Pontus Management Team
The Pontus vision is driven by a unique combination of corporate legal professionals, experienced entrepreneurs, senior technologists and process engineers.
Christian Misvaer
Mr. Misvaer has been Co-Founder and Managing Director of Pontus since its founding in 2005. Prior to Pontus, from 1998 until 2005, Mr. Misvaer held various leadership roles including as General Counsel of 2 public companies traded on the NASDAQ - Intelligroup, Inc. and Firepond, Inc. In each case he was responsible for building and managing worldwide legal operations across US, Europe and Asia. In these roles he developed cohesive processes across disparate teams and utilized technology to integrate the practices, significantly reducing costs while increasing the capabilities of the departments. His legacy was to seamlessly integrate the legal departments with the overall business, enabling the departments to take on greater strategic roles in the organizations. In addition, Mr. Misvaer has served in non-legal roles including as Secretary to the Board of both companies indicated above as well as serving as the Vice President of a $15m+ business unit at Firepond where he was responsible for software sales, professional services and account management across US and Europe. Mr. Misvaer is a licensed attorney, holding a Juris Doctor degree, and also holds degrees in International Relations and History.
Praful Saklani
Mr. Saklani has been Co-Founder and Managing Director of Pontus since its founding in 2005. A management veteran of 3 different startup companies, Mr. Saklani brings a strong track record of entrepreneurial success and management experience to Pontus. His biggest success was as a founder and, later, Chief Executive Officer of Yatra Corporation where he focused on using artificial intelligence techniques and internet technology to optimize travel management processes at large corporations. He was instrumental in guiding Yatra from idea to reality, raising venture funding and culminating with the successful acquisition of Yatra in 2002. Prior to Yatra, Mr. Saklani was Co-Founder and Managing Partner of the consulting firm Invotech Systems from 1995 to 1998, where he was responsible for developing Invotech’s Groupware and Intranet practice, working with Fortune 100 companies to introduce and implement collaborative technologies. Following Yatra, Mr. Saklani focused on social causes, serving as a key executive with WaterHealth International, an IFC and UC-Berkeley supported social start-up focused on bringing affordable drinking water purification solutions to developing countries. Mr. Saklani is a graduate of Swarthmore College, where he received High Honors in Economics and Political Science.
David Bax
Mr. Bax is a Director of Customer Operations with Pontus, bringing law practice and management consulting experience to the organization. Before coming to Pontus, Mr. Bax was a Managing Senior Vice President for MSA/Clark Consulting, a top 20 consulting firm and a national leader in change management and human capital consulting for hospitals and health systems. Mr. Bax has personally worked with 175 legal and executive teams on a variety of enterprise projects. His primary consulting activities related to developing, implementing and managing legal and organizational effectiveness strategies in crisis and proactive situations. While at MSA/Clark he initiated and led the development of an enterprise wide decision-making process, applying a technology solution with management teams to make more confident, efficient and immediate business decisions. Mr. Bax has also managed various complex legal matters while representing the Resolution Trust Corporation during the bailout of the U.S. savings and loan industry in the early 1990's. He graduated from the University of Texas with a Bachelor's of Business Administration degree in Finance. He earned his Juris Doctorate from the University of Kansas and is admitted to practice in the states of Kansas and Missouri. He is a frequent speaker at national, regional and state professional associations on a variety of legal and leadership issues.
David Munn
David Munn is a Director of Customer Operations and the General Counsel of Pontus. He joined Pontus after nearly seven years with the legal department at Fair Isaac Corporation, a business-intelligence and enterprise-decision-management software company, where he had responsibility for sales contracting and licensing, as well as overall legal affairs for the company's consumer division. Mr. Munn also headed up many of the department's technology and process improvement initiatives, helping to significantly improve the company's sales contracting processes. Prior to that Mr. Munn spent nine years as general counsel for Pella Corporation, a leading building-products manufacturer. Mr. Munn has a longstanding interest in how technology and process improvement techniques can be applied to the practice of law, and is a frequent speaker and writer on those topics. He is an active member of the ACC, the Association of Corporate Counsel, and the IACCM, the International Association for Contract and Commercial Management. He is a graduate of Yale Law School and has a degree in mechanical engineering from Iowa State University.
GP Ravikumar
Mr. Ravi joined Pontus as its Director of India Operations in early 2008. Prior to Pontus, he was the Head of Operations at finEye Software since its launch in 2004. Mr. Ravi has worked as the India Program Manager at Sun Microsystems, as COO of BTI and also as the VP-Operations at Srujana Technology (now Globaledge Software). With a keen interest in Education, Mr. Ravi also co-founded and managed a residential school near Bangalore for many years. He holds an M.S. in Computer Science from North Carolina State University and an M.Sc. in Statistics from Bangalore University.
Rajesh Varma
Mr. Varma is the Director of Product Engineering and is responsible for the architecture and development of the Pontus Technology Platform and Products. A technologist by passion, Mr. Varma has over 13 years of extensive experience in enterprise software engineering and product development. Prior to joining Pontus, Mr. Varma was a senior technologist at Business Objects, where he was responsible for managing the achitecture and development of enterprise analytics software solutions. In addition to Business Objects, Mr. Varma has also held various technology positions in Citibank, LG Electronics, Disclosure, PSINet and comScore Networks, and has successfully led software development efforts in the US, Europe, India, and South Korea. Mr. Varma holds an Engineering Degree in Computer Science and Engineering from Bangalore University. His interests include designing and developing highly scalable distributed applications, dabbling in digital electronics, and photography.
