Our Team
Virtana is the hybrid IT infrastructure management leader, delivering the deepest observability platform to ensure availability, efficiency, and resiliency across complex environments.
Executive Leadership
Paul Appleby, CEO – LinkedIn
Paul Appleby is President and Chief Executive Officer at Virtana, the leader in hybrid, full-stack infrastructure observability. His expertise in scaling high-growth businesses fuels Virtana’s mission to advance observability for AI-powered and hybrid IT environments, establishing the company as a trusted partner to Global 2000 enterprises. A seasoned technology executive, Paul has a proven track record of building high-performing teams and driving profitable growth across AI factories, IT infrastructure, cloud platforms, and enterprise applications at some of the industry’s most respected companies.
Prior to joining Virtana, Paul held leadership roles at Elastic, SAP, Salesforce, and BMC, where he led customer-focused teams and shaped successful growth strategies.
Paul splits his time between San Francisco and New York, where he enjoys spending time with his two college-aged children. He serves on the board of the John Maclean Foundation and is an avid surfer, skier, and cyclist.
Connect with Paul for real-time industry insight on LinkedIn
Kate FitzGerald, CRO – LinkedIn
Kate FitzGerald brings over 30 years of senior leadership experience in the Enterprise software industry to Virtana. As the Chief Revenue Officer, Kate is responsible for driving revenue growth and leading global business initiatives. She has a distinguished career, having held key positions at industry giants such as Elastic, Leanplum, Marketo, Oracle, and Salesforce.
Kate’s expertise lies in building and leading world-class revenue generation teams, fostering a consistent winning culture, and achieving significant business growth. Her deep understanding of the B2B enterprise technology landscape, combined with her experience with 10 different startups, uniquely positions her to drive Virtana’s expansion and innovation.
Known for her strategic vision and operational excellence, Kate is dedicated to fostering a positive and high-performance culture. Her leadership is instrumental as Virtana accelerates its mission to deliver cutting-edge AI-powered monitoring and observability solutions for hybrid cloud environments.
Connect with Kate for real-time industry insight on LinkedIn
Anne Samak de la Cerda, CFO – LinkedIn
Anne Samak de la Cerda brings over two decades of international strategy and finance leadership to Virtana as Chief Financial Officer. As CFO, Anne oversees financial operations, business growth, and financial strategies.
Anne is a partner at FLG Partners and has worked as a consulting CFO for startups in sectors like B2B SaaS, Edtech and medical devices, advising on business planning, fundraising, and cash management. Additionally, she held CFO titles at Yohana, Platform.sh, Textio, Springboard, Anki, Withings/Nokia Technologies, and LeGuide.com, helping scale growth, secure capital, and lead mergers and acquisitions. Previously, Anne spent ten years in strategy and business planning at PwC in London and Vivendi Group in Paris.
Fluent in French, Spanish, and German, she brings a global perspective to her work. Known for her mentoring and team building, Anne is instrumental in driving Virtana’s operational excellence as it expands its AI-powered monitoring solutions for hybrid cloud environments. Anne holds a master’s degree from ESCP and completed INSEAD’s Transition to General Management program.
Amit Rathi, SVP Product and Engineering – LinkedIn
Amit Rathi is Vice President of Engineering at Virtana. He leads all aspects of development, testing, devops, support and cloud operations for Virtana’s products. Amit brings a strong software engineering, customer-centric background and 20+ years of experience in Virtana’s specific Information Technology Operations Management (ITOM) domain. Amit recently spent 12 years at BMC Software, building enterprise on-premises and SaaS projects, delivering customer-centric product experiences and developing high-quality products.
Throughout his career, Amit has been responsible for transforming legacy products into high-quality solutions that deliver outcomes for customers. He has built new SaaS services from scratch, and designed and created scalable architecture for enterprise solutions.
Leslie Maher, SVP Strategic Alliances – LinkedIn
Leslie brings 20+ years of sales and general management experience, delivering data center infrastructure and as-a-service hybrid cloud solutions. As Vice President of Worldwide Channels & Alliances at Virtana, she manages all partner routes to market, including Resellers, Solution Providers, MSPs, Systems Integrations, Distribution, OEM, and Strategic Alliances.
Leslie has held senior leadership positions at top technology companies, including Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), Cisco, and Sun – entrusted with multi-billion-dollar businesses and large organizations. Her diverse background includes leading large enterprise sales, specialized product sales, inside sales and SMB, channels and alliances, and product category management. In her latest role as VP of North America Channel & Ecosystem at HPE, Leslie was recognized by CRN as one of 50 Most Influential Channel Chiefs and 100 Most Powerful Women of the Channel.
Leslie received her Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from the University of New Hampshire and her Master of Science in Computer Science from Boston University. She is a lifelong Boston area resident who recently migrated south, making Florida her new home.
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