Parallels is led by a proven team of seasoned executives, successful entrepreneurs and world-class software engineers who have proven track records in growing and managing global software companies.

Birger Steen

Mr. Steen joined Parallels in 2010. As CEO, he is responsible for all day-to-day execution, including engineering, sales, partner relationships, support, marketing, and deployment services. Prior to joining Parallels, Mr. Steen was VP of Small and Medium Business and Distribution at Microsoft. He started his Microsoft career in 2002 as General Manager of Norway and then moved on to serve as General Manager and VP of Microsoft Russia. During his tenure there, Microsoft’s revenues from Russia grew tenfold. Before Microsoft, Mr. Steen was CEO of Scandinavia Online AB, which was listed on the Stockholm and Oslo Stock Exchanges in 2000 under his leadership. He has also held positions at Norwegian Oil Trading, McKinsey & Company, Schibsted ASA and Eniro AB. He holds a Master of Science in Computer Science and Industrial Engineering from the Norwegian Institute of Technology in Trondheim and earned his M.B.A. from INSEAD in France.

Serguei Beloussov

Mr. Beloussov is a founder of Parallels and was formerly its CEO. He is a successful self-made serial entrepreneur and business executive with an outstanding 15+ year track record in building, growing, and leading high-performing, multi-national, high-tech companies in North America, Europe, and Asia. Under Mr. Beloussov’s leadership, Parallels quickly grew to profitability and top market positions in its desktop virtualization, OS containers, and control panel offerings. Mr. Beloussov holds a B.S. in Physics, an M.S. in Physics and Electrical Engineering with High Honors, and a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology.

Dave Arkley

Prior to joining Parallels, Dave was CFO of Itron, Inc’s $1B+ international organization, overseeing financial and business operations serving customers in over 130 countries around the world.  Dave served in a variety of roles within Itron, including as CFO of Itron North America, where he was critical in positioning the domestic business to grow to $1B+ in revenue, and as VP of M&A where he led the $1.7B acquisition of Actaris Metering Systems.  During his tenure with Itron, Dave played a key role in helping grow the company from $300M to $2B+ in revenue.  Dave joined Itron in 2003 with the acquisition of Silicon Energy, a privately held energy software company, where he was VP of Finance.  Prior to Silicon Energy, he was with OnDisplay. Inc., through their IPO and subsequent $1.7B sale to Vignette Corporation. David holds a Bachelor of Science in Finance from Arizona State University.

Stanislav Protassov

Mr. Protassov currently manages and runs the research and development teams at Parallels. Previously, Mr. Protassov managed several engineering projects for Parallels involving leading software and operating platforms such as Cassandra, an option risk management software, Solomon IV, BeOS, and Pervasive. In 2000, he led the development of ASPLinux, a version of the Linux OS which is now shipped in three editions in ten countries. He brought to Parallels many years of relevant experience in software engineering in a wide range of development environments such as Windows, Novell Netware, and UNIX. He holds a B.Sc. in Computer Science and a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology.

Jack Zubarev

Mr. Zubarev is a founder and President of Parallels. Since the company’s founding, he has held multiple leadership roles within the company, including running the Marketing and Alliances teams, COO, Division President, sales engineering, product marketing, and business development. Mr. Zubarev has been instrumental in building the company from its start to today with more than 800 employees. Mr. Zubarev was also a founder of Acronis and helped establish the storage management company’s sales and marketing organizations in the USA. Previously, he handled product marketing for Pervasive Software and brought its first Linux product to market. Mr. Zubarev holds a degree in Computer Science and Mathematics from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology and an M.B.A. from the University of San Francisco.

Michael Toutonghi

Prior to joining Parallels Michael was one of a select group of only 22 Technical Fellows at Microsoft Corporation recognized as being instrumental in developing and driving technical strategies for Microsoft and the technology industry. Michael was also founder and CTO of Web5 in addition to his 20+ years at Microsoft. Michael will serve Parallels as its technical visionary and evangelist, driving alignment across the entire cloud automation product line and guiding engineering efforts throughout the company. He will focus on making Parallels Automation the platform of choice for medium and large service providers, while identifying next-generation features and functionality. He will work closely with the CEO, SVP of Engineering and board of directors and executives across the company to ensure technical strategy aligns with Parallels’ broader vision and customer requirements. Michael is inventor or co-inventor of 19 issued patents and brings a deep technology background to Parallels.

