Vartan Sarkissian, former fellow at EWI, has a successful history as an entrepreneur, founder and CEO of two Internet and software companies.

In 2005, Vartan accumulated a unique group of mathematicians, software developers and acoustic engineers from Russia and the CIS to form a software development company providing acoustic technology, sound recognition, behavioral modeling and hybrid video/music recommendation technology for the growing Internet and mobile world.  In 2006, Vartan launched the first global music distribution network providing 100 percent royalties to artists and labels via a music-centric social network website called Rawrip.com (Popkomm 2008 Best New Music Service Finalist). 

After successfully selling both companies, Vartan joined the EastWest Institute as the Founding Director of the Worldwide Cybersecurity Initiative in 2009, launching the 1st Worldwide Cybersecurity Summit (Dallas, Texas) bringing 40 of the most cyber-significant countries together where policy and corporate leaders formulated an international Cybersecurity Road Map along with experts from seven critical sectors including ICT, Energy, National Security, Media, and Finance. Vartan continued his engagement with the EastWest Institute as the Senior Advisor to the President, actively investing and engaging with a number of software, Internet and cybersecurity ventures in various capacities. He has over 10 years of media and communications experience working with numerous telecommunication, software and media companies such as MGM/Sony and has an extensive understanding of the Russia and CIS regions. 

Vartan speaks fluent English, Russian, Armenian and conversational French.