TEAM

B. KEVIN TURNER

President & Chief Executive Officer

Kevin Turner joined Core Scientific with over 30 years of successful business experience. He served as Microsoft's Chief Operating Officer from 2005 – 2016, where he led the company’s global sales, marketing and services and support organization of 55,000+ employees in more than 190 countries. Under his leadership, the sales and marketing group grew the company from $35 billion to over $91.9 billion in revenue in fiscal 2016. Kevin oversaw worldwide sales, field marketing, services, customer support and partner channels as well as the creation of the Microsoft Stores omni channel division. He also led the corporate support functions including Information Technology, Worldwide Licensing & Pricing and Operations. As Microsoft’s COO, Kevin drove a strong track record of results, execution excellence and improved efficiency while transitioning the company’s business model to the cloud and driving the customer satisfaction scores to the highest in company history. After Microsoft, Kevin served for a short term at Citadel where he was the Vice Chairman and CEO of Citadel Securities, the largest market maker in the world.

Prior to Microsoft, Kevin spent nearly 20 years at Wal-Mart Stores, where he rose through the ranks and was named the youngest corporate officer ever at Wal-Mart at age 29. He held various leadership positions at Wal-Mart including becoming the EVP & Chief Information Officer for Wal-Mart Stores Inc., and as his last assignment he served as the President and Chief Executive Officer of SAM'S CLUB, a $37 billion division of Wal-Mart Stores which had over 125,000 employees. Sam’s Club delivered record earnings under his tenure. Kevin Turner currently serves on the Board of Albertsons Companies.

ABER WHITCOMB

Director

Aber Whitcomb has been regularly listed amongst the top CTO’s in the United States for the past 10 years. His first large success was as the CTO and Co-Founder of MySpace.com, which sold to News Corporation in 2005 for $580 million. Since MySpace, he has started many other successful ventures including i/o ventures, a San Francisco, CA, based Venture Capital & Private Equity firm, Jam City and others. Aber is a well-known expert in large scale computing, networking and storage and frequently speaks on these topics at industry events. He has been featured in publications such as VentureBeat, The New York Times and SoCalTech.

MICHAEL TRZUPEK

Chief Financial Officer

Michael has over 28 years’ experience in Finance and Engineering which provides a unique blend of business, technology and financial expertise. Michael’s extensive skills span global supply chain operations, product development, procurement, IT, mergers and acquisitions, marketing and sales.

Michael received his B.S. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Illinois and his MBA from the University of Chicago. He spent five years in several engineering roles at Morton International, a chemical, salt and airbag company which is now part of Dow Chemical. After receiving his MBA, Michael spent 10 years at Intel in progressive roles in Finance which culminated as Senior Controller for the Systems Materials and Manufacturing organization.

Michael joined Microsoft as a Senior Director of Finance in the entertainment and devices organization. He was instrumental in improving cost and efficiencies with the Xbox business. Based on his success, he was promoted to General Manager of Corporate Finance where he had financial responsibility for manufacturing, procurement, information solutions, and supply chain operations for Microsoft hardware and physical products worldwide. Michael’s final role was as General Manager of New Venture Integration where he led a team focused on the acquisition of Nokia by Microsoft.

After spending seven years at Microsoft, Michael joined Providence-St. Joseph’s Health and Services, one of the nation’s largest non-profit healthcare systems. As Group Vice President, Michael oversaw accounting, FP&A, tax, and external reporting and led the financial integration of the acquisition of St. Joseph's.  Michael next stepped in to serve as the interim CFO at Sound Transit, a public transit agency in the midst of a $54B transit expansion.  Most recently, Michael was the CFO for Premera Blue Cross, a non-profit healthcare insurer in the midst of a major technology transformation.

GANESH BALAKRISHNAN

Chief Product Officer, Blockchain

Ganesh Balakrishnan has over 14 years’ experience in engineering, product, and strategy experience at Amazon. He led product and strategy for two of Amazon’s acquisitions, Twitch Prime and Woot. He expanded the global footprint of Twitch Prime from 11 countries to over 200 countries and territories.

