Derek Hanson

Experience

• 

  Kratikos Labs

  Founder / Director of Research

  Feb 2026 - Present

  Kratikos Labs is an Applied AI research practice dedicated to solving complex, high-impact problems through the strategic application of Data Science and AI/ML. The lab emphasizes accelerated compute (NVIDIA-certified infrastructure), responsible innovation (human-in-the-loop validation), knowledge sharing (technical publications), and delivering validated research to scientific institutions. Currently operating in a focused research phase.

  • Initialized NVIDIA Blackwell-class node (DGX Spark) bring-up — firmware, drivers and CUDA stack validation for a high-density 1‑PFLOPS node.
  • Built Python-based data transformation and I/O validation scripts to establish a stable local processing baseline for large-scale geospatial datasets.
  • Led multi-phase wildfire prediction research combining clustering, weather feature engineering and CNN-based modeling to predict location and intensity.
  • Achieved production-grade model performance in research pipeline (published results and community engagement); pursuing institutional peer review and publication opportunities.
  • Designed pipeline for real-time inference stress-testing and planned NASA submission for mission-critical applications.
• 

  University of Colorado Boulder

  Program Advisor - Customer Experience 2024

  Nov 2024 - Feb 2026

  As the flagship university of the state of Colorado, CU Boulder is a dynamic community of scholars and learners situated on one of the most spectacular college campuses in the country.

  • Served as industry advisor for the Customer Experience certificate (Executive Education), providing practitioner perspective on curriculum and real-world case studies.
  • Reviewed and advised on program content to align learning outcomes with enterprise CX practices and emerging digital strategies.
  • Participated in guest lectures, cohort Q&A sessions and mentor-office hours to bridge academic learning with applied industry experience.
  • Supported program outreach by connecting participants with practitioner resources and tools used in enterprise CX engagements.
• 

  Vonage

  Senior Director, Global Solutions Engineering

  Mar 2024 - Feb 2026

  • Seasoned technical and people leader
  • Having the distinct honor to lead, mentor, and support a top-tier customer & solutions focused team
  • Enabling our customers to achieve their business goals through a combination of ingenuity and engineering excellence
  • Have exceeded influenced sales targets YoY with a proven and repeatable formula
  • Nominated for Ericsson's Senior Leader Program
• 

  Vonage

  Director, Solutions Engineering

  Mar 2021 - Apr 2024

  • Cross-practice technical lead for global enterprise engagements, coordinating UC, CC and API architectures combined with custom software engineering to support multi‑million dollar ARR deals.
  • Acted as executive advisor to C‑suite stakeholders translating business priorities into integrated outcome-driven technical strategies and adoption plans.
  • Served as principal technical authority on critical enterprise deployments, API integrations and custom development projects requiring deep architectural and security oversight.
  • Directed full software engineering cycles and governance for bespoke deployments, ensuring enterprise-grade uptime and security compliance.
  • Recognized with President’s Club (2022) for outstanding contributions to revenue and customer outcomes.
• 

  Ithaca College

  Advisory Board Member - Cybersecurity Program

  Dec 2020 - Dec 2021

  Top-ranked Ithaca College offers a vibrant community of doers, dreamers, and difference makers, and 70+ academic programs to help create your unique story.

  • Advised the college's Cybersecurity program on curriculum relevance, industry trends and practitioner competencies.
  • Worked with faculty to align program outcomes to real-world security practices and employer expectations.
  • Facilitated industry-academia connections to support student projects, internships and program visibility.
  • Provided board-level guidance on program growth, applied research opportunities and advisory activities.
• 

  Vonage

  Sr. Manager, Enterprise Solutions Engineering

  Jul 2020 - Mar 2021

  • Pioneered an API and custom development Solutions Engineering team from inception, defining hiring, onboarding and operational frameworks.
  • Directly influenced product-driven revenue growth (~40%) by promoting developer-first strategies and tailored technical solutions.
  • Contributed engineering leadership across product lifecycle—from ideation and roadmap to go‑to‑market and field enablement.
  • Enabled sales through technical demonstrations, proofs-of-concept and architectural guidance for complex UC deployments.
  • Mentored SEs and established best-practice playbooks for enterprise solution delivery.
• 

