Lou DiFruscio Chief Executive Officer

Lou is a seasoned technology executive with over 30 years of experience leading high-performing teams. He has held several senior leadership positions, most recently serving as chief revenue officer (CRO) at Invicti Security. Prior to that, Lou was the CRO at SmartBear Software, where he spent nearly nine years contributing to the company’s growth through both organic expansion and multiple acquisitions. His approach emphasizes customer satisfaction, operational excellence, and value-driven growth.

Lou values team collaboration and takes pride in mentoring colleagues to help them advance in their careers. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Business and Economics from Westfield State University and currently resides in the Boston, MA, USA, area.

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Satoru Ogawa Chief Financial Officer

Satoru joined Blancco in November 2023 as Chief Financial Officer, overseeing the Finance and Legal functions. In his role, Satoru ensures the successful achievement of financial strategy and objectives for Blancco.

Satoru was previously Chief Financial Officer of Corsearch, a leading provider of trademark and brand protection solutions. He managed the business through its transition to private ownership in 2018 and then rapid growth as the business scaled from 200 employees to over 1,500. During his tenure, the business completed 9 acquisitions and completed a sale to new investors in 2021. Prior to Corsearch, Satoru held various corporate finance roles at IBM and Wolters Kluwer.

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Russ Ernst Chief Technology Officer

As chief technology officer at Blancco Technology Group, Russ Ernst is responsible for defining, driving, and executing product strategy across the entire Blancco data erasure, device diagnostics, and mobile lifecycle solutions suite. Russ is a regular speaker at IT and data security industry conferences, where he addresses data lifecycle management, end-of-life IT management, and data sanitization best practices. He also provides expertise on how organizations can reach their sustainability goals and fuel the circular economy by harnessing secure disposal processes.

With over twenty years of experience managing ITAD and enterprise technology product development, Russ is regularly sought for comment. You can find his insights in Recycling Today, Security Boulevard, Data Center Knowledge, Business Insider, and The Fast Mode, and in the book, Net Zeros and Ones: How Data Erasure Promotes Sustainability, Privacy, and Security.

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Jon Mellon President of Global Sales, Marketing and Field Operations

A seasoned executive with more than two decades of sales leadership, Jon joined Blancco in 2022 to spearhead sales strategies that strengthen Blancco’s presence worldwide. He is responsible for directing the company’s sales, marketing, and field operations activities across the globe, and has a particular emphasis on modernizing Blancco’s channel program within highly regulated industries—where data protection is especially critical.

Jon’s focus on talent development, technology value, and sales innovation have positioned him as a leader in cultivating top-performing teams and accelerating company growth. His accomplishments include transforming Sonatype’s go-to-market activities within the DevOps and application security markets, as well as building and scaling a multi-billion-dollar business unit at NetApp—a global data storage and management enterprise that doubled in size during Jon’s 12 years of leading sales. He’s also held executive roles at Copan Systems and Akamai Technologies.

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Sarah Smith Senior Vice President of Human Resources

As senior vice president of human resources, Sarah leads global HR strategy and corporate culture initiatives for Blancco’s workforce of over 300 people across four continents. She first joined Blancco as director of human resources in January 2019 after more than 15 years’ experience managing and leading HR teams across several technology and software organizations. Before Blancco, she led human resources for the UK and EMEA at Domino Printing and has also held senior HR positions at TWI and ARM Ltd. Sarah’s expertise is in building organizations—in some cases from only a handful of employees to a workforce of thousands. Her experience also shows a track record of growing and developing HR teams and creating consistency across global businesses.

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