Management Team

Jeff Tavangar founded The Armada Group in 1995 to provide companies with exceptional software and IT resources that enable them to achieve vital business objectives. Jeff provides the strategic vision for the company and heads its business development and operations efforts. Under his leadership, Armada has become a leading Silicon Valley technology consulting firm.

Jeff's keen industry knowledge, IT expertise and ability to recruit top talent have propelled Armada to double its size over the last four years with an average annual growth rate of 28%. In addition to being a vendor of choice for clients such as Cisco and ShoreTel, Armada achieved the distinction of being the top performing technical firm for eBay three consecutive years.

Prior to launching The Armada Group, Jeff was a top revenue producer in consulting services for Heuristic Search and Surfsoft, where he helped clients such as Sun Microsystems, Adobe Systems, EDS, Hitachi and Canon identify and hire top technical talent. He holds a Bachelors degree from the University of California, Irvine. An active member of the TechServe Alliance (formerly the National Association of Computer Consultant Businesses (NACCB)), Jeff is also an avid surfer, snowboarder and belongs to the United States Tennis Association (USTA) and Mountain Bikers of Santa Cruz (MBOSC).

Vasanthan Dasan, The Armada Group’s CTO and EVP of Engineering for Smart Infrastructure services, is a recognized expert in cloud technology and virtualization software. Prior to joining Armada, Vasanthan was a Sun Distinguished Engineer and served as Chief Technologist for Sun's Cloud Computing practice, responsible for Sun Cloud business development with enterprises, telcos and internet service providers. He led Sun’s Cloud Computing unit in the architecture, deployment, operation and transformation of cloud computing practices with hosting services, remote services and virtualization software, working with worldwide customers in US, Europe, China, India, Korea, Singapore and South Africa.

Prior to that, Vasanthan was the Chief Technologist for Sun's $5.1 billion Services business unit, where he led the effort to automate Sun's service technologies over 10 years. He also helped lead Sun's software division, developing core Solaris technologies such as network file systems, kernel and cluster software. Before joining Sun in1992, Vasanthan held key engineering posts at Intergraph and Hewlett Packard.

Vasanthan holds a BS in Engineering Physics, MS in Computer Science and a MA in Mathematics. He did his PhD work in Computer Science at Colorado State University. He served as an adjunct faculty in Computer Science at University of Colorado at Boulder.

Vasanthan has several publications to his credit including whitepapers, industry standards, books and patents. His highly referenced US patent 5,761,662 is founding technology for personalization of the Web. Vasanthan is the author of the first book on Intranet, Prentice Hall publication "Hands-on Intranet".

Vasanthan lives in Boulder, Colorado and enjoys rugby and cycling.

As Executive Vice President for The Armada Group, Dan Mickwee leads the company's growth and solutions strategy. Dan has 15 years' experience and a successful track record in the professional services industry.
 
Prior to joining The Armada Group, Dan served as Assistant Director at Ernst & Young LLP in the San Francisco-based Transaction Advisory Services practice, where he focused on business development strategy and execution for private equity and corporate clients. He also contributed to the firm's private equity go-to-market strategy and increased revenue across all of Ernst & Young's service lines.

During Dan's seven-year tenure with Gartner, he consistently exceeded revenue targets in a variety of sales and leadership roles. As Global Account Director, he was responsible for major accounts including Kaiser Permanente, McKesson Corporation, Blue Shield of California and Wells Fargo Bank. In addition, Dan spearheaded numerous initiatives; including directing global account teams toward a set of common objectives, among them the proper delivery of IT consulting, benchmarking, research and go-to-market solutions. 

Dan graduated from Santa Clara University in 1993 and holds a B.A. in commerce with a concentration in marketing.

Lisa Sullivan is Vice President of Client Relations for The Armada Group. A seasoned leader, adept at building strong client relationships and managing sales and recruitment operations, Lisa's role is to further strengthen Armada's client service capabilities to meet the evolving needs of its clients.

Lisa began her career at The Armada Group in 1996 as a technical recruiter and has since become the firm's top-producing account manager, demonstrating leadership in sales management and a commitment to customer relationships. Since 2001, 95 percent of Armada's business has come from repeat customers and client referrals, a fact that the firm's founder and managing director attributes in part to Lisa's leadership and expertise.

In her previous role as The Armada Group's Director of Business Development, Lisa was responsible for sales management, recruitment and customer relations for Cisco. She successfully partnered with Cisco management to ensure all the IT infrastructure managed service requirements were fulfilled. As Vice President of Client Relations, Lisa is responsible for managing the firm's existing client relationships, in addition to increasing Armada's client service capabilities.

Lisa holds a Bachelor's degree from the University of California Santa Cruz and a paralegal certificate from the University of San Diego.

Chuck Geiger is a respected industry leader with two decades of experience running some of the largest online transaction organizations and most visited Web sites in the world. His impressive background includes serving as CTO of Ask.com, CTO of PayPal and VP of Architecture at eBay. Chuck has also held executive-level positions at InterActive Corp., Gateway, Travelocity and Texas Instruments, among others.

Chuck has led technology and engineering organizations with upwards of 550 employees, and been responsible for myriad functions including engineering, architecture, operations, IT, quality assurance, project and product management, content, localization and design efforts. He has also held senior management roles in product development and marketing, where he directed all product development, technical development, and related product marketing activities.

Tim Unger has an outstanding record of accomplishments as a technology executive and entrepreneur. During his twenty-year career in executive management positions in a wide variety of leading-edge technology markets, Tim has played an instrumental role in scaling a number of Silicon Valley start-ups and accelerating the growth and prosperity of their dynamic businesses. Among his most recent successes is Tropian, Inc. a fabless semiconductor start-up in multimode radio solutions addressing cellular & emerging 3G standards, which was acquired by Panasonic.

Tim currently serves on the board of Swedish-based Coresonic, advises Netherlands headquartered 24Access, Silicon Valley-based Skybox Security, and owns Consulting in Human Capital. Tim was also senior vice president and corporate officer at Cadence Design Systems, and an Entrepreneur in Residence with US Venture Partners.

Mike is 20-year veteran in the operations and executive management arena. He is credited with successfully growing a number of diverse businesses in the distribution, manufacturing and professional services areas. Mike has spent 22 years in executive management, most recently as COO of Advanced Software Talent. Before that, he was CEO of Metrotech Corporation, a leading worldwide supplier of electronic instruments to the communications and utility industries. A graduate of UC Berkeley, Callaghan has an MBA in Finance and an undergraduate degree in Engineering.