The Software Report is pleased to announce The Top 25 Collaboration and Communication Software Executives of 2024. This year’s list honors several visionary leaders spearheading the evolution of interconnected workspaces. While remote collaboration and digital connectivity continue to become a mainstay — with 58% of white-collar workers preferring to work remotely at least three days a week — these executives are helping to reshape the landscape of how teams interact, collaborate, and advance. Through their innovative approaches to virtual meetings, project management optimization, and boundary-pushing teamwork strategies, they have redefined the benchmarks of effective communication in today's dynamic business environment.
Among the honorees is Craig Walker, Founder and CEO at Dialpad, which connects people, simplifies workflows, and helps businesses grow with the world’s first AI-powered, real-time customer intelligence platform. There’s also CRO Ashley Boyer of Fluxx, the industry-leading cloud-first grantmaking solution that is women-led, a DEI champion, and a Pledge 1% member organization. Last but not least, Gloria Ramchandani, SVP of Business Technology & Transformation at Copado, leads a DevOps and AI-driven test automation platform that is proven to drive 20x more frequent releases with 95% less downtime.
With their invaluable insights, these individuals and their fellow nominees excel in deploying cutting-edge collaboration tools, are supported by dedicated customer success teams, and have a proven track record of cultivating enduring, sustainable organizations. Please join us in celebrating The Top 25 Collaboration and Communication Software Executives of 2024.
1. Dylan Field
Company: Figma
Title: Chief Executive Officer & Co-Founder
Dylan Field is the Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of Figma, a web-based vector graphics editing software company. Field founded Figma in 2012 with fellow student Evan Wallace, who he had met while studying computer science at Brown University. Together, they took the company public in 2016.
Today, over 32,906 companies rely on Figma’s two innovative products to help people from different backgrounds and roles express their ideas visually and make things together even while apart. Figma Design is for people to create, share, and test designs for websites, mobile apps, and other digital products and experiences; while FigJam lets users create online whiteboards where anyone can take part — often for meetings, brainstorms, diagrams, planning, and research.
Field received a Thiel Fellowship that came with a $100,000 grant conditioned on his leaving school to begin working full-time at Figma. He eventually graduated from Brown University with an ScB in computer science and mathematics.
2. Aaron Levie
Company: Box
Title: Chief Executive Officer
Aaron Levie is the Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of Box, which he launched in 2005 with CFO Dylan Smith. With a mission to transform the way people and businesses work so they can achieve their greatest ambitions, Levie created the Box product and platform strategy by incorporating the best of secure content collaboration with an intuitive user experience suited to today’s workplace.
Today, Box is the leading content cloud serving as a single platform that enables organizations to fuel collaboration, manage the entire content lifecycle, secure critical content, and transform business workflows with enterprise AI. Levie has served on the Board of Directors since Box’s founding, and has helped simplify work for leading global organizations, including AstraZeneca, JLL, Morgan Stanley, and Nationwide.
Levie attended the University of Southern California from 2003 to 2005 before leaving to focus on founding and launching Box.
3. David Morken
Company: Bandwidth
Title: Co-Founder, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer
David Morken is the Co-Founder, Chairman, and Chief Executive Officer of Bandwidth, a global cloud communications software company that helps enterprises deliver exceptional experiences through voice calling, text messaging, and emergency services.
In addition to Bandwidth’s many global giving, volunteering, and community engagement programs, Morken is Co-Founder of Durham Cares, which fosters collaboration, leadership, and outreach in Durham, North Carolina. In 2010, he co-founded and served as chairman and CEO of Republic Wireless, which grew into a low-cost provider spun out of Bandwidth in 2016 and acquired by Dish Network in 2021.
Additionally, Morken co-founded the Internet’s first online tax filing service, efiling.com. Among his many accolades, he also spent four years as an active duty marine. He has a JD from the University of Notre Dame Law School, is a member of the Virginia Bar Association, and received a BA in political science and government from Oral Roberts University.
4. Craig Walker
Company: Dialpad
Title: Founder and Chief Executive Officer
Craig Walker is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer at Dialpad. Dialpad connects people, simplifies workflows, and helps businesses grow with the world’s first AI-powered, real-time customer intelligence platform. DialpadGPT, their proprietary large language model (LLM), enables businesses of all sizes to instantly unlock the power of AI. Over 70,000 customers worldwide now use Dialpad’s portfolio of products, including AI Communication, AI Contact Center, and AI Sales Center.
Previously, Walker was Founder and CEO of GrandCentral Communications (now Google Voice) and prior to that, he ran Yahoo! Voice as the Senior Director of VoIP. Walker graduated University of California, Berkeley School of Law with a JD, as well as from Georgetown University with an MBA in finance, and from the University of California, Berkeley with an BA in social studies.
5. Jessica Gilmartin
Company: Calendly
Title: Chief Revenue Officer
Jessica Gilmartin is the CRO of Calendly, a tool that helps individuals, teams, and organizations automate the meeting lifecycle by removing the back and forth of scheduling. Calendly’s cloud-based platform offers a new layer of the modern digital technology stack by connecting critical tools to automate scheduling workflows. The result is a more delightful customer experience providing insightful, measurable data to drive better business outcomes.
