KDS Board

KDS Board is composed of Yves Weisselberger, KDS CEO; Samir Khanfir, Klee CEO; Thibaud Viala, Klee GM; Alex Ott and the Company Carlson Wagonlit Travel. Board members provide KDS with strategic guidance. Partners from two major venture capitalist firm have joined our board in 2005 (see there video).

Harry Nelis

He has been involved in technology startups and large technology companies in Europe and the U.S.A. for almost 15 years.Prior to joining Accel, Harry was at Perry Capital, an $8bn hedge fund, where he focused on investments in public technology companies. Prior to that, he was a member of Goldman Sachs’ London-based technology investment banking team, advising leading European technology companies on corporate finance and M&A transactions, including IPOs, mergers, acquisitions, divestitures and LBOs.

Before joining Goldman Sachs, Harry spent almost a decade in Silicon Valley. He was the technical founder of Palo Alto-based E-motion, a venture-backed startup focused on digital asset management software, and served in a number of roles, including President and VP of Engineering. Harry also worked at Hewlett-Packard in Palo Alto for 3 years, where he held engineering positions in the company’s central R&D laboratory and workstation division.

Harry holds an MS and PhD in Electrical Engineering from Delft University of Technology in The Netherlands and an MBA with distinction from Harvard Business School. While working towards his PhD he was a visiting scientist at the Information Systems Laboratory at Stanford University. Harry is fluent in Dutch and has working knowledge of German and French.

Fred Destin

He joined Atlas in 2004 and is a Partner on the technology team. He focuses on emerging businesses in the software and services markets. He currently represents Atlas on the Boards of RealEyes3D and KDS International. Prior to joining Atlas, Fred managed Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein's OM Technology Investments Fund where he focused on infrastructure software. He worked closely with management teams in the US and in Europe as Director of Inxight Software, Kasenna Inc and Vordel Ltd, among others.

Previously, Fred served as Venture Manager at Speed Ventures, a seed stage technology investor funded by Permira Ventures and Soros Partners. He was also an Executive Director at Goldman Sachs in London, and has further experience with Zurich Capital Markets and J.P. Morgan. Fred holds a Masters in Financial Engineering from the University of Brussels (Solvay).

Carlson Wagonlit Travel

Carlson Wagonlit Travel (CWT) is a global leader specializing in business travel management. Present in more than 150 countries, CWT serves companies of all sizes, as well as government insititutions and non-governmental organizations. By leveraging both the expertise of its people and leading-edge technology, CWT helps clients derive the greatest value from their travel program in terms of savings, service and security, and provides best-in-class service and assistance to travelers.

Alex Ott

Alex is a veteran in the enterprise software industry with over 17 years of experience on four continents.

Before founding CrossContinentalVentures, Alex was a member of the Executive Committee of Siebel Systems, where he was initially responsible for building a major presence in EMEA as VP and General Manager. In just over two years, Siebel was able to achieve market leadership in CRM and e-business in over 18 countries in EMEA, growing revenues, customer and employee base tenfold.

After EMEA, Alex came back to the US to run the Americas geography, Siebel Systems’ largest market with revenue responsibilities of over $1B.

Prior to Siebel Systems, Alex has played key executive roles within SAP AG (member of the extended global board) and SAP America (Executive Committee member) for almost a decade. In a number of executive positions he was instrumental in founding the SAP Global Partner Program, developing the concept behind and managing the complementary software program and the surrounding ecosystems (believed to be a >$25B market today), and running global marketing and business development programs. Latterly he held the position of CEO SAP International and Senior VP of Latin America, significantly growing revenue and profitability through a sustained increase in SAP's Latin American infrastructure and the establishment of new subsidiaries.

Alex holds a degree in Economics and Business Management from University BA of Mannheim, Germany. He is an accomplished speaker and has presented at many events. In addition he lectures periodically at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania on topics such as 'building high growth ecosystems around hi-tech companies'.