  Vonage

  Manager, Enterprise Solutions Engineering

  Apr 2019 - Jul 2020

  • Nominated by executive leadership for a selective leadership development program, reflecting recognition for high potential and cross-functional impact.
  • Owned customer-facing technical delivery for strategic accounts, driving adoption through tailored architectures and integrations.
  • Coached and developed junior SEs, improving team technical depth and field effectiveness.
  • Supported cross-functional initiatives to standardize pre-sales practices, POC frameworks and success metrics.
• 

  Vonage

  Enterprise Sales Engineer

  Aug 2017 - Apr 2019

  • Designed and delivered complex cloud-native communications solutions for mid-market and enterprise customers, emphasizing reliability and scalability.
  • Acted as lead technical advisor to regional sales teams, specializing in API integration and developer-centric architectures.
  • Implemented automation and workflow improvements to streamline customer onboarding and service orchestration.
  • Delivered technical demos and proofs-of-concept that accelerated sales cycles and adoption for programmable communications use cases.
• 

  Vonage

  Field Solutions Engineer

  Dec 2016 - Aug 2017

  • President's Club Winner 2017
  • Received SE of the month award for February 2017
  • Position Responsibilities:
  • Generate accurate and timely design configurations for customer sales quotations
  • Attend sales calls and assist with sales efforts
  • Conduct technical interviews with customers to clearly define needs
  • Provide technical expertise to ensure that customer needs are met
  • Maintain a working knowledge of the industry and competitors in order to act as a valuable resource to the customer and sales team
  • Review quotes, RFP’s, plans and other customer documents to develop and prepare an effective response or proposal
  • Conduct product demonstrations both in-person and using webinar tools
  • Provide sales tools and training for the sales force on conducting effective presentations and demonstrations on Vonage Business products to prospects and potential customers
  • Provide technical assistance to Product Management, Marketing, and Sales Training teams
• 

  RingCentral

  Sr. Solutions Engineer

  Mar 2014 - Dec 2016

  • Leading Denver SE for upmarket in Q2 2016
  • Selected for Q2/Q3 2015 Quarterly Awards
  • Supporting Mid-market & Majors Teams
  • Provide account management to larger, high-profile customers
  • Provide onsite implementations and demos when needed
  • Present advanced technical concepts through demonstrations, product overviews, and sales presentations
  • Develop advanced system configurations and implementations in response to customer needs and
  • requirements
  • Develop and maintain expert understanding of all applications and products
  • Deliver sales and training programs to prospective and existing clients
  • Develop relationships with customers, sales and support teams, become a product and customer
  • advocate, and provide world class technical support
  • Participate in the creation of training materials, technical documents, and product feedback
  • Representation at conferences, industry, and sales events as needed

• Avaya Communications

  Sr. Solutions Engineer (Technical Manager)

  Oct 2013 - Mar 2014

  • Provide CM/Endpoint support for Avaya's largest customers in the healthcare and finance industries
  • Provide Softphone Expertise to colleagues and outside organizations
  • Assist with implementations being done by our professional services team
  • Collaborate with our most talented adjunct engineers (CMS, Messaging) to determine root cause and resolve customer issues
  • Deep network capture analysis to determine cause of voice quality issue or signaling blocks or drops
  • Work closely with Tier4/R&D team to troubleshoot and help uncover the source of service impacting issues.
  • Provide Tier4 level support on One-x and legacy soft-endpoints

• Avaya

  Backbone Engineer (Soft-IP-Endpoints SME)

  Jan 2011 - Sep 2013

  TinyURL is the original URL shortener that shortens your unwieldly links into more manageable and useable URLs.

