Applied Materials

Ali Salehpour is senior vice president and general manager of Services, Display and Flexible Technology at Applied Materials, Inc., where he is extending the company’s materials engineering leadership into significant growth opportunities. He leads the services business supporting customers in all market segments, and is also responsible for the Display and Flexible Technology group. Under his direction, Applied is driving the flat panel display industry roadmap to enable enhanced touch panels, flexible substrates and OLED displays.

Mr. Salehpour joined Applied in 2012 with more than 28 years of industry experience and a successful track record of developing products, delivering customer satisfaction, growing market share and new businesses, building high-performance teams, and developing a competitive supply chain. Prior to Applied, he was a senior vice president and general manager at KLA-Tencor, and spent ten years with Schlumberger Test Systems (formerly Fairchild Test Systems).

Mr. Salehpour received his bachelor of science degree in electrical engineering and mathematics from California State University at Long Beach.

Bob Halliday transitioned from his role as chief financial officer (CFO) of Applied Materials, Inc. to corporate vice president of Corporate Business Development in August 2017. During Bob’s four-year tenure as CFO, Applied delivered the highest levels of financial performance in the company’s history, including five consecutive quarters of record earnings. Together with CEO Gary Dickerson, Bob implemented an innovation leadership strategy focused on driving sustainable growth and creating increased value for shareholders. Bob accelerated investment in R&D and led initiatives to strengthen the organization and its processes, so that Applied works closer with customers, identifies technology inflections earlier and creates successful products in a more repeatable way.

Prior to his role as CFO, Bob was general manager of Applied’s implant business unit and executive vice president and chief financial officer of Varian Semiconductor Equipment Associates prior to Applied’s acquisition of the company in November 2011. During his tenure at Varian, the company achieved record financial and stock performance and Bob was named a top CFO by Institutional Investor magazine. He previously served as chief operating officer and chief financial officer for Ionics, Inc., a manufacturer of water treatment capital equipment.

Bob earned master of business administration and bachelor of science degrees from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and was a Certified Public Accountant.

Dan Durn was appointed senior vice president and chief financial officer (CFO) of Applied Materials, Inc. in August 2017.

Dan joined Applied from NXP Semiconductors N.V., where he was executive vice president and CFO. He had previously been CFO of Freescale Semiconductor, Ltd. up until the merger with NXP. Before Freescale, Dan was CFO and executive vice president of finance and administration at GLOBALFOUNDRIES. Prior to that he was head of M&A and strategy at Advanced Technology Investment Company (ATIC), a $15 billion private equity company. He also served as vice president in technology investment banking at Goldman, Sachs & Company and was a member of its merger leadership group.

Dan received an MBA in finance from Columbia Business School and graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy with a bachelor of science degree in control systems engineering. He served in the Navy for six years, reaching the rank of lieutenant.

Gary Dickerson was named president of Applied Materials, Inc. in June 2012 and appointed chief executive officer and a member of the board of directors in September 2013. Mr. Dickerson is a long-time industry leader with more than 30 years of semiconductor experience and a strong track record of delivering profitable growth and gaining market share while achieving recognition for outstanding customer satisfaction.

He served for seven years as CEO of Varian Semiconductor Equipment Associates, Inc., until its acquisition by Applied Materials in 2011 and spent 18 years at KLA-Tencor Corporation where he held a variety of operations and product development roles before serving as president and chief operating officer. He began his semiconductor career in manufacturing and engineering management at General Motors’ Delco Electronics Division and AT&T Technologies.

Mr. Dickerson holds a bachelor of science degree in engineering management from the University of Missouri, Rolla, and an MBA degree from the University of Missouri, Kansas City.

Dr. Gino Addiego is senior vice president of Engineering, Operations and Quality at Applied Materials, Inc. He works closely with all of the company’s business units to drive effective and efficient innovation, product creation, and engineering development critical to creating a pipeline of winning products for sustained and long-term profitable growth.

Dr. Addiego brings a unique perspective to Applied having successfully developed winning products and leading cross-functional groups that remain focused on the customer. Previously he was president and chief operating officer at Ultra Clean Technology (UCTT:NASDAQ), a supplier of critical subsystems for the semiconductor capital equipment, medical device, energy, research, and flat panel industries with several factories in China, Singapore and the U.S. Before joining Ultra Clean Technology, he was executive vice president at Novellus Systems for six years responsible for HR, Information Technology, Operations, Facilities, and Central Engineering, as well as executing on the company’s growth strategy and managing several European companies in the surface science area. Dr. Addiego spent more than nine years at Applied Materials, from 1996 to 2005, leading various successful product groups such as CMP and PDC, as well as key global organizations including Global Operations, Manufacturing, Foundation Engineering, and Information Technology.

Dr. Addiego received his bachelor of science and doctorate degrees in electrical engineering from the University of California, Berkeley. He holds several patents and was nominated for the National Inventor of the Year Award in 1993.

Jay Kerley joined Applied Materials, Inc. in 2006 and has been chief information officer (CIO) since 2011. He was promoted to group vice president in July 2013 and is responsible for providing a long-term technology vision that supports the company’s strategies and operating requirements. He leads the Global Information Services (GIS) organization to enable worldwide business solutions and infrastructure that support the company’s market needs. Additionally, he is an external advocate of GIS and promotes awareness of end-user technology trends that link to Applied's strategic capabilities.

