Why Viakoo

Bud Broomhead

Founder, CEO

Bud has deep experience in mission critical enterprise systems. Before founding Viakoo, he worked for storage leaders Sun Microsystems, Highground Systems, Auspex Systems, and others in key executive roles. Bud has a BS in Earth Sciences from UC Berkeley and is fluent in French. He is also a proficient seaplane pilot.

Dr. Manqing Liu

Co-Founder & Chief Scientist

Manqing has deep experience in networking and storage performance, optimization, and algorithms. Before joining Viakoo, he was Director of Advanced Development at high availability storage vendor Intransa, and he also had lead technical roles at Cisco and Seagate. Manqing has a PhD in Physics from Queen’s University in Ontario, Canada. In his spare time, he enjoys playing tennis.

Venkata Nambula

CTO & CISO

Venkata Nambula is CTO & CISO at Viakoo, where he leads Engineering, Product Security, Information Security, and Cloud Operations — owning the full lifecycle of securing connected infrastructure through Zero Trust architectures spanning cloud, networking, and identity.

A co-inventor of a 2025 patent in passwordless authentication, Venkata has spent 25 years building high-growth teams at MobileIron, Brocade, Foundry, and NetContinuum.

He holds an MS in Computer Science from the University of Kentucky and a BS from the National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirappalli. Outside the office, he is a competitive runner with the West Valley Joggers & Striders, one of the Bay Area’s oldest running clubs.

Matthew Hutchinson

Vice President, Marketing

Matthew is a veteran enterprise marketing leader in cybersecurity. Before joining Viakoo, he held marketing leadership positions at WhiteHat Security, Thales, Fortinet and Nozomi Networks. Matt has a BA in International Relations from Syracuse University and MBA in Technology Management from the University of New Mexico.

John Gallagher

Vice President, Viakoo Labs

John Gallagher is head of Viakoo Labs, a research unit focused on providing data and insights on IoT/OT security management and best practices for how organizations can reduce their cyber-attack surface. John is a veteran enterprise technology leader in IoT, physical security, and networking, and is active in industry associations including the Security Industry Association, Real Estate Cyber Consortium, and Telecommunications Industry Association. Before joining Viakoo, he was at DDN Storage, Dell/EMC, Cadence, and Hewlett Packard. John has BS in Engineering and MBA in Marketing from Cornell University and speaks (basic) Japanese.