  • Designated subject-matter expert for soft‑endpoints (One‑x Agent/Attendant/Communicator), providing Tier 3.5 enablement and escalation support.
  • Served as soft‑endpoints SME and mentor—reproducing issues in lab, analyzing diagnostics and network captures to drive resolution.
  • Managed a soft‑endpoints lab environment: equipment provisioning, software maintenance and remote network access for troubleshooting.
  • Led regular technical workshops and cross-team briefings to raise Tier 3 engineering capabilities and reduce case aging.
  • Provided technical leadership on high‑visibility escalations and recommended platform improvements based on field findings.

• Avaya

  Tier 3 Engineer (Legacy/Converged Switch & IP endpoints)

  Jan 2008 - Jan 2011

  • Responsible for providing remote post-sales support of Avaya hardware systems (Legacy PBXs/Converged Servers), software (IP Agent/Softphone, Softconsole, One-x Communicator, One-x Attendant), integrated technologies (CTI applications, AES, Audix, Modular Messaging CMS), endpoints (analog/digital/h323/VPN/SIP stations, attendant consoles) and/or applications for customers (ASA, Val Manager) or field personnel utilizing telephone and remote diagnostic capabilities.
  • Authored and submitted proposal for all Tier3 engineers to be trained in Red Hat Linux, which was accepted and executed by senior leadership.
  • Work with LEC to resolve problems experienced on T1/H323/ISDN-PRI/CO/DID circuits.
  • Utilize CM tracing tools (MST, list trace) to diagnose call processing problems in CM and network analyzing tools (Wireshark) to properly identify the cause of VOIP problems (endpoint registration, audio quality, calls failure, etc.).
  • Responsible for supporting converged products (s8800/s8700/s8500/s8300, g250/g350/g450/g430 media gateways, g650 cabinets) and legacy Definity switches (s8100, G3R, G3SI, Prologix).
  • Led business critical conference calls working as technical lead with customer network, IT and voice teams, telecom providers, escalation managers, and executives from problem analysis to resolution.

• 3t Systems

  Remote Systems Engineer

  Jan 2007 - Jan 2007

  • Serviced 3t Systems customers with world class desk-side IT support.
  • Provided remote system administration/support (Server, Network, Citrix, Applications).
  • Researched and proposed technology solutions to streamline ineffective IT processes.
  • Traveled to multiple-sites to fix problems/outages and address customer IT concerns.
• 

  Ford Motor Company

  Chief Executive IT Support

  Sep 2002 - Jan 2007

  • Delivered premium technical assistance to chief executives, their staff, and the department of executive protection to resolve technology problems experienced both in and out of the office.
  • Established and led information-sharing team that analyzed the team’s communication weaknesses and proposed solutions to them. (i.e. Technical Clipsheet)
  • Managed multiple medium sized IT projects that were tailored to our unique executive customer base. This included managing our team’s PC recycling project (replacing PCs with expired leases), facilitating the disk imaging and replacement of recalled hard drives, and planning and implementing a solid anti-virus strategy for our executive home PCs.
  • Researched, developed and designed the business solution for the secure deletion of highly sensitive executive data contained on computers and mobile devices. This involved meeting with data forensic experts, security experts and company policy authorities to decide which methodology should be used.
  • Chosen to support the IT needs of the Annual Shareholder’s meeting and offsite Board of Director’s meetings. This included scouting out the location to determine connectivity options, (Wi-Fi range, location of network ports) equipment setup, working in concert with the conferencing technician, and providing technical support to executives, meeting participants, and staff members
• 

  Ford Motor Company

  Executive IT Support

  Sep 2000 - Sep 2002

  • Designed, authored and maintained team website and file server on a weekly basis. This involved maintaining a Windows 2000 Advanced Server, configuring IIS, writing HTML, creating hotspots with Fireworks, and publishing new information to website as soon as it was verified and considered newsworthy.