Our team

A great company starts with a great team

Executive team

Joël Winteregg

Board member, CEO & Co-Founder

As NetGuardians CEO, Joël Winteregg both guides innovation of NetGuardians core solutions and drives business development, with a focus on Europe and Africa. He has headed the company since 2007, when he co-founded it with Raffael Maio. His business intuition is matched by technical talent – it was Joël’s own research that led to the prototype for the company’s intelligent behavioral analysis software. As well as almost 10 years as an entrepreneurial business leader, Joël has solid experience in R&D and as a software engineer, including as a security specialist with the Institute for Information and Communication Technologies. He holds both a degree in Software Engineering and a CISSP (Certified Information Systems Security Professional) certification.

Raffael Maio

Board member, CSO & Co-Founder

NetGuardians CSO & Co-Founder, Raffael Maio is primarily responsible for securement of financing as well as business development in Asia. In 2017, he played a key role in securing CHF 8.5 million in the company’s third round of financing. He is a keen entrepreneur who, along with Joël Winteregg, is the co-founder of NetGuardians. On the technology side, Raffael brings several years’ experience in security software engineering, in environments ranging from a Silicon Valley start-up to a multinational product security company. In terms of business development, he is adept at both innovative and traditional models. He has a degree in Software Engineering as well as an EMBA.

Michäel Gingins

Head of Professional Services

As the Manager of Professional Services at NetGuardians, Michaël Gingins oversees implementation of NetGuardians solutions for clients in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, coordinating with NetGuardians partners to ensure continuity of client care. With NetGuardians since 2010, he has a deep understanding of client needs and desire to meet those needs. His previous background as a telecommunications engineer includes more than 10 years in service provision and IT network security consulting. He has particularly sharp knowledge and expertise in the area of risk prevention for the banking sector.

Jérôme Kehrli

CTO

Along with his extensive experience in developing banking software, Jérôme Kehrli brought his passion and curiosity for innovative technologies to inspire and lead the R&D team when he joined NetGuardians in 2015. As NetGuardians CTO, he is responsible for heading the innovation. Specialized in Information System architecture and Artificial Intelligence, he brings skills covering the gamut of software architecture, design, implementation and project management. To develop software solutions able to meet the challenges of a rapidly-evolving risk environment, Jérôme counts on technical skills, creativity, and an ability to understand both banking issues and advanced algorithms from all perspectives.

Frédéric Crettenand

CFO

Frédéric joined NetGuardians in 2018 from Nestle Nespresso, bringing with him 15 years of professional experience in diverse finance and commercial roles in international companies. Prior to Nestlé, he used to work for the Boston Consulting Group and for Tetra Pak. Besides heading up our finance team, he is also a key member of our customer/partner contract negotiating team, accountable for finance and legal matters. Frédéric holds an MBA with distinction from the London Business School and graduated earlier from HEC Lausanne (Faculty of Business and Economics of Lausanne University).

Peter Marini

Managing Director, Asia Pacific

Peter Marini heads up the NetGuardians Asia Pacific organisation as the Managing Director. With more than 20 years’ experience in tech sales in mature and emerging markets, Peter draws on his excellent technical knowledge and a deep understanding of customer journeys to advise financial institutions about fraud prevention and mitigation. Throughout his career, Peter has focused on helping organizations overcome business challenges, from securing their environment to improving their relationships with customers.

Thierry Divenot

Global Head of Sales and Marketing

Thierry Divenot is NetGuardians’ global head of sales and marketing. As highly experienced international sales manager, Thierry has spent more than 30 years selling and deploying sophisticated solutions to banks and financial institutions. During that time, he succeeded to sustainably increase the footprint of Temenos solutions in Switzerland and Continental Europe, dealing with C-level executives. Formerly, he significantly contributed to the growth of a company from 15 to 600 people as Regional General Manager as well as headed the R&D for 6 years, inspiring and managing large multidisciplinary teams across the globe. Thierry graduated from the University of Technology (UTC) de Compiègne with a degree in software engineering, specialising in AI.

