ACADEMIA

Opera Solutions announced that Armando Escalante has been appointed Chief Operating Officer. In that role, he will be responsible for leading technology and platform development, product development, data management capabilities, science, and the development and management of organizational infrastructure, processes, and IT. His role includes overseeing the development of Vektor, the company's Big Data analytics processing and delivery platform.

Escalante has 20 years of technology experience. Prior to joining Opera, he was the Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer of LexisNexis, as well as the Head of HPCC Systems, where he focused on Big Data analytics and data-intensive supercomputing.

"I joined Opera Solutions because its approach to predictive analytics is a breakthrough way to meet a fast-growing need in the market to use Big Data to drive productivity and profitability," said Escalante. "With more than 220 scientists, Opera's analytics capabilities are extraordinary, and I have an opportunity to bring this science to businesses' front lines in a scalable, intelligent way."

"We have a significant opportunity facing us in the Big Data predictive analytics space," said Opera CEO Arnab Gupta. "Armando's deep experience and vision will ensure we create the corporate infrastructure and scalable platform we need to seize this opportunity."

Escalante has also held senior positions at Bell Labs, EPSON America, Vignette and Unisys Corp. He has a degree in Electronics Engineering from Universidad Simon Bolivar, an MBA from West Coast University, and a MS in Computer Science from Stevens Institute of Technology. He is currently pursuing a PhD in Computer Science from Florida Atlantic University. He is the author of numerous publications and holds several patents.