Management Team

Board of Directors

Mr. Marx has spent more than 25 years in the communications, semiconductor and services Industry. His field of expertise covers specifically Mobile Transactions, the Semiconductors Industry (Identification and Smart Cards), NFC and RFID eco-systems, mobile- and fixed network communications, Identity Management, Trusted Service Management, the creation of new eco-systems as well as the field of human-centric knowledge management and leadership development. Mr. Marx developed, through his numerous international assignments in different industries, a truly global network covering all geographic areas from APAC, EMEA, the USA and Latin America.

Previously Mr. Marx served as the Executive Vice President of Identive Group Inc. and as CEO Transponders and Semiconductors Group. He also served as Executive Director of the Board of Identive Group as well as on the board of Directors of some of Identive Group’s portfolio companies. In addition, he served as CEO of the ACiG Technology business. Mr. Marx joined Identive Group in October 2007 as CEO of SCM Microsystems, Inc., Identive’s predecessor, and served in this role until March 2010, when he took the role of Chief Operating Officer of Identive Group.

During his time as SCM Microsystems CEO he acquired Hirsch Electronics and Bluehill ID, a group of companies in the Identity Management and RFID space transforming the entire group into Identive Group.

From 2003 to October 2007 Mr. Marx held a variety of management positions with NXP Semiconductors and Philips Semiconductors, amongst other’s as General Manager of the Near Field Communication (NFC) business, which focuses on the use of existing contactless smart card standards, and as General Manager of the Contactless & Embedded Security business, where he was responsible for the smart card business (mobile communications, banking, e-government), NFC (Near Field Communication) and reader IC businesses of the company.

Mr. Marx also has several years’ experience in the data and voice-networking sector, where he held various sales, marketing, product management, business line management and general management positions with companies including Global One Telecommunications and Ericsson Telecommunications.
During his assignments in different corporations Mr. Marx spend a significant amount of time overseas (Asia Pacific) as well as in Sweden and other countries.

Mr. Marx holds a Bachelor’s degree in Engineering from the Technical Academy in Vienna, a postgraduate degree in Business Administration from the University of Commerce in Vienna and a Master of Advanced Studies in Knowledge Management from Danube University Krems in Austria.

As Chief Financial Officer, Mr. Slusarz is responsible for all aspects of C-SAM’s finances globally including treasury, controllership, planning and analysis, and financial reporting.

Mr. Slusarz brings a unique combination of skills to C-SAM including a deep understanding of the payments business (credit card issuing and credit and debit networks), familiarity with patent protected products and experience in a start up business.

He spent 23 years at Discover Financial Services serving on Discover’s Management Committee for 10 years. He was Discover’s CFO while Discover was part of Morgan Stanley and Corporate Controller after Discover’s spinoff.

Mr. Slusarz played a key leadership role in Discover’s highly successful 2007 spinoff from Morgan Stanley where he led the largest work stream and was a member of the Spinoff Steering Committee. He and his team also built the necessary infrastructure for a public company.

During his tenure at Discover, Mr. Slusarz worked in both start up and turnaround situations and played a key leadership role in numerous strategic transactions both domestically and internationally.

Prior to Discover, he also worked in the pharmaceutical (G. D. Searle) and heavy manufacturing (Pullman) industries, where he spent 4 years and 7 years, respectively.

Mr. Slusarz holds an MBA from DePaul University and a Bachelor of Science in Finance from Northern Illinois University. He was named the 2005 Distinguished Alumni by the Finance Department at Northern Illinois University.

Mr. Slusarz currently serves as an Instructor at the Lake Forest Graduate School of Management and as a Board member of CE Printed Products.

As General Manager for Asia Pacific region, Shubhrendu Khoche is responsible for all day-to-day activities in Asia Pacific region, including business development, account and project management. Before joining C-SAM, Mr. Khoche served as a sales director with Venyon, a joint venture Asia of Nokia and Giesecke & Devrient (later merged back into G&D). In this role he drove business and operations for trusted services in Asia Pacific and created partnerships in the mobile payments & ticketing space with service providers and application developers.

