Dr. Hongwen Zhang, Chief Executive Officer & Chief Technical Officer
Co-founder of Wedge Networks, Inc., Dr. Zhang previously co-founded the 24C Group Inc., which pioneered the first digital receipts infrastructure for secure electronic commerce, and was a principal of Servidium Inc., a global leader in agile development methodology. He holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science and a M.Sc. in Computer Engineering. Throughout his 25+ years career and leadership in the enterprise software industry, Dr. Zhang has been instrumental in launching several commercially successful cyber security and safety products into the global market. This has resulted in large customer adoptions and many billions of dollars of ROI for shareholders; from his involvement in the Digital Receipt Infrastructure (with the 24C Group, and later AxWay), through his work with companies such as Valmet/Telvent (now Schneider), and Servidium (acquired by Thought Works Inc.). Dr. Zhang served as the Chair of the Metro Ethernet Forum’s (MEF) Security-as-a-Service working group, which defined the practices of Managed Security Service Providers (MSSPs) for many of the largest telecom service providers in the world. He is a speaker and writer in the areas of security and cloud computing. As a co-founder of Wedge Networks, Dr. Zhang has led the design, implementation, and launch of the firm’s patented, award-winning network management and security platform.
Hussein Amery, Vice President of Business Development
Dr. Amery is Wedge Networks’ Vice President of Business Development. Dr. Amery has more than 25 years of experience building business in different industries – oil and gas, real estate development, finance and IT. Dr. Amery’s most recent position was the VP Operations for a publicly-traded managed Internet services provider (Fatport, a division of Skyboard Media). Prior to that, Dr. Amery was a founding director of Ittihad Capital Corp., a boutique finance and leasing corporation. Dr. Amery completed his undergraduate education in Canada and his post-graduate education in California, earning a doctorate in psychology. While not working, Dr. Amery volunteers his time extensively to local and international charitable and non-profit organizations.
Kevin Higgins, Senior Vice-President Government Services
Kevin Higgins is Senior Vice-President Government Services responsible for the introduction of Wedge Networks products and services to the departments and agencies of the Government of Canada. His objective is to establish and scale up the company’s Federal Government business for long term sustainability and profitability.Higgins has co-founded and built several successful software companies including FreeBalance Inc., a financial systems provider to public sector organizations in Canada and the United States. As a mentor at the L-Spark Accelerator in Ottawa, Higgins has provided advice and coaching to many software start-up CEOs. Higgins has served onboards and committees of various Ottawa hospital, university and non-profit organizations. Higgins holds a B.Sc. in Physics from Carleton University.
Owen Peng, Vice President of Special Projects
Owen Peng is a seasoned IT industry veteran with over 25 years of experience. Since 2009, he has served as Vice President at Wedge Networks. His career spans multiple countries and encompasses a wide range of leadership roles in the technology sector. Prior to Wedge, Mr. Peng was Vice President at VanceInfo (now Pactera), a major IT service provider in Asia. He also co-founded and led SureKAM, a prominent system integrator and IT services company, where he successfully managed large-scale IT projects for key clients. Mr. Peng's extensive experience includes serving as CTO of Telecom Plus, a Hong Kong Exchange-listed company, and holding various positions at Xerox in both Singapore and the United States. Early in his career, he worked as secretary to the President at Legend Group, China's largest PC manufacturer at the time. Mr. Peng holds a Master's degree in artificial intelligence from ARIM of China and a B.S. in automation from Xiangtan University, China.
Zubair Ashraf, Vice President of Technology
Zubair Ashraf is the VP of Technology, contributing to the research direction of the company’s cyber threat prevention initiatives and leading the technical services team to address pressing field needs. With a focus on customer and partner success initiatives, Zubair brings 18 years of experience with industry leaders like IBM, Microsoft, and Crowdstrike. His security journey began as the Team Lead for Vulnerability Research for IBM’s Intrusion Prevention System (IPS) product, where he led the research team, discovered several 0-day vulnerabilities, and presented at leading conferences. He then focused on APT Malware, Malware Behavior, automatic analysis via different sandboxing technologies, exploitation techniques, and 0-day vulnerabilities, helping to grow coverage for new malware behavior at Microsoft. Most recently, Zubair led Product Security at Crowdstrike, covering Threat Modeling, Secure Design, Secure Development Training, and leading response efforts for bug bounty programs.