Board members

Olivier Trancart

Board member, Entrepreneur and Investor

Olivier Trancart is a private entrepreneur. He is involved in investment funds in emerging countries as well as investment funds for promising young enterprises in Western Switzerland. During a highly international career, he held several leadership positions worldwide, including Head of Financial Services Industries at Hewlett-Packard and CEO of System Access Private Ltd in Singapore. Since 2005, he has been Executive Vice President for Sales at Oracle financial services (formerly i-flex Solutions). Olivier holds a M.Sc. from EPFL and has been president of its Alumni Association until 2010.

Paolo Buzzi

Board member, Co-Founder and CTO at Swissquote Group Holding ltd

Paolo Buzzi is the founding partner and Chief Technical Officer of Swissquote Group Holding ltd, a Switzerland’s leading provider of online financial and trading services, listed on the SIX Swiss exchange. Additionally, Paolo is the Chief Technical Officer of the Swissquote Bank ltd.
Prior to this position, he was a Software Engineer and New Technology Integration Engineer at Rolm Systems, located in Santa Clara, USA.
Paolo holds a degree in Micro-Engineering from EPFL and is a member of the Strategic Advisory Board of EPFL.

Kaarina Suikkonen

Board member, Head of Private Equity at Freemont Management

Kaarina Suikkonen is the Head of Private Equity at Freemont Management, a private asset management company. Kaarina has over 17 years of global private equity and venture capital experience. She started her investment career in California, then led a large PE program in Germany. She founded and managed an advisory business prior to joining Freemont Management. Prior to investments, Kaarina worked as transaction attorney. Kaarina holds an MBA from UC Davis, an LL.M. from University of Helsinki, she is a member of Californian Bar and a CFA Charterholder.

Egor Abramov

Board member, Advisor at FortRoss Ventures

Egor Abramov brings more than six years of well diversified international experience in venture capital, private equity and investment banking both in Moscow and in London. He has two Master’s degrees in economics and in math from leading Russian universities. Egor also studied in UC Berkeley, Haas School of Business.

Advisory board members

Guillaume Dubray

Advisory board member, Managing partner at Polytech Ventures

Guillaume Dubray is Managing Partner of Polytech Ventures, an early stage VC based at EPFL (Lausanne) and Silicon Valley investing in digital start-ups with a focus on FinTech. He is founder of FUSION, Switzerland’s first FinTech accelerator based in Geneva. He previously co-founded Active Niche Funds SA, an investment firm specialized in the CleanTech sector. Before-hand, he was responsible for various Venture Capital investment & advisory activities for Rothschild in Geneva. Guillaume has 15 years of experience in investment management and corporate finance. He started his career with Ernst & Young in Geneva and then moved to New York, where he worked as an M&A advisor on behalf of large US-based Private Equity funds.

Frank Marthaler

Advisory board member

Frank Marthaler is an advisor, investor and board member who combines skills in business, people and innovation to support start-ups and SMEs through sustainable growth. He is particularly adept at navigating the challenges of transformation – whether it be an M&A integration or the transition to a digital business model. His creativity and drive for excellence were honored through a career in sales and marketing, including various executive roles with Swiss Post and Swiss Post Solutions. He was CEO of Swiss Post Solutions for many years, developing it from scratch into a profitable enterprise with operations in over 20 countries and some 6,500 employees.

Meet the team

Number of employees

We’re more than 80 motivated people working together on a shared vision to develop the cutting-edge analytics technology to make the world a safer place.

More than 80

More than 24

Different nationalities

If you’re looking for a highly international experience, you’re at the right place! We’ve 24 nationalities present at NetGuardians. Basically, you can meet someone from each continent on earth.

Different languages

Talk to us. Parlez avec nous. Sprechen mit uns. Habla con nosotros. Fale connosco. Bizimle konusun. Do you want to talk to us in your own language? That should be no problem at all. We speak more than 19 languages!

More than 19

More than 89%

University degree

We’ve studied at major universities around the world to receive our bachelor’s, master’s or even PhD degrees. These include the University of California, Los Angeles, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, University of Bologna, and INSEAD among many others.

Average age

We’re a young team – with an average age of 34 – wanting to make a difference in the world. Above all, we’re all passionate – we love what we do and we have shared values. Honestly, we’re having a great game. Do you want to be part of the team?

Interested in becoming part of our team?

Apply now