Jim Herman

Mr. Herman is responsible for leading the worldwide sales organizations at Parallels. Prior to Parallels he had an eleven year tenure with Symantec, where he served in a number of leadership roles in sales, OEM, and business development. Most recently Mr. Herman served as the VP of Sales for the End-Point Management business unit. In addition to his career at Symantec, he has also made significant leadership contributions with technology pioneers NCR and Informix Software, driving results in the areas of sales and business development. Mr. Herman holds a Bachelor of Science degree from the Evergreen State College.

Mauro Meanti

Mauro leads the sales, marketing, and alliances organizations for the Service Provider business. Previously, he was Vice President for Business Strategy at Microsoft International, capping a 23-year career at the software giant, where he held a mix of roles including General Manager (GM) of the Italian subsidiary; GM of the Server & Tools Business Group for Microsoft Europe, Middle East and Africa; GM for Business and Marketing for Central and Eastern Europe; and Chief Operating Officer for the Russian subsidiary. Mauro started his career as a software programmer at Olivetti. He holds a degree in Applied Mathematics from the University of Milan.

Christopher McLaughlin-Brooks

Mr. McLaughlin-Brooks leads Parallels’ worldwide IT organization, including the strategic design and deployment of the company's enterprise applications, internal client support, technology infrastructure, and IT governance. Mr. McLaughlin-Brooks is a 20-year veteran of the technology and retail services sectors and brings a strong track record to Parallels. Prior to joining Parallels, Mr. McLaughlin-Brooks most recently served in senior IT leadership roles for Yahoo and Access Systems Inc., and before that, held senior-level positions at Business Objects, a leading provider of Business Intelligence Software. During Mr. McLaughlin-Brooks’ time at Business Objects he ran global infrastructure and global applications. He holds two bachelor's degrees in Computer Science & Foreign Language from the University of London.

Michael Erisman

Mr. Erisman joined Parallels in October of 2010 and leads the global Human Resources organization in developing and implementing strategy and processes that enable Parallels’ to attract, retain and engage our talent, and drive people centered business decision making. He leads compensation, benefits, staffing, immigration and other HR functions, to ensure Parallels has the right culture, talent and leadership systems in place to allow for sustained business growth. Mr. Erisman was previously the Senior Director of Human Resources, Global Marketing at Microsoft Corporation, based in Redmond, WA., and led a team of generalists and specialists that drove the HR agenda across the worldwide marketing function. Michael also previously held senior HR roles for General Electric, PepsiCo, KRONE, Qwest and H&R Block. Michael graduated with BA in Psychology from Seattle Pacific University and an MA in Industrial/ Organizational Psychology from Radford University.

Ken McGraw

Mr. McGraw leads Parallels’ corporate legal organization. Ken’s experience includes roles at several multinational high-technology companies, whose businesses focused on enterprise software (GC at Visio, acquired by Microsoft), e commerce, wireless telecommunications (GC at WatchMark, acquired by IBM), digital media, and software-as-a-service, and practicing law at Perkins Coie, a top tier international law firm based in Seattle. Ken’s background includes significant corporate transactions (including initial public offerings and mergers and acquisitions), corporate governance (and advising boards of directors), intellectual property licensing and protection strategies, compliance and data security, government and industry affairs, human resources matters, and complex commercial agreements. He is also a Certified Information Privacy Professional. Ken received his BA (Political Science) and his BS (Engineering), magna cum laude, from Brown University, his J.D. (law) from the Cornell Law School and his M.B.A. (finance) from the Johnson Graduate School of Management at Cornell University.

Kellie Green

Ms. Green is responsible for leading the worldwide customer support organization at Parallels. Kellie brings 16 years of customer support experience. Her experience includes 9 years at Microsoft in various support management positions. Kellie also worked overseas in India and in the Philippines for long-term expat assignments managing outsourced support organizations. Most recently, she spent 3 years at Monster.com helping to lead the transition of outsourced support into a new Monster-operated contact center in the US and centralizing support for Europe into the Czech Republic. Ms. Green holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Business Administration from the University of Washington.

