Executive Team

Harold Hughes, President and Chief Executive Officer

Harold Hughes joined Rambus after serving nearly two years on Rambus' Board of Directors. As CEO, Hughes provides the overall vision and operational leadership necessary to drive future growth for the company. Prior to joining Rambus, Mr. Hughes was the Chairman and CEO of Pandesic LLC, an Intel and SAP joint venture. He served as a United States Army Officer before starting his private sector career with Intel Corporation in 1974. Mr. Hughes held a variety of positions during his 23 years at Intel Corporation, including Treasurer, the head of Intel Capital, chief financial officer and the head of Planning and Logistics. Mr. Hughes holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Wisconsin and an MBA from the University of Michigan.

Kevin Donnelly, Senior Vice President, IP Strategy

Kevin Donnelly, senior vice president, IP strategy, leads the development of the Company's IP business strategies. Prior to this position, Mr. Donnelly served as senior vice president, Engineering, where he led future technology development for the Company's memory and logic interface products. Prior to that position, Mr. Donnelly served as vice-president, Logic Interface Division, where he led the development and deployment of logic interface products, including the Rambus family of serial link interfaces. Before joining Rambus, Mr. Donnelly held engineering positions at National Semiconductor, Sipex, and Memorex over an eight-year period. He holds a bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences from the University of California, Berkeley and a master's degree in Electrical Engineering from San Jose State University. Mr. Donnelly holds numerous patents in the area of high-speed clocking and I/O circuits.

Sharon Holt, Senior Vice President, Licensing and Marketing

Sharon Holt, senior vice president, Licensing and Marketing, is responsible for the Company's intellectual property business including strategic planning, business development and licensing of patented innovations and technology solutions to strategic customers and partners. Ms. Holt also oversees all the Company's marketing functions. Ms. Holt joined Rambus in 2004 after holding the position of vice president of Amercias Field Operations at Agilent Technologies where she ran sales and technical support operations for the semiconductor business in the Americas, including ASICs, ASSPs, optical components and wireless ICs. Prior to that, Ms. Holt ran sales operations focused on Agilent's large, global customers. These positions followed 13 years at HP where she managed applications engineering, sales, and distribution channels for HP's components business, as well as holding roles in business development, sales management and global accounts management for HP's ASIC business. Ms. Holt graduated from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University with a degree in electrical engineering.

Thomas Lavelle, Senior Vice President and General Counsel

Tom Lavelle, senior vice president and general counsel, is responsible for the overall legal direction of the Company, including securities, compliance, intellectual property, and litigation. Mr. Lavelle served as vice president and general counsel at Xilinx, one of the world’s leading suppliers of programmable chips, where he oversaw all legal matters. Mr. Lavelle joined Xilinx in 1999 after spending more than 15 years at Intel Corporation where he held various positions in the legal department. Mr. Lavelle earned his J.D. degree from Santa Clara University School of Law and his bachelor's degree from the University of California at Los Angeles.

Satish Rishi, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Satish Rishi joined Rambus as senior vice president of Finance and chief financial officer in April 2006. Mr. Rishi is responsible for the overall financial direction of the Company. Prior to joining Rambus, Mr. Rishi held the position of executive vice president of Finance and chief financial officer of Toppan Photomasks, Inc., one of the world’s leading photomask providers. During his 20-year career, Mr. Rishi has held senior financial management positions at semiconductor and electronic manufacturing companies. He served as vice president and assistant treasurer at Dell Inc. Prior to Dell, Mr. Rishi spent 13 years at Intel Corporation, where he held financial management positions both in the United States and overseas, including assistant treasurer. Mr. Rishi holds a bachelor’s degree with honors in Mechanical Engineering from Delhi University in Delhi, India and an MBA from the University of California at Berkeley's Haas School of Business.

Michael Schroeder, Vice President, Human Resources

Michael Schroeder joined Rambus in June 2004 as vice president of Human Resources. Mr. Schroeder is responsible for maintaining the open and collaborative culture at Rambus as well as leading the Company's efforts to implement compensation practices that align individual objectives with corporate goals. Prior to Rambus, Mr. Schroeder served as vice president of Human Resources for Digital Think and prior to that held various positions at Synopsys, Inc., most recently as vice president, Human Resources for Business Group Operations. Mr. Schroeder has also held human resources positions at Alphabox Corporation and Apple Computer. Mr. Schroeder attended the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee as a Russian Language major.

Martin Scott, Ph.D., Senior Vice President, RTD

Martin Scott, senior vice president, Research and Technology Development (RTD), is responsible for the development and deployment of Rambus’ high-speed architectures. Dr. Scott joined Rambus from PMC-Sierra where he was most recently Vice President and General Manager of its Microprocessor Division. While at PMC-Sierra, he was instrumental in managing the integration of the I/O Solutions Division acquired from Avago Technologies. Prior to PMC-Sierra, Dr. Scott was the Vice President and General Manager for I/O Solutions at Agilent Technologies. Dr. Scott started his career in 1981 as a member of the technical staff at Hewlett Packard Laboratories before holding various management positions at HP and being appointed ASIC Business Unit Manager in 1998. He earned his Bachelor’s degree at Rice University and holds both a Master’s degree and Ph.D. from Stanford University.

Laura Stark, Senior Vice President, Corporate Development

Ms. Stark joined Rambus in 1996 as strategic accounts manager, and held the positions of strategic accounts director and vice president, Alliances and Infrastructure, before assuming the position of vice president, Memory Interface Division in October 2000, which she held until February 2005 when she was appointed to head up the Company’s Platform Solutions Group. In May 2008, she was appointed to her current position. Prior to joining Rambus, Ms. Stark held various positions in the semiconductor products division of Motorola during a six-year tenure, including technical sales engineer for the Apple sales team and field application engineer for the Sun and SGI sales teams. Ms. Stark holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.