Ganesh graduated with an MBA from the University of Washington. He also has his bachelor’s degree in Computer Science and Masters of Biological Science from Birla Institute of Technology and Science.

IAN FERREIRA

Chief Product Officer AI

Ian Ferreira has over 20 years’ experience in engineering in large companies and tech start-ups. He has expertise in software, engineering, UI/UX, systems architecture, product development, machine learning/artificial intelligence, and leading successful teams. Ian has a healthy obsession with end user experience, high performance computing and massive parallel systems. He joined Microsoft in 2004 as a Senior Software Design Engineer Lead and received five promotions in ten years. His last role was Group Program Manager. During his tenure he developed the architecture and implementation of Bing Ads, created the world’s first real-time bidding exchange, successfully launched the Windows 8 Ads-in-Apps, and launched the largest cloud deployment at the time.

Ian left Microsoft to join a tech start-up, Context Relevance. He and his engineering team focused on a machine learning platform based on early versions of Apache Spark, automated parts of the data science pipeline, and became deeply involved with predictive analytics. Most recently, Ian was the Executive Vice President at WideOrbit, the world’s leading premium advertising management company. While at WideOrbit, Ian and his team launched an innovative programmatic advertising media exchange.

Ian graduated from the University of Stellenbosch in South Africa with a bachelor’s degree in Electronic Engineering.

JEFF TAYLOR

Chief Information Officer

Jeff Taylor joined Core Scientific from People Connect, where he served as Director of Site Reliability and Dev Ops. Jeff started his career with Amazon and spent 14 years, expanding the fulfillment center network, operating and engineering upon the global retail sites and designing and launching many Amazon Web Services. He joined AWS as employee #20 and helped to grow the organization to several thousand. Jeff received many honors at Amazon, including the Amazon Inventor Award for his work on AWS and S3, as well as the Fire Extinguisher Award, for operational excellence in process and services. After Amazon, Jeff spent four years at CDK Global, leading Strategic Platform Engineering during a divestiture event and migrating mission critical aspect to the cloud. Jeff received his B.S. in Computer Science from the University of Washington.

TODD DUCHENE

General Counsel

Todd DuChene brings over 25 years’ experience as a General Counsel in private and public companies. His expertise spans intellectual property, patents, IPOs, and strategic transactions. Todd was 29 years old when he became VP, General Counsel for Office Max. He was instrumental with the IPO at OfficeMax, which was one of the largest IPOs in retail history. Todd joined Fisher Scientific and helped grow the business from $500M to $6B. Todd worked on 100+ deals while at Fisher Scientific until it merged with Thermo Electron. He served as GC at several other technology companies that ranged from $2B to $12B: Solectron, National Semiconductor, Nuance, and FLIR Systems. 

Todd received his bachelor’s degree in Political Science at The College of Wooster and received his JD from the University of Michigan.

JIM CLEVELAND

Chief Power Officer

Jim Cleveland’s experience spans more than 35 years in all aspects of hands–on hardware and software solution sales, including recruiting, team building, business development, technical marketing and operations.  He has a track record of building strong businesses by leading and developing high performing teams that have transformed businesses into profitable enterprises.  Accomplished in field sales and marketing management, solution selling, relationship building in both “1 to 1” and “1 to many” environments, Jim consistently delivers business results and is widely recognized as a leader in the computer and data capture technology communities.

Jim is Founder and CEO of e-Waste, LLC an R2:2013, ISO 14001:2004, OHSAS 18001:2007- certified nationwide IT Asset Disposition company. E-Waste, LLC serves the Fortune 500, in solving financial, regulatory, and data security issues related to their IT asset portfolio.

Previously, Jim was a Business Unit Executive at IBM, Executive Vice President of Telxon Corporation, where they grew the mobile and wireless handheld business from $210m in revenues to $565m in 6 years by developing new markets and providing solutions to new industries outside their core market of retail. At the same time Jim developed new markets for Telxon’s wireless subsidiary Aironet which later turned from a $10M dollar investment to an $800M dollar sale to Cisco in 7 years. Jim has received several achievement awards from IBM, Telxon and PSC and attended the IBM Presidents MBA program at Harvard University after graduating from Bowling Green State University with a Bachelor’s of Science degree.

