Leadership

Forrest is an accomplished CEO and proven organizational turnaround expert, having led well-documented turnarounds of three complex organizations, including two multi-billion dollar agencies – Chicago Transit Authority, Chicago Board of Education, and Chicago Park District. Forrest led a deep bench of professionals to improve service delivery, optimize user experience, achieve new standards in organizational performance, and grow outside revenues through business partnerships. With extensive experience in the management of mission-critical communications and other enterprise technologies, Forrest brings a wealth of leadership skills in technology management, complex system transformation, customer experience, and partnership networks.

Tony provides strategic financial leadership at Instant Connect, guiding the company’s growth through rigorous modeling, planning, and data-driven analysis.

He played a pivotal role in Instant Connect’s acquisition from Cisco, and now focuses on aligning financial strategy with the company’s aggressive innovation roadmap and market expansion goals.

Drawing on a multidisciplinary foundation in finance, technology, and engineering, Tony translates complex data into actionable insights that drive budgeting, forecasting, investment decisions, and long-term value creation.

He holds an MBA from the University of Chicago, with concentrations in finance and entrepreneurship. His previous experience includes software development, chemical engineering research, real estate, and technology transfer for a national government laboratory.

Jeff retired from the U.S. Army in April 2003 as a commissioned officer. Jeff served over half of his Army career in Special Operations in a number of positions, ranging from an NCO to a Detachment Commander, operative, and instructor in Counter Terrorist Operations. When he retired from the Army, Jeff was a functional area 24, Network Engineer, responsible for planning and deploying data networks supporting the Warfighter. Since his military service, Jeff has worked for Twisted Pair Solutions (TPS) and Motorola Solutions Federal Governments Division, collaborating with the Department of Defense and U.S. Federal Government to ensure interoperability between tactical voice systems. In early 2019, Jeff joined Instant Connect, bringing a special perspective in the communications interoperability space linking radio, mobile, IP, and other technologies.

Michelle L. Borromeo is the Vice President of Human Capital & Operations, and a Senior Business Architect with over 20 years of experience in consulting, corporate, and nonprofit environments. Michelle has been a Business Architect Practitioner and mentor at multiple Fortune 50 insurance clients, engaging in business architecture practice development and running Business Architecture Boot Camp sessions for both client audiences and internal associates.

She brings forth expertise in operations management, strategic business architecture, business process modeling and management, and project management methodology.

Michelle’s responsibilities include managing people, performance, and talent operations, HR, administration, IT Support, vendor management, compliance, and overall process efficiency and best practices.

Matt DeFano brings 20 years technical and management experience to Instant Connect. Beginning his career at a Bay Area startup, Matt was responsible for developing integrated circuits and embedded software for some of the world’s first triple-play telecom access networks. Since then, he’s held positions in applied research at Motorola, architected IPTV systems for a Fortune 50 telco, and contributed to the design and development of a retail home automation platform.

Matt has managed teams across the globe to successfully deliver complex software systems to market. He’s a full-stack developer at heart—hardware to HTML—who takes a hands-on approach to technical leadership.

Matt holds BS and MS degrees in Computer Science.

Peter has decades of experience across a wide range of communications technologies. Peter was an integral member of the Cisco team that developed IPICS — a VoIP-based radio system and predecessor to Instant Connect — as a response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks, enabling critical first responder radio interoperability.

After returning to his native Australia, Peter held senior technical and sales positions with radio-IP pioneer Twisted Pair as well as Motorola. Peter’s strong background across multiple verticals – including defense, mining, carrier, and enterprise – allows him to help customers get the most from their communications environments.

A Cisco Certified Internetwork Expert (CCIE), Peter brings a unique skill set – merging both business and technical – to help enterprise customers deploy and optimize complex integrated IP/PTT solutions that improve safety, productivity, and incident response.

