network operators and carriers to help monetize their traffic and reduce network costs.

Prior to leading Akamai’s Media Division, Mr. Karon served as Senior Vice President of Akamai’s 2000-employee Global Services and Support Organization. In this role, he led Professional Services, Services Product, Customer Experience, Account Management, Customer Support as well as Akamai’s Managed Security Services. Mr. Karon has been a key contributor to the growth of Akamai’s Global Services Organization from its early beginnings to its current position as a leading global services provider, working with the Internet’s most influential companies. He brings more than 25 years of organizational management, business operations and technical experience to helping Akamai customers address the rapidly changing online technology space.

Mr. Karon joined Akamai in 2005 from Leftbrain Solutions, where he served as Client Director for General Electric’s Power Systems division, and was the lead for their “Procure to Pay” digitalization effort.

Dr. Tom Leighton co-founded Akamai Technologies in 1998 and served as Akamai’s Chief Scientist until he became CEO in 2013. Under Dr. Leighton’s leadership, Akamai has evolved from its origins as a Content Delivery Network (CDN) into one of the most essential and trusted cloud delivery and cybersecurity platforms, upon which many of the world’s best brands and enterprises build and secure their digital experiences.

During his initial seven years as CEO, Akamai’s revenue more than doubled, growing from less than $1.4 billion in 2012 to $2.9 billion in 2019. Over the same time, annual revenue from Akamai’s security business grew more than 30-fold, to more than $849 million in 2019. As one of the world's preeminent authorities on algorithms for network applications and cybersecurity, Dr. Leighton discovered a solution to freeing up web congestion using applied mathematics and distributed computing. Akamai used this technology to create the world's largest distributed computing platform, which today delivers and secures tens of millions of requests per second to billions of users around the world. Dr. Leighton holds more than 50 patents involving content delivery, Internet protocols, algorithms for networks, cryptography and digital rights management. He and Akamai’s co-founder Danny Lewin were inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2017 for having “invented the methods needed to intelligently replicate and deliver content over a large network of distributed servers, technology that would ultimately solve what was becoming a frustrating problem for Internet users known as the ‘World Wide Wait.’”

In 2018, the Marconi Society selected him to receive the Marconi Prize for “his fundamental contributions to technology and the establishment of content delivery networks.” He is also a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineers, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Dr. Leighton has served on numerous government, industry and academic advisory panels. He was one of 18 CEOs invited to the White House in 2017 for the launch of the American Technology Council to develop solutions to modernize and secure the U.S. government’s IT systems.

From 2003 to 2005, he served on the President's Information Technology Advisory Committee and chaired its Subcommittee on Cybersecurity. He is also a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Dr. Leighton has been personally committed to increasing the pipeline of students pursuing STEM careers for over thirty years, first as a mathematics professor at MIT and now through his leadership at Akamai. He is a strong supporter of the Akamai Foundation, which promotes mathematics education, and he oversaw the creation of the Akamai Technical Academy, an innovative program developed in-house, aimed at training diverse non-technical professionals for technical careers.

He also supports numerous charitable organizations dedicated to improving STEM education and opportunities for K-12 students, including The Center for Excellence in Education, the Society for Science and the Public (sponsor of the Intel Science Search), The Mathematical Association of America (sponsor of the Math Olympiad), the Math Competition for Girls, and Girls Who Code. Dr. Leighton graduated summa cum laude from Princeton University in 1978 with a B.S.E. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. He received his Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics from MIT in 1981./

Rick McConnell is President of Akamai and General Manager of the Web Division. As General Manager, he is responsible for leading the Web Division’s core functions of engineering and product development, product management, sales, channels and product marketing. As President of Akamai, Mr. McConnell oversees several additional functions including corporate development, the company’s product lifecycle process and customer portal.

With over 25 years of product and business development expertise, Mr. McConnell has focused his career on the areas of Internet communications and collaboration technologies. Since joining Akamai in 2011, Mr. McConnell has been instrumental in managing and scaling the development, innovation, and productivity of Akamai's product divisions. Under his leadership, Akamai has released market-leading solutions in the areas of Web site and application acceleration, enterprise cloud, security, mobile performance, and media. Mr. McConnell is based in Akamai's Santa Clara, CA, office.

Prior to Akamai, Mr. McConnell served in a number of senior executive positions at Cisco Systems. Mr. McConnell was Vice President and General Manager of the Unified Communications Business Unit in Cisco's Voice Technology Group. His time at Cisco also includes having led strategy and operations for the company's $5 billion Communications and Collaboration business, and he served as Vice President, Collaboration Software Sales, responsible for global WebEx sales.

Mr. McConnell joined Cisco in 2004 when Cisco acquired Latitude Communications, a provider of fully integrated voice and Web conferencing solutions. He served as Latitude's President and Chief Executive Officer beginning in 2002, and prior to that was the company's President and Chief Operating Officer. Mr. McConnell holds a Bachelor of Arts in Quantitative Economics and a Master of Business Administration, both from Stanford University.

Ed McGowan is Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer. He oversees all finance functions for Akamai worldwide, where his responsibilities include directing the company's accounting, tax, treasury, financial planning and analysis, business finance and corporate services activities. His career with Akamai began in 2000.

Most recently, he was Senior Vice President, Finance, responsible for Business Finance, Customer Revenue Operations and FP&A, and for leading a corporate transformation project to drive increased levels of sustained, profitable growth. Prior to that, he served as Senior Vice President, Global Media & Carrier Sales. In addition to leading all aspects of the division’s sales, he developed the company’s strategic relationships with carriers around the globe, as well as coordinated carrier activity across Akamai's sales, networks, and product organizations. He has been instrumental in the development of many strategic alliances with major global carriers including AT&T, Telefonica, PLDT, Bell Canada, Telstra, Orange, and Singtel. Previously, he was Vice President of Corporate Development, and was instrumental in helping to establish Akamai's Carrier Products business in 2012, in addition to leading numerous mergers and acquisitions from 2005 to 2012.

His first role at Akamai was as Senior Director of Finance. He then took over Akamai's Sales Operations and helped create the company's first Business Operations Group. Before joining Akamai, he was Controller for iCast Corporation, a CMGI company. He started his career in Public Accounting working for Arthur Andersen's High Technology Practice and for PWC in their Transaction Services Group. Mr. McGowan is a Certified Public Accountant.

He holds a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from Providence College and a Certificate in Accountancy from Bentley College. He is also a graduate of the Greater Boston Executive Program at MIT’s Sloan School of Management.

Kim Salem-Jackson is a global marketing executive who has built her 20-plus-year career focused on the intersection of data, technology, and strategy. She has extensive experience in marketing and communications, specifically in the areas of demand generation, advanced analytics, digital marketing, data science, sales operations, public/analyst relations, and employee communications. Ms. Salem-Jackson is the Executive Vice President & Chief Marketing Officer at Akamai, where she leads

Akamai’s marketing efforts globally. Prior to Akamai, Ms. Salem-Jackson held several leadership roles at Informatica, most recently serving as Senior Vice President of Worldwide Marketing and Business Development with a focus on driving brand and demand for both the direct and indirect business. At Informatica, she also led pipeline management for the organization globally, using predictive analytics to ensure forecast accuracy was achieved each quarter. Preceding Informatica, Ms. Salem-Jackson held similar roles at Pegasystems and IONA Technologies (acquired by Progress Software and HoustonStreet Exchange). She began her career in public relations at KHJ Interactive.

Ms. Salem-Jackson earned a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism and Mass Communications from the University of South Carolina.