Meet the Team

SASI is a boutique M&A advisory firm focused on serving investors and entrepreneurs in the IT industry.  We represent leading venture backed private companies that are exploring strategic M&A options. SASI was founded on the belief that stakeholders in private companies have a need for a new class of M&A advisor. They require a banker who brings not only transaction and financial expertise but also has intimate knowledge of the industry, the strategic buyers and the customer, technology, competitive trends shaping the industry.

John Rotchford

John Rotchford

Managing Director

John is the founder of SASI and provides M&A advisory services to private and public companies in the technology market. His primary focus is in cloud infrastructure technologies covering storage, compute, networking, and security across software, SaaS, appliance and pure service business models. He has completed deals with leading market players including Citrix, Dell, Google, Hitachi, Intel, Seagate, and Qualcomm among others. Prior to founding SASI in 2005, John co-managed the information technology practice area and opened the Southern California office for SVB Alliant, the former investment banking division of Silicon Valley Bank. John is a 20+ year technology industry veteran with a unique blend of investment banking, strategy consulting, corporate development and start-up experience. At Iomega, John was responsible for strategic planning, M&A and new investment activities. Before Iomega, John handled public and private sell-side transactions at Broadview International LLC and focused on enabling broadband technologies, digital networked appliances, information security, semiconductors and storage systems. Prior to Broadview, John was director of corporate development at Compaq where he managed strategy projects covering broadband communications, the digital networked home, Internet services, and corporate direction. At Compaq, he was also active in M&A including the Tandem Computer and Digital Equipment Corporation mergers. John spent the first part of his career at an aerospace and defense management consulting start-up that was acquired by Electronic Data Systems. John earned a B.S. in Finance and Accounting from Babson College.

(858) 232-4820 | LinkedIn

Christine Rotchford

Christine Rotchford

Principal

Christine joined SASI in October, 2005 with over 13 years of market and competitive research experience covering a broad range of IT areas such as information security, enterprise software, and personal computing.  Prior to joining SASI, Christine was head of market research and competitive intelligence at Sonicwall, a leading provider of security solutions to small and medium businesses.  She also spent two years at Ensim, a leading provider of hosting automation software. Prior to Ensim, Christine spent seven years in a variety of market research roles.  She spent two years at Compaq Computer Corporation in market intelligence with a focus on competitive intelligence, market segmentation and sizing, and trend and database analysis.  Christine started her career at Management Ventures, a market research based consulting firm specializing in the Consumer Packaged Goods Industry.  She led all phases of primary and secondary research engagements at Management Ventures. Christine has a B.S. in Finance from Babson College.

(858) 337-7416 | LinkedIn

Alex Barnes

Alex Barnes

Principal

Alex joined SASI in May, 2007 and has played a key role in BidStork’s sale to Sabre Holdings and Adaptec’s divestiture of the Snap Server NAS business to Overland Storage.  Alex also manages our 409A valuation practice area.  Prior to joining SASI, Alex interned at Yorkville Advisors, a private equity fund and leading financier in the small-cap sector.  His responsibilities consisted of researching potential portfolio companies and providing transaction support.  Prior to interning at Yorkville Advisors, Alex worked in operations management at the San Diego Union Tribune.  Alex holds a B.A. in Economics from the University of San Diego.

Simon Anderson

Simon Anderson

Senior Advisor

Simon is a seasoned chief executive, entrepreneur, advisor and board member to cloud and SaaS companies. In October 2018 he joined Mission, a managed service provider and consulting partners or public cloud platforms like Amazon Web Services,  after serving as Entrepreneur-in-Residence with Great Hill Partners, a leading private equity firm focused on mid-market technology growth investments.  Previously, Simon was CEO of DreamHost from 2011 to 2015, where he grew the web hosting and cloud company to $50M annual revenue and 400,000 customers worldwide. He also co-founded Inktank, which was acquired by Red Hat for $175M.  Simon has degrees from Australian National University and Harvard Business School.
Henrik Rosendahl

Henrik Rosendahl

Senior Advisor

Henrik is a serial enterprise software entrepreneur with four successful exits including two to VMware. Currently he is head of Business Development and an investor in NeuVector, an application and network intelligence container security solution.  Previously he was Founder and CEO of Akanda, an open source network virtualization technology, and Pancetera, a virtual appliance-as-a-solution for virtual storage. Henrik is on the Boards of Powur, a solar company, and NordSense, a waste management technology company.  He  graduated from MIT Sloan School of Management and DTU Technical University of Denmark.
Tony Cerqueira

Tony Cerqueira

Senior Advisor

Tony has spent over 25 years in the business of IT infrastructure in research, sales, founder and C-level roles. First as a telecommunications analyst and trade negotiator for the US Government, then managing sales in APAC and EMEA for several UNIX focused data storage vendors.  Tony then founded and bootstrapped BakBone Software, growing it to over $20M in sales. BakBone was acquired by Quest Software.  Tony also founded and self-funded Cofio Software, which was acquired by Hitachi Ltd., where Tony headed up their global presales team focused on Data Protection, RegTech and Data Compliance. Tony has a BA in Behavioral Sciences and an MA in International Telecommunications from The American University in Washington DC.
Sundi Sundaresh

Sundi Sundaresh

Senior Advisor

Sundi has over twenty years of successful leadership experience as Board Member, CEO, General Manager (P&L), and senior executive in the development and growth of high technology businesses. He is seasoned at delivering profitable growth, completing mergers, acquisitions and divestitures, as well as raising capital and participating on public and private Boards. Sundi has run established companies as well as start-ups across various sectors including Enterprise, Software, Storage, Networking and Telecom with diverse products including systems, sub-systems, software and ASICs. Currently Sundi is President & CEO of Cinarra Systems which offers a new revenue source to MNOs by giving marketers a secure platform to deliver location-based campaigns. Sundi has an MBA from The Wharton School, a Masters in Electrical Engineering from Cornell University and a Bachelor’s in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of technology, Madras.
George Symons

George Symons

Senior Advisor

George Symons brings over 20 years of IT infrastructure experience. Most recently he has been Gridstore CEO and a member of its board of directors. Mr. Symons previously served as Chief Strategy Officer at Nexsan, resulting in its acquisition by Imation. Prior to Nexsan, he held executive roles in storage companies including Xiotech Corporation (COO), EvoStor (CEO), Yosemite Technologies (CEO), EMC (CTO for Information Management), and Legato (CTO, VP of Development and Product Management). He has also held senior roles at FullTime Software, Software Research, PROCASE Corporation, and Sun Microsystems. Mr. Symons has bachelor degrees in Computer Science and Management Science from UCSD and an MBA from UCLA.