Mr. Kerley has more than 25 years of industry experience across business verticals including pharmaceutical R&D, global logistics and high-tech, leading IT transformation and globalization. Under his leadership, he and his teams have been recognized for IT excellence by various organizations, including The National Diversity Council’s 2016 list of "Distinguished Chief Information Officers," Computerworld’s "100 Best Places to Work in IT" (eight years running) and "Premier 100 IT Leaders," the "InformationWeek 500" and CIO’s "100 Business Technology Leaders."

Dr. Omkaram (Om) Nalamasu is senior vice president and chief technology officer (CTO) of Applied Materials, Inc. He brings extensive experience and passion to the role of CTO, where he leads the development of disruptive products to address new markets and businesses in partnership with the broader technology ecosystem. Dr. Nalamasu has built a world-class team to support Applied’s leadership in materials engineering. He also serves as president of Applied Ventures, LLC, the venture capital fund of Applied Materials, where he oversees strategic investments in early- and growth-stage companies.

A world-renowned expert in materials science and one of our industry’s most respected forward-thinkers, Dr. Nalamasu has championed a renewed focus on Applied’s global innovation culture through various internal development programs and open innovation methods. He has solidified strategic relationships with universities, government organizations and research institutes around the world.

Dr. Nalamasu joined Applied in 2006 after serving as an NYSTAR Distinguished Professor of materials science and engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, where he also served as vice president of research. He has held key research and development leadership positions at AT&T Bell Laboratories, Bell Laboratories/Lucent Technologies, and Agere Systems, Inc., and was director of Bell Laboratories' Nanofabrication Research Laboratory, MEMS and Waveguides Research, and Condensed Matter Physics organizations.

His research interests include nanomanufacturing, nanopatterning, electronic and photonic materials, and lithography, with special emphasis on applying patterning and materials expertise for device fabrication for electronics, photonics and energy applications.

Dr. Nalamasu has made seminal contributions to the fields of optical lithography and polymeric materials science and technology. He has received numerous awards, authored more than 180 papers, review articles and books, and holds more than 120 worldwide issued patents.

In 2017, Dr. Nalamasu was elected to the U.S. National Academy of Engineering for technical innovation spanning materials development, atomically controlled thin-film fabrication, and commercialization in microelectronics and energy generation and storage. He is a member of the board of directors of The Tech Museum in Silicon Valley and serves on several national and international advisory boards. He received his Ph.D. from the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada.

Steve Ghanayem is senior vice president for the New Markets and Alliances Group at Applied Materials, Inc. In this role, he is responsible for increasing Applied’s focus on organic and inorganic growth in new and adjacent markets, as well as new business and partnership models.

Mr. Ghanayem was previously group vice president and general manager of the Transistor and Interconnect Group, responsible for developing and commercializing innovative products in this high-growth segment to grow the company in the areas of ion implantation, epi deposition, thermal products, chemical mechanical planarization, plating and cleans, and metal deposition.

Mr. Ghanayem has been instrumental in leading various thin film and thermal product developments over his 28 years with the company, including driving gross margin and market share growth, which have generated enormous returns. From his early days in tungsten chemical vapor deposition and later in chemical mechanical planarization , front end products and metal deposition products , he has successfully led his teams to innovate and execute on what matters to customers.

Mr. Larkins is senior vice president and general counsel for Applied Materials, Inc. He is responsible for all legal affairs, worldwide intellectual property and global security, and brings to Applied a wealth of experience in mergers and acquisitions, global commercial transactions and operations, corporate finance, securities, and corporate governance.

Prior to joining Applied, Mr. Larkins served as vice president, corporate secretary and deputy general counsel of Honeywell International Inc., a diversified global technology and manufacturing leader, from September 2002 to November 2012. His areas of responsibility included corporate governance, public reporting, mergers and acquisitions, corporate finance, real estate and procurement. He joined Honeywell (formerly AlliedSignal) in 1997 and served in various positions, including vice president and general counsel of its Automation and Control Solutions business segment.

Prior to joining Honeywell, Mr. Larkins served as senior vice president, chief administrative officer and general counsel of L.A. Gear from 1994 to 1997. Before that, he was in private practice (mergers and acquisitions, securities and general corporate) in Los Angeles for seven years, most recently at Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson.

Mr. Larkins received his undergraduate degree from Stanford University and his J.D. from the University of Southern California.

Since 2015, Dr. Bob Perlmutter has been group vice president and general manager of Applied Materials, Inc. Imaging and Process Control Group, which focuses on Process Diagnostics and Control products and advanced imaging technologies.

Dr. Perlmutter is an accomplished industry executive with extensive experience in the metrology and inspection market and a successful track record developing winning products. He previously developed and implemented Applied’s systematic and robust approach to assessing and increasing the architectural entitlement of systems relative to the competition and customer requirements.

Prior to Applied’s acquisition of Varian Semiconductor Equipment Associates in November 2011, Dr. Perlmutter was officer and executive vice president of Varian’s Implant Business Unit. Before joining Varian, he spent 11 years working for KLA-Tencor, where he ran the wafer inspection division.

Dr. Perlmutter holds a Ph.D. in electrical engineering, a master of science degree in mathematics, and bachelor of science and master of science degrees in electrical engineering, all from Stanford University.

Susan Schmitt leads Human Resources for Applied Materials and its more than 20,000 global employees.  Susan has more than 25 years of experience in human resources, providing executive leadership for the function most recently at Rockwell Automation, and previously at the Kellogg Company and other organizations.  She is the recipient of the Society for Women Engineers’ Global Leadership Team Award as well as a fellow of the National Academy of Human Resources — the highest professional honor for individuals in HR. 

Susan earned her master’s degree in Industrial/Organizational Psychology from Illinois State University, and her bachelor’s from Albion College in Michigan.  She also attended the University of Grenoble, France.