Synacor, a provider of Web portal and TV Everywhere solutions, has hired Steve Davi -- a 15-year veteran of SeaChange International who most recently served as chief technology officer -- as senior vice president of software engineering.
Davi originally joined SeaChange in November 1997 and was appointed CTO in March. At the company he served in various roles including senior vice president of advanced technologies, where he was responsible for the company's overall software technology architecture.
Buffalo, N.Y.-based Synacor’s largest four customers are Charter, CenturyLink, Toshiba America Information Systems and Verizon Communications. Its Web portal products provide consumers with centralized access to email, TV Everywhere services, news, games and other services, and the company’s TVE products provide user authentication between programmer services and operator systems.
Davi officially started at Synacor on Nov. 19.
"We are excited to have Steve Davi, an accomplished software engineer and respected team leader, join Synacor as we continue expanding the multiscreen environment for pay-TV providers, increasing subscriber engagement and presenting new revenue opportunities and growth internationally," Synacor chief operating officer Scott Bailey said in announcing the appointment.
Davi, in a statement, said that "Synacor has quickly emerged as the leader in innovating next-gen start pages, TV Everywhere, cloud services and identity management, and I'm thrilled to have the opportunity to work with Synacor's world-class team of engineers, developers, and product managers during this breakthrough era in multidevice engagement."
SeaChange, asked about Davi's departure, said chief architect Sam Ganesan is now overseeing the global video platform business with Davi's departure. The company said its senior management "enacted a strategy last quarter to eliminate the position of a dedicated CTO." Instead, the heads of each of its three business units (platform, in-home and advertising) will function as the CTO of their respective groups.
"Having already vetted several excellent candidates from the video industry, the company fully anticipates announcing an appointment of a general manager for platform technologies shortly," SeaChange spokesman Jim Sheehan said in an email.
As CTO at SeaChange, Davi led the development of several video-on-demand, content management, multiscreen video, search and social media products, including SeaChange's AssetFlow and Adrenalin platforms. Earlier, he worked on the company’s first VOD product and VOD advertising deployment.
Before joining SeaChange, Davi spent seven years at Banyan Systems, a network operating system software company that specialized in enterprise scale directory and messaging products. Prior to Banyan, he worked in the networking division of Data General from 1985 to 1990.
