Rob Woodward
President & Chief Executive Officer
Mr. Woodward has over 32 years experience in software engineering, hands-on development and consulting spanning product R&D, applications development, and advanced enterprise systems deployment in several vertical industries including Financial Systems, Hospitality, Manufacturing, Health Care, and Biotechnology.
Recognized as a senior technology executive and consultant, Mr. Woodward is a member of the Chairman’s League of ARDA, is a national speaker on strategic use of technology, and has served as the CTO of several client and partnering companies to assist with specific product development efforts.
He holds a Bachelors degree in Neurobiology from the University of California Riverside and Masters degrees from USC and Pepperdine in Systems Management and Clinical Research Methodology/Statistics. Mr. Woodward is a charter member of the prestigious Carnegie Mellon Software Engineering Institute’s program in Software Process Maturity, serving as a traveling national consultant for Carnegie Mellon’s software auditing council for over 5 years. In addition, Mr. Woodward has held seats on several national level technology boards including InfoTest, the nation’s leading Internet Commerce Consortium and has served as the national technology committee lead for Reserve Preparers for the nation’s largest community management trade association; CAI.
Uday Sawhney
Chief Financial Officer
Mr. Sawhney is the Chief Financial Officer and Senior Business Strategist for Katana Software working closely with Rob Woodward to determine and manage all Katana financial, legal, and business partnerships. In addition to his role as a key financial executive and strategist for Katana, Mr. Sawhney brings 30+ years of cross-industry business acumen and specific advisory talent at the senior executive and company leadership level.
Melissa Gordon
Chief Operating Officer
The Katana Team is led by COO Melissa Gordon. She works closely with the CEO and CFO to support strategic initiatives, and evolving business needs; provides leadership in product development and customer management, and has direct oversight of all of Development and Operations. She also architects the Opsgard (operations consulting) and customer business intelligence activities.
She has extensive experience and expertise with mission-critical, and high-budget, technology initiatives ranging from complex requirements definition to custom application development and process initiatives to big data projects. Ms. Gordon brings considerable strengths in data modeling, mapping, design, and informatics, which are leveraged to bring our clients access to cutting-edge analytics capabilities.
For the last ten years, Melissa has worked in IT leadership, consulting, and business intelligence, serving industries such as news media, construction, litigation, real estate, title, insurance, timeshare, hospitality, mortgage, and financial/banking.
Ms. Gordon holds a Master’s Degree in Business Administration – Technology Management, from the University of Phoenix, as well as a Bachelor’s of Science in Human Factors from the University of California, at Davis, and several industry certifications including Certified Project Management Professional (PMP), Certified Scrum Master, and Six Sigma.
She has also served as a Board Member and leader in a variety of non-profit/volunteer settings, and as a moderator/speaker at ARDA. Sheis a two-time ARDA Awards Program Finalist for Technology Project Manager of the Year, and is a founding member of ARDA’s SoCal Timeshare Industry Young Professionals (TIYP).