Kathryn Kranen Wins UBM Lifetime Achievement Award 2013

UBM’s EETimes and EDN today announced Kathryn Kranen as the lifetime achievement award winner for this years ACE awards program. Kathryn, of course, is the CEO of Jasper (and is also currently the chairman of EDAC). Past winners exemplify the prestige and significance of the award. Since 2005 the award was given to Gordon Moore, then the Chairman emeritus of Intel, Wilf Corrigan, the Chairman of the board of LSI, Chung-Mou Chang the Founding Chairman of TSMC and Pasquale Pistorio the honorary Chairman of ST.

As CEO of Jasper, Kathryn has taken Jasper’s formal approaches to verification from a niche to a mainstream tool, managed to raise a round of funding in a very difficult environment, and put Jasper on the path to success.

Prior to Jasper, Kathryn was CEO of Verisity. While serving as CEO of Verisity Design, Kathryn and the team she built created an entirely new market in design verification. (Verisity later became a public company, and was the top-performing IPO of 2001, and subsequently was acquired by Cadence).

Prior to Verisity, Kathryn was vice president of North American sales at Quickturn Systems. She started her career as a design engineer at Rockwell International, and later joined Daisy Systems, an early EDA company. In 2009, Kathryn was named one of the EE Times’ Top 10 Women in Microelectronics. In 2012, she became a member of the board of trustees of the World Affairs Council or Northern California. She is currently serving her sixth term on the EDA Consortium board of directors, and was elected its chairperson in 2012. In 2005, Kathryn was recipient of the prestigious Marie R. Pistilli Women in Electronic Design Automation (EDA) Achievement Award. She graduated summa cum laude from Texas A&M University with a B.S. in Electrical Engineering.

You may know that over on the DAC websitewe are running a “my DAC moment” series of stories. Kathryn has set the bar so high that it is hard to beat. She got engaged at DAC. Here is her story:My favorite DAC memory: Las Vegas in 1996. I was working for Quickturn at the time, and my now-husband Kevin worked for Synopsys. On the Wednesday morning of DAC, Kevin “popped the question”, and I eagerly accepted his proposal. We then both rushed off to our various DAC meetings.

I was mesmerized by my diamond engagement ring, sparkling under the huge lights in the exhibit hall. It was great fun to share our happy news with hundreds of EDA friends and co-workers. That evening, some friends and Kevin and I looked for an Elvis wedding chapel, thinking a fake wedding photo would be a fun way to spring the engagement news on our parents. Alas, all the Elvis wedding chapels were booked *on a Wednesday!