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Our Team

The iTrade management team embodies and cultivates our corporate culture, working hard on behalf on our customers as well as to help employees learn, grow and succeed.

Amer Akhtar

CEO

Amer Akhtar has over 25 years of operating experience in companies ranging from startups to large multinationals in the US, Europe and Asia. He currently is a member of the Board of Directors of Thryv (NASDAQ: THRY), a provider of small business management software, and most recently served as CEO of Celential.ai, a venture-funded provider of AI-based recruiting solutions.

Among his accomplishments building and leading SaaS businesses, Akhtar served as President of Yahoo! Small Business, where he managed over half a million clients, growing their digital presence. In addition, Akhtar spent nearly a decade at ADP building and running HR SaaS businesses. From 2009 to 2013, he was Managing Director and Country President for ADP in Shanghai, China, where he built the core business from the ground up, becoming the leading provider in the HR SaaS sector.

Amer joined iTradeNetwork in 2022 and strongly resonates with the company’s deep reverence for how quality food is produced – centered around hard work, multigenerational family traditions, and pride.

Akhtar graduated from Amos Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth and resides in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife and three children.

Nathan Romney

Chief Product Officer

Nathan joined iTradeNetwork with a mission to modernize the fresh supply chain. As the Chief Product Officer, Nathan is responsible for the iTradeNetwork solution platform with an emphasis on user experience and customer-centric design. He isn’t afraid to roll-up his sleeves and get into the nitty-gritty details.

Prior to iTradeNetwork, Nathan was responsible for the SaaS infrastructure at Control4, the leading provider in home automation and consumer-connected homes. Having delivered for over 500,000 connected homes and millions of connected devices, he has valuable experience delivering highly scalable transaction platforms.

When Nathan isn’t in the office, you can find him at a baseball field or local community pool watching and cheering his children on in their sports and activities.

When asked about his favorite perishable food, Nathan always answers avocados, packed with good fats and fiber.

Yonghui Zhang

Chief Technology Officer

Yonghui joined iTradeNetwork in 2017 and immediately made his mark by launching two cloud-based applications, iTradefresh and iTracefresh, in less than two years. His focus is driving continuous technological innovations in the food supply chain. Before iTradeNetwork, Yonghui worked at Fiserv as its Senior Director of Software Development, Electronic Payments. He earned his master’s degree in Information Management and Systems from University of California, Berkeley.

Yonghui is a lifelong learner who loves to hike in the Santa Cruz mountains with his family in his free time. When asked about his favorite perishable food, Yonghui said he considers Hami melon to be the best.

Jeanette Pereira, CISA, CISSP

Chief Information Security Officer

Jeanette is a highly committed CISO, with 28 years’ experience in the software industry. She has an extensive background in corporate IT architecture, operations, security, compliance, disaster recovery and business continuity planning. Before she came to iTradeNetwork, Jeanette worked at Fiserv as their Sr. Director of Security and Compliance, ePayments, Banking and Aggregation.

Since joining iTradeNetwork in 2017, Jeanette has deployed state of the art security policies and processes and built business resilience and risk assessment plans.

Jeanette stays busy cooking, landscaping and walking for fun. Her favorite perishable foods are tomatoes and berries. She considers herbs to be a staple.

Cynthia Bergallo

Vice President, Human Resources

Cynthia joined the iTrade Executive Leadership Team as the Vice President of Human Resources in January 2023. 

Cynthia has 20 years of diverse experience in technology and SaaS companies. Before iTrade, Cynthia worked as the Senior People Business Partner for the Enterprise Platform team at Lyft, where she led the people strategy for her client group. She also was the  Head of HR for the Americas at Meltwater and she oversaw business-facing HR roles for Lumileds (a Philips company), PlayStation, Oracle and Verizon for Engineering, Sales, and Marketing organizations. 

In Cynthia’s free time, she enjoys exercising and riding her bike. Her favorite perishable food is avocado!

