Chairperson of the Board
Gleb Budman is one of our co-founders and has served as our Chief Executive Officer since 2007. Mr. Budman has also served as a member of our Board of Directors since 2009 and Chairperson since January 2021. Prior to Backblaze, Mr. Budman served in various senior roles at SonicWall, Inc., MailFrontier, Inc. (acquired by SonicWall, Inc.) and Kendara, Inc. (acquired by Excite@Home, Inc.). Mr. Budman also previously founded two other startup companies. Mr. Budman earned a M.B.A. and B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley. We believe that Mr. Budman is qualified to serve as a member of our Board of Directors because of his extensive experience in leadership roles at various technology companies, and the continuity that he brings to our Board of Directors as our co-founder and Chief Executive Officer.
Jocelyn Carter-Miller has served as a member of our Board of Directors since October 2020 and our Lead Independent Director since January 2021. Since August 2005, Ms. Carter-Miller has been President of TechEdVentures, Inc., an educational company, and SoulTranSync, LLC, an audio wave synchronization technology and meditation company. From February 2002 to March 2004, Ms. Carter-Miller was the Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer of Office Depot, Inc. and from 1999 until 2002, she was the Corporate Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer of Motorola, Inc. Ms. Carter-Miller has served on the board of directors of public companies for over 19 years, including the Principal Financial Group, Inc. since September 2001, Interpublic Group since July 2007, and Arlo Technologies, Inc. since August 2018. From 2009 until August 2018, Ms. Carter-Miller also served as a member of the board of directors of Netgear, Inc. Ms. Carter-Miller earned her M.B.A. from the University of Chicago and B.S. in Accounting from the University of Illinois.
Director
Barbara Nelson has served as a member of our Board of Directors since October 2020. Ms. Nelson has also served as a board member for GSI Technology, Inc., a publicly traded semiconductor and SaaS company, since August 2021, and Omniscient Technology (o8t), a private company pioneering AI applied to brain connectivity, since October 2022. Ms. Nelson was the Vice President of Cloud Services, Software and Strategy of Western Digital Corporation, a hard disk drive manufacturer and data storage company, from May 2017 to April 2020. Prior to Western Digital Corporation, Ms. Nelson served as the General Manager and Executive Vice President of IronKey Mobile Security at Imation Corporation from 2013 to 2016. From July 2008 to March 2010, Ms. Nelson was the Chief Executive Officer and a member of the board of directors of Element Labs, a private company and from October 2003 to December 2007, she was the Chief Executive Officer and Chairperson of the board of directors of NeoScale Systems, a private company. Ms. Nelson earned her B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University.
Director
Evelyn D’An has served as a member of our Board of Directors since August 2021. Ms. D’An currently serves as a member of the board of directors of Summer Infant, Inc., a NASDAQ-listed manufacturer of infant and juvenile products. Ms. D’An is the President of D’An Financial Services, a strategic consulting firm she established in 2004. Ms. D’An is also a former partner of Ernst & Young, where she spent 18 years serving clients in retail, consumer products, technology, financial services, media and other sectors. She graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Accounting from the State University of Albany.
Director
Earl E. Fry has served as a member of our Board of Directors since August 2021. Mr. Fry currently serves as a member of the board of directors of Hawaiian Airlines and has served as the chair of the audit and finance Committee since May 2016. From December 1999 to August 2015, Mr. Fry served in various capacities at Informatica Corporation, an enterprise data integration software company, including Chief Financial Officer, Chief Administrative Officer, Chief Customer Officer and Executive Vice President, Operations Strategy. Mr. Fry has also served on the board of directors of Central Pacific Financial Corp. since April 2005 and is a member of the audit committee of Central Pacific Financial Corp., which he chaired from 2006 to 2020. Mr. Fry served on the board of directors of Xactly Corporation from September 2005 to August 2017. Mr. Fry received a B.B.A. in Accounting from the University of Hawai’i and has an M.B.A. from the Stanford University Graduate School of Business.