Axentra’s Executive team and founding partners are seasoned industry professionals who are committed to delivering state-of-the-art computer and communications convergence solutions.
- Marc-Antoine Benglia
President and Chief Executive Officer
Marc-Antoine Benglia is co-founder, President and Chief Executive Officer of Axentra Corporation. Before joining Axentra’s Executive team in the spring of 2003, Marc-Antoine served as Chairman and President of Hemera Technologies Inc., a leading digital image content provider and digital image management tools developer he co-founded in 1997. During his tenure at Hemera, Marc-Antoine established one of the largest collections of digital images in the world, amassing more than 1.5 million digital image files sold through web, catalog and retail channels worldwide.
Prior to co-founding Hemera, Marc-Antoine occupied a managerial position in the European Public Relations Department of Corel Corporation and served as Director of Sales and Marketing at G&A Imaging Ltd., a developer of business-to-business software.
Marc-Antoine actively participates on the boards of several Canadian high technology companies and not-for-profit organizations.
A Harvard Business School OPM graduate (Harvard University, Boston, Mass), Marc-Antoine also holds a Masters Degree in International Affairs from the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs (Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada), and a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from Université Laval (Québec, Canada).
- Eric Lefebvre
Co-founder and Executive Vice President of Business Development
Eric Lefebvre is Executive Vice President of Business Development for Axentra and has over fifteen years of experience in strategic business and marketing. Before joining Axentra, Eric held several management positions at Mainsoft, GraphOn and Corel Corporation. At Mainsoft, Eric was Vice President of Business Development responsible for strategic development and partnerships with key players such as Microsoft, Compaq/HP and Computer Associates. At GraphOn Corp, Eric was also an executive of the company as Vice President of Business Development and Sales and contributed to a successful IPO. Eric also developed the European and Asian market and established a joint venture in Hong Kong to serve the Chinese market. At Corel, Eric was Director of Strategic Business and marketed new technologies and products with partners as well managing key alliances such as Compaq and Nortel.
Eric was also a business consultant to small firms to assist in the design of the market strategy, product roadmap, developing sales channels and ecommerce.
Eric has a Bachelor Degree from Maryland University and a Masters of International Affairs from the Norman Patterson School of International Affairs. The focus of his thesis was on conflict resolution and negotiations.
- Mark Francischiello
Vice President, North American Business Development and Sales
Mark Francischiello is Axentra’s Vice President of North American Business Development and Sales, developing HipServ’s strategic relationships that will contribute to accelerated revenue growth. Mark has more than fifteen years of diversified sales and sales management experience in the software industry, with a successful track record of rapid, profitable revenue growth in startup based companies.
Prior to joining Axentra, Mark was Director of Sales at GraphOn Corporation, a technology leader in server-based computing software, where he contributed to a successful IPO and was responsible for North America sales and business development activities to increase corporate, channel and OEM sales. Prior to GraphOn, Mark served as Director of Channel Sales at Dr. Solomon’s Software, acquired by Network Associate, where he helped the organization achieve consecutive quarterly revenue growth. Mark’s experience also includes several years at Logicraft Information Systems, acquired by Microtest/HIS, a manufacturer of the first multimedia network storage solution for enterprise networks. Mark holds a dual bachelor’s degree in Computer Science and Mathematics from Keene State College in New Hampshire.
- Mostafa Hosseini
Chief Architect
Mostafa Hosseini is Chief Architect at Axentra Corporation overseeing the architecture of the HipServ software ecosystem and coordinating the integration of the broad range of underlying open-source and proprietary technologies that power HipServ as well as the deployment of the HipServ Software on various hardware platforms and architectures. Mostafa has been with Axentra since 2001 and has contributed to many aspects of the intellectual property of the company. He has experience in a wide range of software deployments from his past work, including telecommunication, software protection, software for embedded devices and simulation.
Mostafa has a bachelor of science in Electronic Engineering from Sharif University of Technology, Tehran.
- Peter Poulsen
Director of Technical Operations
As Director of Technical Operations at Axentra Corporation, Peter Poulsen is responsible for Quality Assurance, Release Management, Technical Operations, and Project Management of the HipServ software. With over 18 years of experience in hardware/software testing, Peter oversees the daily technical operations within R&D to ensure that all Axentra products are released on time and with the highest quality.
Prior to joining Axentra in 2007, Peter held management positions in the software arena including Manager for QA/QC Build Engineering and Web Development at Cognos (IBM) and Manager of Quality Control for the CorelDraw Suite at Corel.
Peter studied at the University of Ottawa in Sciences and at the University of Grenoble in French studies.