SHARON ORLOPP

Chief Human Resources Officer

Sharon Orlopp has over 35 years’ experience in Fortune 500 companies in operations, human resources, diversity and inclusion. Most recently, Sharon was the Global Chief Diversity Officer and Senior Vice President of Corporate H.R. for Walmart. She spent 12 years at Walmart in senior leadership roles, including Senior Vice President of H.R. at Sam’s Club. Prior to joining Walmart, Sharon was Vice President of H.R. for Sports Authority and she spent 17 years with Foot Locker where she held various leadership positions in operations and human resources.

Sharon is the co-author of a Vietnamese memoir, Standing Up After Saigon: The Triumphant Story of Hope, Determination, and Reinvention. This incredible odyssey follows Thuhang Tran and her challenges with polio, war, poverty, family separation, and immigration to the United States. Sharon believes in the power of story to touch the heart and change behaviors.

A lifelong advocate for inclusion, education and opportunity, Sharon considers it a privilege to serve as a Board member for The Harwood Institute and for the University of Denver’s College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences. She has held previous Board positions with Women’s Foodservice Forum, Enactus, Highlands Oncology Group, and the Center for Entrepreneurship at Fayetteville State University.

Sharon graduated magna cum laude from the University of Denver with a BA and received her Master’s Degree in educational technology from the University of Arkansas.

TARAS KULYK

Senior Vice President, Blockchain Business Development

Taras Kulyk, JD, MBA is Core Scientific's Senior Vice President of Blockchain Business Development, bringing extensive experience in digital asset mining, fintech and investment banking. Most recently, Taras led Corporate Development at Horizon Trust Company and served as Chief Operating Officer of Alt 5 Sigma. Preceding those roles, Taras was CEO of Squire Mining (“Squire”), a publicly listed company engaged in operating and developing digital asset mining infrastructure and respective digital asset mining system technology. His role with Squire included managing relationships with key global technology leaders including Samsung and Ennoconn (a subsidiary of Foxconn). Prior to his appointment to Squire, Taras was CEO of a family office’s subsidiary engaged in digital asset mining, where he led the growth of one of the largest crypto mining fleets globally, deploying over US$200 million in capital during his tenure. Post graduate school and before his career began in the digital asset sector, Taras was an investment banker at BMO Capital Markets covering the traditional mining sector, followed by two years with TD Securities in the Communications, Media and Technology team, where his coverage included technology and media companies.
 
Taras is a graduate of Osgoode Hall Law School where he earned a Juris Doctor degree with a focus in Corporate, Tax, and Securities Law, and earned his MBA, with distinction, with a specialization in Finance from the Schulich School of Business. 

CHRISTY BARWICK

Treasurer

Christy Barwick brings over 22 years of corporate treasury and finance expertise at top multinational companies to her role as Corporate Treasurer. She develops the strategy, framework, and infrastructure to lead cash and liquidity, strategic planning, structured finance, investments, corporate debt issuance, financial risk management, FX, and commercial insurances. Previously, for six years Christy was the Corporate Treasurer at Intellectual Ventures, a private equity firm focused on the development and licensing of intellectual property. Christy is a pioneer in the securitization of technology-related patent receivables, earning Treasury Today’s Adam Smith award for “Best Financing Solution.” She has earned numerous industry awards for her excellence in treasury and finance, as well as receiving Treasury Today’s “Highly Commended Woman of the Year” for her dedication to mentoring women in finance.

Christy is a proven finance leader with extensive experience in capital markets which she gained from spending four years at Microsoft in their Treasury Capital Management group.  During her time at Microsoft, Christy launched the company’s inaugural $2B commercial paper program and credit facility with 17 strategic banking partners, managed rating agency relationships and received the coveted AAA credit rating, and led Microsoft’s global cash operations team covering 350 subsidiaries across 120 countries and 80 currencies.  Christy also spent seven years at Daimler Trucks and two years at PACCAR in corporate finance and treasury roles.    