John Zanni

Mr. Zanni oversees the company's global service provider marketing function, spanning the full service provider channel.  He leads integrated marketing communications through partner marketing, advertising, public relations, events, and relationship marketing including developing partnerships with leading technology companies to enable hosting service providers using Parallels solutions to quickly create profitable Cloud services that meet the diverse needs of their end customers. Prior to joining Parallels, Mr. Zanni was general manager of the Worldwide Software plus Services Industry team for the Communications Sector at Microsoft.  Earlier in his career,  Mr. Zanni helped design and create the object model for Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.0, and then went on to create and manage the Office web site (http://office.microsoft.com/), which has become one of the top web sites worldwide. Prior to Microsoft, Mr. Zanni spent 12 years running a small business. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Mathematical Physics from California State University Northridge.

Kim Johnston

Ms. Johnston is the Vice President of Marketing for the Desktop Virtualization and Mac product lines. She is responsible for driving awareness and demand for the market leading consumer desktop virtualization product and for the entire business product portfolio selling into small, medium and enterprise businesses. She also holds the role of the leader of centralized marketing over brand, web and overall marketing operations. Prior to joining Parallels, Ms. Johnston was Vice President of Sales and Marketing Operations at Symantec Corporation where her primary directive was to enable the organization to increase productivity, extend the brand and exceed results. In this role, she worked with others to define the Symantec branded experience across the buying cycle to yield an improved perceived value and customer relationship engagement. Prior to this role at Symantec, she was the Vice President of product marketing and campaigns where she determined proven go to market plans for emerging and existing product lines. She delivered the first set of business solution messaging and the first campaign architecture that optimized the overall marketing mix across a broad product portfolio. Kim holds a bachelors degree in Mathematics/Economics from the University of California, Santa Barbara, is a member of the Chief Marketing Officer Council and a frequent speaker at industry events on best practices in marketing.

Nikolay (Nick) Dobrovolskiy

Nick Dobrovolskiy is responsible for research and development accomplishments, networking and social activities focused on improving legislative initiatives supporting software development in Russia. With 10+ years of experience in virtualization product development, he led the development of Parallels Desktop for Mac – the award-winning software that established Parallels as the industry leader in desktop virtualization software.

Born in 1975 in Moscow, Nick took up computers and programming at an early age, winning the Russian National Programming Contest at 14. In 1997 he graduated from the Moscow State Institute of Radio Engineering, Electronics and Automation, where he specialized in automation systems for data processing and management.

Nick started his career in 1995, soon making his way from a software developer and start-up founder to vice president of a multinational company.

Oleg Melnikov

Mr. Melnikov currently manages the team of developers working on Parallels’ System Automation and Business Automation solutions. Previously, he architected and managed the HSPcomplete solution for nearly 3 years. Melnikov has in-depth knowledge and extensive experience in Internet technologies, Internet applications design and development, e-business and hosting automation solutions. He has managed several engineering projects for Parallels, including the release of version 2.8 of the Solomon IV software, the e-commerce application for Pervasive South East Asia. Under his management, Parallels’ Web portals ASPstreet.com and HSPstreet.com performed well within the target markets, giving rise to a powerful search engine. He holds a B.Sc. in Computer Science and a MS in Computer Science from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology.

Craig Bartholomew

Craig Bartholomew brings 25+ years of experience in building strong teamwork to deliver differentiated products that meet customer needs. Prior to Parallels, Craig was a Partner-level General Manager at Microsoft, where he worked for 21 years before joining Parallels. At Microsoft, he started and led the Encarta project for many years, which produced over $1B in revenue for Microsoft over its lifespan. He then led server-based and web-based product development for the Education vertical at Microsoft. He is a graduate of Dartmouth College, and speaks Russian (more and more of it lately). He splits his time with Parallels 75% in Seattle and 25% in Russia. In his role, Craig leads the Development team and Product Management for Parallels Plesk Panel, Parallels Small Business Panel, Parallels Plesk Sitebuilder, and Parallels Plesk Billing.