What we do matters

Dan Woods is the founder and CEO of Socotra, the first modern, cloud-based platform for technology-driven insurers. Before Socotra, Dan did IT investing and portfolio management for Formation 8 Partners (now 8VC), where he specialized in data platforms and smart enterprise software. Prior to that, Dan’s depth of enterprise experience was honed over his six years with Palantir. There, Dan was an early member of the core engineering team and later transitioned to run Palantir’s partnerships, plus several deployments. He holds a MS in Computer Science from Stanford.

Ekine Akuiyibo is the Chief Business Officer at Socotra, where he oversees field engineering, product delivery, partnerships, training, and support. Prior to Socotra, Ekine spent 15 years in enterprise software development, sales, and services at Sun Microsystems, BAE Systems, and Oracle. Most recently, Ekine worked on large scale ML problems at Oracle. He holds a PhD in Electrical Engineering from Stanford.

Sonny Patel is the Chief Product and Technology Officer at Socotra, where she leads our Product and Engineering teams and owns and executes on Socotra’s product strategy. She is a recognized thought leader in AI with over 20 years of experience building and launching products at Fortune 500 companies. Prior to Socotra, Sonny was an integral leader at Dell, Microsoft, Amazon, and LivePerson. She holds an MBA in Strategy & Entrepreneurship from the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley and a Master’s in Computer Science from Texas A&M University.

Heidi Friedrikson is the Vice President of Operations at Socotra, where she oversees finance, human resources, operations, and recruiting. Heidi has honed her finance and business management skills across various startups and Fortune 500 companies. She has thrived on the unique challenges that each company presented, including taking two companies from inception to successful acquisition. Before Socotra, Heidi worked on operations at Addepar, SkyFire, and Cisco Systems.

Ken Holmes is Socotra's Vice President of Sales. Ken is responsible for new customer acquisition as well as existing customer growth and renewal. Prior to Socotra, Ken led all North American sales at Tubular Labs, the leader in social video measurement, and prior to that led international sales at NetBase, the leading social listening solution. He holds a B.A. from the University of San Francisco.

Sam Madden is Socotra’s Vice President of Finance, where he oversees the company’s FP&A and accounting initiatives. Prior to Socotra, Sam spent 15 years working within financial strategy (Propeller), operations (PocketSuite), investing (Highland Capital) and investment banking (Credit Suisse). Most recently, Sam spent the past 5 years consulting with a number of high-growth, venture-backed B2B SaaS companies in a CFO capacity. He holds a B.A. from Colgate University and is a CFA Charterholder.