Christy serves as the Finance & Audit Committee Chair and Treasurer for FIRST Washington, a non-profit STEM based program focused on inspiring children and young adults to become technology leaders through exciting mentor-based programs (Lego League, Tech Challenge, and Robotics Competition).  Christy also served two years on Silicon Valley Bank’s Treasury Advisory Board where she helped develop finance and treasury solutions for their largest multinational clients.

Christy earned her BS in Finance from the University of Oregon and MBA from University of Portland. 

KEN MARTIN

Vice President, Sales

Ken Martin is an experienced hi-tech professional with over 25 years’ experience in sales, business development, and marketing. He has expertise with complex, cross-cultural negotiations as well as IaaS, PaaS, SaaS, private cloud, and hosted and on-premise business models. Ken spent 22 years at Microsoft in leadership roles in product management, marketing, and business development. While at Microsoft, Ken developed strategic on-prem and cloud partner solutions for Office 365, SharePoint, Azure, and Skype businesses. Ken pitched and closed the business case to Microsoft executives to begin the first subscription computing service.

After Microsoft, Ken led business development and enterprise sales for Dell, Aricent, and Provoke Solutions. He honed his expertise on blockchain, artificial intelligence, machine learning and IoT to drive technology strategy and innovation for clients. Ken is an excellent leader known for developing innovative sales and technical strategies for enterprise partners. Ken received his BA from the University of California at Berkeley and his MBA from the University of Florida.

RUSSELL CANN

Chief Customer Success Officer

Russell Cann has 20 years of experience designing, building, and growing large scale technology infrastructure companies. Prior to CoreScientific, Russell grew and developed a blockchain and cryptocurrency mining business as well as several other network infrastructure concerns. Previously he worked for Accenture in the areas of fintech and risk management on projects in Europe and the Americas.

An active Philanthropist, Russell is a Trustee for the National Foundation of the Boy Scouts of America and Alston Wilkes Society. Further he volunteers with Sue Kuhlen Camp for Kids and Lion’s Club. He is an active member of YPO and graduated cum laude from the South Carolina Honors College and the Moore School of Business.

AARON MCCREERY

Senior Vice President, Dev Ops

Aaron McCreery spent 17 years at Microsoft in a variety of engineering and operational leadership roles and was instrumental in the development of Product Activation for Office and Windows, as well several other externally facing properties. After Microsoft, Aaron joined IBM, where he helped with both public and private cloud optimization and implementation. Aaron joined Core Scientific from Tumblr, where he served as Senior Director of Site Reliability Engineering. Aaron graduated from Washington State University with a B.A. in Management Information Services.

LYNN BURGENER

Chief Tax Officer

Lynn Burgener joined Core Scientific as our Chief Tax Officer with over 30 years of international and domestic tax expertise. Lynn is responsible for establishing tax strategy, communicating tax objectives, compliance, tax provision, financial statement reporting and related disclosures. Previously, Lynn spent 10 years as the Vice President – Global Tax for Univar, a $9.0B Fortune 500 global chemical distribution company. Lynn and her team of 20+ tax professionals led the global tax function through years of private equity ownership, pre-IPO readiness, global asset securitizations, global debt refinancing, and the Company's 2015 initial public offering.

Prior to joining Univar, Lynn was the Director of North America Tax for Heidelberg Cement AG’s North American operations, and Global Tax Director for Exide Technologies. Early in her career, Lynn worked for KPMG LLP as a Tax Manager.

Lynn received her BS in Accounting from Arizona State University and her Masters in Taxation from Villanova University. She holds an active California CPA license.

