Thomas Thekkethala, Managing Partner

Mr. Thekkethala is an entrepreneur, investor, and philanthropist with over twenty-five years of experience in financing and leading global technology companies. He is the founder and Managing Partner of TOLIMA, which invests and provides advisory services to disruptive innovation technology companies in AI, Blockchain, Cloud Computing and Digital Engagement.   

Prior to TOLIMA, he was the co-founder and Managing Partner of JT Ventures, which focused on investing and mentoring early-stage technology companies through their growth and successful acquisitions. Investments included CrosStor (acquired by EMC), Allegro (acquired by Cisco Systems: CSCO), Fidelia (acquired by NetScout: NTCT), Ibrix (acquired by HP) & Sixth Sense Media (acquired by Evolving: EVOL).  

During his career, he was the President and CEO of Evolving Systems (NASDAQ: EVOL), a real time digital engagement solutions company with over 100 mobile operator customers in 75 countries touching 2 billion consumers. He completed the secondary buyouts / acquisitions and integration of Business Logic Systems and Lumata in 2017 to expand the company’s leadership team and global customer footprint. He re-positioned the company’s strategy to help carriers accelerate consumer acquisition and extend the consumer lifetime value through new revenue streams. The company's operations were  streamlined leading to improved financial performance and the company's acquisition by PartnerOne Software.

Previously, Mr. Thekkethala was a founding investor, Chairman and CEO at Sixth Sense Media (SSM), which created the telecom industry’s leading real-time Analytics and Mobile Marketing solutions. He evaluated and completed secondary buyouts, re-structured the company and its strategy resulting in the addition of 25 mobile carriers engaging over 500 million consumers in Europe, Middle East, Africa and Asia and led the company to its acquisition by Evolving Systems.

He also founded SRG, a telecom network operations and management software company and CCSS, a telecom industry "Software as a Service" platform company in the early 1990s, where he developed the product vision, architecture and market strategy and led the companies to their successful acquisitions. He began his career at Cybertel, a start-up wireless carrier, that grew to become a market leader before its acquisition by Ameritech (now ATT Wireless).   

Mr. Thekkethala is the co-founder of Learn for Life Foundation, a non-profit organization, focused on educating disadvantaged children in developing communities using holistic and online education models. He is passionate about children's education as a catalyst to change lives and uplift communities. Mr. Thekkethala received his Masters’ degree from the McKelvey School of Engineering at Washington University where he was also an adjunct faculty member for over five years and has spoken at numerous software and telecom industry conferences worldwide.