Rajiv Dholakia

About Rajiv (Personal)

The joy of living in Silicon Valley is that your adventures usually fall somewhere between serendipity and inspiration. I'm always interested in new ideas and enterprises. Drop me a line if I can be of help.

About Rajiv (Professional)

Rajiv is a Silicon Valley veteran who has played product development, engineering and operational roles at many valley companies over the last 20 years. His experience spans the creation and selling of software products into both enterprise and consumer segments over a wide range of technology. Rajiv's talents lie in understanding market trends and opportunities and in using these insights to guide teams in the creation of interesting products leading to successful businesses in roles ranging from senior executive to mentor and consultant.

Rajiv enjoys the critical early phases of formulation, formation, bootstrap and scale up of new businesses, particularly in the zero to seventy five million range. His experience covers many of the leading technology waves from AI, Objects, Operating Systems, to Digital Rights Management, ECommerce and Security. The breadth of this experience has given him insights into the dynamics of evolution of new technologies; markets, teams and how new ventures succeed or fail.

Rajiv's experience includes VP Strategy & Solutions at PGP Corporation where he works on M&A, strategic partnerships and technology strategy. He also spent four plus years as Vice President of Product Development & Operations at ValiCert (VLCT) (merged with TumbleWeed) and also held the office of Chief Technology Officer there. ValiCert was founded to provide secure electronic transaction products and services to the financial and banking markets, conceptually similar to the services provided by First Data to the credit card industry. He led the company through the startup phase as VP of Product Development and Operations from venture funding to a successful IPO. He saw the company through consistent growth and market mandated course corrections over the last four and a half years.

In his role at ValiCert, he was responsible for product definition, strategy, development, engineering and delivery of award winning security and cryptography related products and services. As V.P. of Operations for the ASP portion of ValiCert’s business, he built out a DoD quality secure data center in record time and scaled up the online services part of the business. He played a critical role in the selection, evangelism and closure of the first set of customers that set the pattern for the company’s growth leading to the IPO and for key customer relationships thereafter.

Rajiv is also highly experienced in the creation and operation of a global delivery model that utilizes outsourcing and offshore development for competitive advantage. Most recently, he set out a sustainable cost model for product development and services for ValiCert and built a strategic offshore development team that was been critical to the company’s success.

Prior to joining ValiCert, Rajiv was Vice President of Product Engineering at TestDrive, a startup providing digital-rights management technology for high-value content, including software. He also developed one of the premier white-label online retail software sites on the net. At VillageTree Inc., he provided coaching and consulting for Internet start-ups helping them develop business plans, incubate, troubleshoot and scale operations. Rajiv spent three years at Taligent Inc., a cross-platform applications framework company where as Director of Platform Products, he ran platform engineering including the OS runtime development and was also responsible for OEM relationships with IBM, Apple, HP and others. Rajiv also held senior engineering and managerial positions at Sun Microsystems in the Window Systems and Performance areas and at IntelliCorp, an AI pioneer where he developed AI and Object based products for rapid prototyping of agent and expert systems.

Rajiv is also an active volunteer in Science Education and DIY & Maker events in the local school district and an adviser to non-profits with an interest in education and children.

Contact information : Rajiv Dholakia - 650 424-8027 - rajiv can be found at villagetree.com