The Team Powering AspireHaaS
A cross-functional team of experts, united by one mission: transforming hardware into a service.
Tom Ku
Chief Executive Officer
Tom has served as CTO and CEO in Silicon Valley for over 25 years and has spent the last 3 years in the FWA/WISP industry. He was instrumental in several major exits, including BEA Systems’ IPO and later acquisition by Oracle, where he rose to global Head of Professional Services.
Previously, Tom was Chief Architect at Sun Microsystems, where he deepened his hardware expertise. He holds a BS in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, and an MBA from Cranfield University in England.
Mikel Irizar
Chief Operating Officer
Mikel has served in the C-suite for the past 10 years in technology companies and has spent 3 years in the FWA/WISP industry. He authored the StratExecution methodology and software, widely adopted to ensure strategy execution excellence.
Mikel began his career at Silicon Graphics and held several leadership roles at Symantec in Silicon Valley. With over 25 years of experience as a technology operator, Mikel holds a BS in Business and an MBA from San Jose State University.
Nathan Lawless
Chief Financial Officer
Nathan has served as CFO for the last 12 years in domestic and global roles and has spent 3 years in the FWA/WISP industry. He started his career with Ernst & Young and Rolls Royce and held various positions of increasing responsibility with Simon Property Group and HNTB Corp.
Nathan is an experienced investor and is a board member with Triphoenix Capital Partners, a boutique technology As-a-Service investment firm. Nathan holds a BS in Business, Finance, Accounting and International Business from Indiana University, and an MBA from the University of Notre Dame.
Hanju Kim
Chief Technology Officer
Hanju has over 20 years of leadership experience in technology, product, and engineering across the U.S., Asia, Europe, and global markets. Before joining AspireHaaS, he led technology modernization at Convergence Technologies, improving scalability, efficiency, and enabling next-generation payment and AI solutions.
He began his career with Samsung Electronics, later leading R&D and engineering organizations at BEA Systems, Oracle, and Magnet Systems. Hanju holds an M.S. in Software Engineering and a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Maryland, College Park.
Justin Ku
Director of Product Management
Justin has led product and data initiatives in the technology sector for over a decade, with recent years focused on the broadband and WISP industry. He has been instrumental in advancing Hardware-as-a-Service models that transform how wireless infrastructure is deployed, financed, and managed.
Justin has directed platform modernization and API integration projects across IPpay and CTIconnect at ConvergenceTec, and previously delivered AI-driven fraud and KYC solutions that enhanced operational efficiency at Oodle Car Finance. He began his career as a Data Scientist at KPMG and holds an MSc in Computer Science from the University of St Andrews and a BBA in Marketing from Loyola Marymount University.
David Alexander
AI Network Engineering Lead
David is a network engineer with a background in cybersecurity and systems administration. He currently supports the development of AIVeriFlow, a research-stage framework exploring AI-assisted approaches to network trust and traffic verification.
Before joining Aspire, he worked on infrastructure monitoring and automation using cloud technologies. He focuses on secure systems design, data observability, and building reliable environments for experimental technologies. David holds a BAS Degree in Cybersecurity from the University of Arizona.