From 2003 to 2007, Mr. Khoche worked on business development, product marketing & product management of identification products including Near Field Communication (NFC) at Philips Semiconductors (now NXP, founded by Philips) across Europe and Asia. He was instrumental in market creation and evangelizing mobile contactless services in Asia during this early market.

Earlier, he worked in product management roles at Ericsson hp Telecom (Ehpt) in Asia and Europe, creating and delivering products and services to fixed line and mobile carriers to launch & charge for new voice & data services.

Mr. Khoche holds an MBA from INSEAD and did a Masters in International Business at the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade (IIFT). He is a trained Electronics & Communications engineer from Delhi College of Engineering, University of Delhi.

Mr. Kunkat has over 15 years of experience in the semiconductor, RFID, NFC, identification and mobile arenas. He previously served as Marketing Director at NXP Semiconductors driving business and strategic alliances for contactless and NFC infrastructure products in the payment, access, ticketing, metering and gaming markets. He also worked as Vice President for Product Management at SCM Microsystems and as Manager of NFC Product Management at NXP and Philips Semiconductors. In 2002, Mr. Kunkat actively contributed to the initial NFC standards (ECMA 340 & ISO/IEC18092 and ISO/IEC 21481), and was subsequently named Chairman of the Technical Committee and Device Working Group within the NFC Forum from 2004 -2010. He has several patents on NFC and holds a Master in electrical engineering from Christian Albrechts University in Kiel, Germany.

Mr. Iyer has over 16 years of demonstrated success in Human Capital Management in IT organizations, with an emphasis on building strong organizational foundations through Talent Acquisition, Resource Management, and Training and Development of diverse professional teams. In his previous work as Head of HR at Mascon Global, Ltd., India, he implemented strategies for optimum resource utilization and for fostering motivation using achievable benchmarking and incentive systems. At C-SAM his focus also includes Identification of critical competencies, values and roles essential to the achievement of business goals. Mr. Iyer holds a Masters in Human Resource Management from University of Wales, UK.

Nehal Maniar has spent over 15 years in the areas of software development, product design / architecting, quality assurance, and solution engineering. As Chief Technology Officer, Mr. Maniar, is responsible for all product development, product customization / delivery, and support activities related to C-SAM products and technology. Mr. Maniar has been with C-SAM for the past 8 years and earlier was Vice President for Core Products.

Prior to joining C-SAM, Mr. Maniar was heading up a product development group in India for PopNet Internet AG, a German IT company. Prior to this, he worked in the U.S. as an application development engineer in the field of Manufacturing Information Systems and SCADA.

Mr. Maniar has worked for many years in North America in the area of software development, and has a B.S. and M.S. in Electrical Engineering.

Dr. Karnik has spent over 35 years in Research and Development in Computer Based Systems, including the design and development of real time systems, embedded systems, digital signal processing, parallel processing and mobile based solutions. Dr. Karnik has been with C-SAM since 2001 and earlier was Vice President for New Products and R&D and Vice President for Core Products.

Prior to joining C-SAM, Dr. Karnik was the Director at the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing, which pioneered India’s initiatives in Parallel Super Computing.

As Vice President for Strategy & New Business, Dr. Karnik is responsible for formulation of strategies and assessment of new business opportunities based on contemporary and projected technologies. Dr. Karnik holds a B.Tech. and M.Tech. in Electronics and Communication Engineering, and has a Ph.D. in Advanced Computing.

Ms. Ballard brings over 10 years of innovation and leadership in mobile user experience, drawing on her past engagements across the entire mobile ecosystem. She has worked with mobile startups, mobile operators and companies in numerous related verticals in between. She authored the book, “Designing the Mobile User Experience” in 2007. Ms. Ballard held management positions at a variety of mobile commerce companies, and has also helped majors like AT&T, Sprint, LG, The Weather Channel, Hallmark and Skyfire develop and deliver exceptional user experiences. She has degrees in industrial engineering and business, as well as significant graduate work in ergonomics, psychology, industrial design, and industrial engineering.