Leadership Team
Paul Mikesell
Chief Executive Officer
Paul Mikesell is the founder and CEO of Carbon Robotics. Paul has deep experience founding and building successful technology startups. Paul co-founded Isilon Systems, a distributed storage company, in 2001. Isilon went public in 2006 and was acquired by EMC for $2.5 billion in 2010. In 2006, Paul co-founded Clustrix, a distributed database startup that was acquired by MariaDB in 2018. Prior to Carbon, Paul served as Director of Infrastructure Engineering at Uber, where he grew the team and opened the company’s engineering office in Seattle, later focusing on deep learning and computer vision.
Paul holds a bachelor’s degree in computer science from the University of Washington.
Alex Sergeev
Chief Technology Officer
Alex Sergeev is the CTO at Carbon Robotics, leading the company’s research and computer vision teams. Before joining Carbon Robotics, Alex held multiple engineering roles at Uber, where he developed and deployed the machine learning models and infrastructure used by Uber’s AI, self-driving, and maps teams. Alex previously worked on Microsoft’s Bing Data Mining team and built the metrics platform leveraged by the A/B experimentation solution.
Alex holds a master’s degree in applied mathematics and informatics from the Moscow Engineering Physics Institute.
John Mey
Vice President, Product
John Mey is VP of Product. Before joining Carbon Robotics as the first engineer hired, John worked in several engineering and management roles at Electroimpact. He spent several years within the company’s Robots Group where he led the engineering, construction, and implementation of complex robot assemblies for aircraft assembly automation.
John holds a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Seattle University.
Nick Kirsch
Vice President, Engineering
Nick Kirsch is VP of Engineering at Carbon Robotics. Before joining Carbon Robotics, Nick was founder and CEO of atsu corp, a technology startup focused on challenges in large-scale computing environments. Prior to atsu, Nick spent thirteen years at EMC Isilon in a variety of engineering, product, and executive roles.
Nick holds a master’s degree in computer science from the University of Washington and a bachelor’s degree in mathematics and computer science from the University of Puget Sound.
Barry Kent
Vice President, Sales
At Carbon Robotics, Barry is able to pursue two of his passions, farming and technology. Born and raised on the family farm in Eastern Washington State along with 25+ years in sales and sales management roles in the technology industry, Barry has led organizations from pre-revenue to IPO and acquisition stages. Barry also has extensive international experience having built successful sales teams in both Europe and Asia. Prior to Carbon Robotics, Barry held executive roles at Aera Technology, Auditoria, Pure Storage, Symantec, and Oracle.
Barry holds an International MBA from the Thunderbird School of Global Management along with a bachelors degree from Utah State University. On the weekend he can be found growing potatoes at his community potato patch.
brett goodwin
Vice President, Marketing
Brett Goodwin is Vice President of Marketing at Carbon Robotics where he leads the company’s go-to-market strategy and execution, including product marketing, demand generation, and brand building. Brett has 25+ years experience building early technology companies into market leaders, including taking two companies public via IPO and guiding several through successful acquisitions. Prior to Carbon Robotics, Brett has held executive roles at McCaw Cellular, RealNetworks, Isilon, Qumulo, and was the founder/CEO of his own startup VirtualValue.
Brett holds a master’s degree in business administration from Stanford Business School and a bachelor’s degree in mathematical economics from Pomona College.
jane vail
Vice President, Program Management
Jane Vail is Vice President of Program Management at Carbon Robotics. She is an outcomes and goals oriented executive with a proven track record of operating across product, customer and sales lifecycles; leading cross-functional teams to successful deliveries of services and capabilities; and driving operationalization and execution across all levels of the company. Prior to joining Carbon, Jane held various leadership positions at successful technology startups, including Isilon and Apptio and, most recently, was the VP of Program Operations at BlackSky.
Jane holds a bachelor's degree in communications from Washington State University.
Beth Kester-Warner
Vice President, People
Beth Kester-Warner is the VP of People at Carbon Robotics where she specializes in developing scalable People Teams & Processes. Her passion lies in building an inclusive productive team. She is committed to Diversity, Equity & Inclusion and thrives on facilitating meaningful conversations and influencing perspectives. Beth's diverse experience provides her comprehensive understanding of stage-appropriate growth. Throughout her career, she has contributed to the success of various companies, including Isilon, Extrahop, Aventail, and ConnectSoft, as well as technology giants like Microsoft, Amazon, HP, and Cray.
Beth studied at the College of Legal Arts.
Jaime Eltit
Vice President, Field Operations
Jaime Eltit is Vice President of Field Operations at Carbon Robotics where he has been instrumental in building and scaling the Field Support and Operations teams. Jaime brings 10+ years of Field Operations experience, including over 7 years in AgTech prior to joining Carbon Robotics. He is an active volunteer in board roles for non profit organizations in his community.
Jaime holds a bachelor's degree from California State University, Monterey Bay.
Joon Ho
Vice President, Finance
Joon is an experienced finance and business leader who joins Carbon Robotics from OctoML, Inc., where he served as VP of Finance and led the accounting and finance organization. Prior to OctoML, he was Head of Finance at Placed (acquired by Snap, then Foursquare) and held various leadership roles at Turi (acquired by Apple) and Isilon (acquired by EMC). While at Isilon, he was also a key team member who completed the company's successful initial public offering.
Joon holds a B.A. in Accounting and Finance from the University of Washington.