Ryan Licari

Executive Vice President, Enterprise Sales

Ryan Licari joins iTradeNetwork with over 25 years’ experience with complex solutions for enterprises, including sales, GTM and sales leadership experience with Oracle, Salesforce and Visier and consulting experience with Accenture.

As EVP of Enterprise Sales at iTradeNetwork, Ryan will lead, foster and grow the gold-standard enterprise sales team. Ryan received his undergraduate degree from the University of Richmond and his MBA from the University of Maryland.

A third-generation grocer, Ryan stocked shelves in his family’s grocery store since he was old enough to reach them. In his free time, Ryan stays active, spending quality time with his family and friends, traveling, enjoying good food and staying up to date on financial markets and sports, including baseball, basketball, football and golf. He is also proudly coaches his kids’ softball team. In Ryan’s opinion, the upstate New York tomato is the perishable that can’t be beat.

Lamia Barrington

Senior Vice President, Deal Management & Professional Services

As VP of Deal Management, Lamia has streamlined and automated the iTradeNetwork contracting process to make it easier for customers to leverage iTradeNetwork’s services quickly. Before iTradeNetwork, she worked at Optymyze, WIRB-Copernicus Group and Smartsheet.

Lamia holds a BA in Political Science from Seattle University.

In her free time, Lamia enjoys cooking for her husband and three girls and training for marathons. She considers her morning runs as her “me” time and uses it to get inspired. Lamia is a proud immigrant to the U.S. Her first language is Arabic, her second is French and she is currently trying to learn Spanish. As for her favorite perishable, it’s definitely cheese, which is “to die for.”

Mike Anderson

Vice President, Sales Solutions

For more than 20 years, Mike has educated people about the power of technology and its capabilities. He believes that technology is the answer to even the most difficult supply chain problems. As VP of Sales Solutions, Mike enjoys improving the availability and quality of food traceability data to make our food supply chain safer. Prior to iTradeNetwork, Mike worked at Optymyze as their Solutions Director.

Mike received his BA in Economics from Regents College and holds an MBA from Hodges University.

Outside of work, Mike spends quality time with his 7-year-old daughter and plays online wargames. His favorite perishable is the Cosmic Crisp apple. It was love at first bite.

Amir Rashidifar

Vice President, Design

Amir brings more than 20 years of experience in technology design to the iTradeNetwork team. He aims to bring more transparency, efficiency and accountability to the supply chain industry by creating exceptional user experiences and adaptive technologies that seamlessly integrate with users’ daily lives.

Amir received his Masters in Human-Computer Interaction and Design at the University of California, Irvine, and holds an Executive Leadership degree from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

When he isn’t studying emerging technologies and fantasizing about where humanity will be in 100 years, Amir loves to camp, study astronomy and spend time with his family. As for his favorite perishable, he can’t pick just one.

Sara Metzger

Senior Director, Solutions Consulting

As Sr. Director of Solutions Consulting, Sara is always working to discover new ways to utilize technology to enhance lives and to solve complex problems across all industries.

Sara received her BS in Biomedical Engineering from Drexel University and spent only a few months crush-testing spinal devices before deciding she might be more comfortable with a career in the SaaS world.

When she isn’t working, Sara enjoys spending time with her family, tackling home improvement projects, running and just generally over-organizing all aspects of her life.

When asked about her favorite perishable, she said “Does hot sauce count?”

Keith Woodward

CMO

iTradeNetwork welcomed Keith Woodward to the Leadership Team as Chief Marketing Officer in February 2023.

With over 20+ years marketing and operating experience with both venture-backed and large, public, and private equity-backed organizations, Keith created, launched, and managed innovative demand creation activities designed to improve sales efficiency, brand awareness, and customer retention. Prior to joining iTradeNetwork, Keith led marketing at Sphera, a global B2B SaaS EH&S software provider, and Aeris, a leading IoT Solutions provider managing over 100 million connected devices worldwide.

Keith graduated from Graziadio School of Business at Pepperdine University and currently resides in the city of Chicago with his two daughters. Keith prefers any kind of melon or fresh strawberries as his favorite perishables, especially during the Summer months.