Wes brings more than 25 years of technical and management experience to Instant Connect. With a deep background in PTT communications, Wes has managed a number of products deployed successfully around the world. As a Network Engineer, Wes was responsible for deploying VoIP systems and integrating radio systems into VoIP networks. As a business lead for Twisted Pair Solutions software, Wes worked with customers to provide desktop users with PTT access to the radio systems. He also developed applications to provide PTT access and a four-wire audio gateway from the network to the radio systems for federal agency customers. When Motorola acquired Twisted Pair in 2014, Wes continued to play a lead role in pioneering interoperability solutions within Motorola’s suite of radio systems. Wes holds a degree in Computer Science.

Louis started his career developing innovative electronic toll collection systems for transportation authorities such as New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority and the Florida Department of Transportation. He then spent the next decade working for prestigious Wall Street firms where he enhanced the performance and scalability of their foreign exchange, equities, hedge funds, and commodities trading systems. Louis has consulted various Fortune 500 companies including Unisys, IBM, Dell and Cisco. Louis brings a wealth of software engineering and mission-critical production experience to Instant Connect.

Louis holds a degree in Computer Science.

Charlie brings over a decade of experience in media production, marketing, and design to Instant Connect. He started his career setting up recording sessions and organizing audio stems and production files for two Hollywood film composers. He then transitioned to a fintech company, where he conducted market research and overhauled the company’s brand and positioning. During several years at a B2B marketing strategy agency, Charlie collaborated with Strategy and Creative Directors on over 12 enterprise client accounts.

Charlie has helped businesses across industries find competitive differentiation for products and services, revitalize brands, generate leads, launch campaigns, and raise brand awareness.

At Instant Connect, Charlie oversees marketing and product design. His primary focus is revamping the application interface across platforms to enhance the user experience.

Charlie holds a BA in Film and certificates in Visual Design and Digital Product Design.

Mark brings over 30 years of technical and managerial experience in the radio communications and networking industries. He began his career at Motorola developing radio software for the Astro P25 system primarily in secure communications. Later he moved on to developing public cryptographic key management and data transport software for DICSIS based Cable Modem Termination Systems (CMTS) at a startup company.

With radio communications and networking experience under his belt, he joined the original leadership team at Cisco Systems that developed the VoIP-based radio interoperability system, IPICS. He has authored several patents and brings a wealth of experience in mission-critical communications to Instant Connect. Mark holds a degree in Computer Science.

As Director of Application Development, Danielle Yao is responsible for architecting, developing, and maintaining the server-side solution for Instant Connect.

Danielle is a highly experienced senior Java architect and development manager with over 20 years in the industry, specializing in the design, development, and deployment of enterprise Java applications. Danielle has developed expertise with cloud-based platforms, event-driven architectures, and microservices.

Danielle has successfully led complex projects and managed development teams across various sectors, including finance, healthcare, and consumer goods, consistently applying Agile methodologies to deliver high-quality software solutions. Known for strong technical skills, collaboration, and problem-solving, Danielle has a proven ability to drive small teams to productively deliver high-quality results.

Danielle holds a master’s degree in computer science from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and a bachelor’s degree in both Computer Science and Mathematics from the University of Minnesota.

Eric Akers started as an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Elizabeth City State University in North Carolina after obtaining his Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Kansas where he studied image processing and robotics. Since then he has had 15 years of industry experience ranging from building a mouse-tracking desktop application for sleep studies at a biotech company to developing microservices for various applications. The majority of his experience comes as a full-stack developer working at Arris, Matterport, and Instant Connect using various frontend and backend technologies.

Revati brings over 25 years of technical and managerial experience in the communication and networking industries. She began her career at the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), India’s equivalent to NASA, where she developed mission-critical software for remote sensing satellites.

She subsequently developed protocol and networking software in the United States at Digital, PictureTel, and Lucent.

At Cisco Systems, Revati was a member of the original leadership team that developed the IP Interoperability and Collaboration System (IPICS), a groundbreaking VoIP-based push-to-talk solution. Her extensive leadership experience is further demonstrated by her successful management of QA and Customer Support teams.

Revati holds a master’s in electronics and communications, reflecting her deep technical expertise and ongoing commitment to the field.