Biography
Duke Skarda is a CTO-in-Residence at Mainsail Partners, where he collaborates with CTOs, CPOs, and CEOs across our portfolio to help scale product and engineering, with a focus on AI adoption and strategic execution. He is a seasoned CTO with deep experience in leading midsize, high growth, private equity backed technology companies in cloud computing, SaaS, and telecom.
As an operator, Duke’s focus has been driving growth through business strategy, M&A, and innovative product development. He has been an integral member of several executive teams through multiple recapitalizations and strategic exits, including serving as CTO of SoftLayer Technologies, which was acquired by IBM for $2 billion. Most recently, Duke was CTO of Appspace, an enterprise SaaS company delivering a digital Workplace Experience platform for more than half of the Fortune 500.
Duke hails from far west Texas, attended The University of Colorado Boulder and The University of Texas at El Paso where he studied Electrical and Computer Engineering, and stays grounded through reading, art, sailing, doing anything in the mountains.