BETSY LEE

Director, Marketing

Betsy Lee has over 14 years of international and domestic experience creating innovative, result-producing digital strategies. She is relentlessly customer-centric with a penchant for getting things done. Betsy’s superpower is collaborating across many departments and seamlessly marrying strategic planning with implementation tactics. Prior to Core Scientific, Betsy was the Director of Digital Marketing for Jabil, a global manufacturing services and engineering design services company with 100 plants in 28 countries with 170,000 employees. Jabil’s customers are in industries such as life sciences, healthcare, aerospace, technology, computing, and storage. While at Jabil, Betsy designed digital lead generation programs, ABM campaigns, direct mail and email campaigns, and defined the company’s go-to market messaging. Betsy was Jabil’s internal strategic communications guru which included public relations, social media, multimedia, and internal and external communications. Previous to Jabil, Betsy lead digital marketing teams at CA Technologies, now a Broadcom company, where she focused on building software security lead generation marketing programs. She has lived and worked in the US, India and France.

Betsy has a triple major in International Studies, Economics, and French, from the University of Wisconsin – Madison. She speaks English and French, and is learning Korean.

JEFF PRATT

Controller

Jeff Pratt has over 25 years of financial, accounting, and operational experience in the technology industry. Jeff held a variety of roles in his 26 years with Microsoft, including Corporate Accounting, Financial Analysis, and Controller. He has developed and operationalized sales incentive plans for employees from front line to leadership teams in over 100 countries. Jeff built and managed finance and accounting teams in South America. As Controller of an Engineering division at Microsoft, he managed a multibillion-dollar budget with teams spread across Israel, India, and China. Most recently Jeff lead the Enterprise Risk Management practice as part of Microsoft’s Internal Audit team. He was on the advisory board of the COSO Enterprise Risk Management update. Jeff holds CPA and CMA certificates and is a graduate of the University of Kansas.

LARRY KOM

Senior Vice President, Technology

Larry Kom, PhD, MPA, CFE is a lead software engineer and manager with over 20 years of full life-cycle development experience. His areas of expertise include security, auditing, forensics, scaling, real-time data, crypto-currency, and high-risk financial systems. Larry is a Certified Fraud Examiner (CFE) and holds a doctorate in Criminal Justice, focusing on internal controls and digital investigative techniques. He previously served as Chief Information Officer for MGT Capital Investments, Inc. (NYSE: MKT) until 2015, following the sale of his auditing startup in 2013.

GARRY FIFE

Chief Construction & Facilities Officer

Garry Fife has 25 years of experience in the construction industry, building fast paced, large scale projects. As an industry leading designer for complex projects including Casinos and Data Centers, Garry has extensive expertise in every facet of Vertical Construction, including mechanical, electrical and plumbing. Prior to joining Core Scientific, Garry served as President of Sun City Electric in Las Vegas.

FABIEN MOUSSEAU

Vice President, FP&A

Fabien Mousseau has over 18 years’ experience as a finance leader with expertise in generating strategic insight, driving smart financial and business decisions, designing pricing strategies, managing risk, optimizing cost structure, and establishing reporting processes. During his 15-year tenure at Microsoft, Fabien worked directly with the CEO to build revenue growth framework. He was also CFO of the Windows Business Group, a $15B+ business for Microsoft, where he helped transition offerings to an entreprise SaaS model and analyzed acquisition opportunities for commercial enterprise growth. Fabien’s finance capabilities are a key differentiator and make him an impact player.  

Fabien received his BS in Engineering from Ecole Polytechnique, in France. He received his Master of Engineering in Environmental Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley. He received his MBA from Harvard Business School.

TONY CHIDIAC

Vice President, Sales

Tony Chidiac brings over 11 years of sales expertise to Core Scientific. He has a successful track record at multiple early stage companies where he has demonstrated a proven ability to grow sales and build new revenue streams in both hardware and software businesses. During his 5 ½ years at GasBuddy OpenStore, he led the newly launched SaaS solution which led to increasing the company’s valuation and a successful acquisition. Tony also launched GasBuddy coupons to enterprise customers including 7-Eleven and Conoco Phillips. While at ZipLine Payments, Tony helped develop and launch their loyalty product which doubled the number of payment solution customers in the first year. This growth trajectory resulted in an acquisition of Zipline Payments.     

Tony graduated from the University of Washington where he also played Division I football.