Evan KaplanFounder

United States - Los Altos, California

Evan Kaplan is an entrepreneur and technology leader with nearly twenty years in the CEO role. His experience spans from leading startups from his own garage to Nasdaq listed companies generating nearly $200m in annual revenue.

Most recently, Evan was the president and chief executive officer of iPass Inc., the leading provider of Global Wi-Fi access for enterprises, telecommunications, and service providers. At iPass, he led the transformation from a legacy dial-up provider to the Global Wi-Fi access leader. In the process, he restructured the company, led the development of the new Open Mobile cloud software platform, expanded the network footprint from 100,000 to 18 million locations worldwide, and divested the company’s Unity managed service business resulting in a compelling return to shareholders.

Prior to iPass, Evan served as Chairman, CEO and founder of Aventail Corporation (now part of the Dell Corporation). He co-founded Aventail in 1996 and pioneered the first commercial implementation of SSL based Virtual Private Network (SSL VPN) and the industry's first Managed Extranet service, one of the early Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) offerings.

Evan is a recognized visionary in the networking and security industry. He was named by Network World as “One of the 50 Most Powerful People in Networking” and selected by Ernst & Young as “Northwest Entrepreneur of the Year”. He is an active advisor to entrepreneurs and early stage companies.

Evan has served on the Board of Directors for The Center of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the University of Washington, Networld +Interop, and is currently board member and Finance Chair of One Heart Worldwide

He holds has a BS in Environmental Science from Western Washington University and an MBA from the University of Washington. He is a veteran of multiple Himalayan climbing expeditions and is a passionate skier, climber and father of two boys. He can be followed on Twitter @EvanKaplan.