Prior to Calendly, Gilmartin was Head of Revenue Marketing at Asana, where she spearheaded demand generation, marketing operations, and product and sales-led growth business integrations for the Americas, EMEA, Japan and APAC businesses. She also served as CMO of three high-growth, venture-backed startups, building their global enterprise marketing engines during rapid growth periods.
Gilmartin received a BS in industrial and labor relations from Cornell University and an MBA in Marketing and Strategy from The Wharton School at The University of Pennsylvania.
6. Howie Liu
Company: Airtable
Title: Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer
Howie Liu is the Chief Executive Officer of Airtable, which he co-founded in 2013 in San Francisco with the vision of creating a radically faster and more intuitive way to build useful applications. Airtable enables any team to create apps on top of shared data and power their most critical and unique workflows.
Since its launch, Airtable has scaled up to power mission-critical enterprise use cases and is the fastest and most intuitive way to accelerate operations with AI. Teams at more than 300,000 organizations, including 80% of the Fortune 100, rely on the Airtable Connected Apps PlatformTM to connect their people and data and achieve their most important goals.
Previously, Liu was a co-founder of Etacts. He earned a BS in mechanical engineering and public policy from Duke University.
7. Rudradeb Mitra
Company: Omdena
Title: Founder, Chief Executive Officer, and Chairman of the Board
Rudradeb Mitra is the Founder, Chief Executive Officer, and Chairman of the Board of Omdena, a company focused on grassroot AI development. Under Mitra’s leadership, Omdena is helping mission-driven organizations and startups build AI solutions. Today, over 220 organizations have worked with Omdena, involving grassroot AI engineers from 120+ countries.
Beginning his career in 2005, Mitra has 19 years of experience. Prior to launching Omdena, he was a Head of AI/Product at Sunfund Renewable, and before that a Co-Founder at Credool. Earlier in his career, he worked with Mission Critical in Belgium as a Senior Software Engineer.
Mitra graduated from the University of Cambridge with a MPhil in technology innovation.
8. Jean-Michel Bérard
Company: Esker U.S.
Title: Founder and Chief Executive Officer
Jean-Michel Bérard is the Founder and CEO of Esker U.S., a global cloud platform built to unlock strategic value for finance, procurement, and customer service professionals, as well as strengthen collaboration between companies by automating the cash conversion cycle. Esker’s solutions incorporate AI technologies to drive increased productivity, enhanced visibility, reduced fraud risk, and improved connection with customers, suppliers, and employees.
As President of Esker's Board of Directors, Bérard is responsible for defining and executing Esker's business strategy. He also oversees the Asia-Pacific subsidiary to stay in direct contact with customers and prospects in emerging markets.
Previously, Bérard was a President at Digital League and, earlier in his career, a President at Le Cluster Numérique. Bérard founded Esker in 1985, shortly after earning his MS in computer science and IT from the Lyon Institut National des Sciences Appliquées (INSA).
9. Vincent Kelly
Company: Spok
Title: Chief Executive Officer
Vincent Kelly became the Director, President, and CEO of Spok Holdings, Inc. (formerly USA Mobility, Inc.) in November 2004 when the company was formed through the merger of Metrocall, Inc. and Arch Wireless, Inc. Today, it is a global leader in healthcare communications.
Kelly has been an innovator in the communications industry for more than 35 years with extensive experience in strategic planning, mergers and acquisitions, and regulatory and financial matters. Prior to the merger, Kelly held various roles at Metrocall including serving as a Member of the Board of Directors, Chief Executive Officer, Chief Operating Officer, Chief Financial Officer, and Executive Vice President.
In 2011, Kelly was instrumental in completing the acquisition of Amcom Software, kicking off a rebrand and multi-year pivot for Spok into an industry-leading clinical communications and collaboration solutions provider. Kelly has a BS in accounting from George Mason University.
10. Dave Grow
Company: Lucid Software
Title: Chief Executive Officer
Dave Grow is the CEO of Lucid Software, the leader in visual collaboration, helping teams see and build the future from idea to reality. With its products — Lucidchart, Lucidspark, and Lucidscale — teams can align around a shared vision, clarify complexity, and collaborate visually, no matter where they're located.
Since joining Lucid in 2010, Grow has held a variety of roles and has been responsible for expanding the product and business development teams, including product management, marketing, sales, customer support, and operations. Grow assumed his current role of CEO in 2022 after serving as President and COO at the company, where he oversaw go-to-market functions and internal operations.
Prior to Lucid, Grow worked as a Management Consultant at Bain & Company after founding his own web-based platform. He also previously served on the board of directors for Bitly, Inc. and CloudPlus. Grow graduated from Brigham Young University with a BS in finance.
11. Larry Gadea
Company: Envoy
Title: Chief Executive Officer and Founder
Larry Gadea is the Chief Executive Officer and Founder of Envoy, a small, but growing startup based in SOMA in San Francisco, CA. Their focus is to encourage modern engineering and elegant design on often-neglected, yet highly-visible workplace systems. They started with their Envoy Visitors product which has transformed front desks around the world, then introduced Envoy Deliveries to ensure packages quickly reach their recipients at work.
Today, Gadea plays a key role in overseeing Envoy’s continued expansion into the rest of the workplace. Previously, he worked on Twitter’s distributed backend systems on everything from facilitating website updates with the use of BitTorrent in the datacenter, to distributing developer's unit tests amongst hundreds of machines, to reliably storing tweets in a distributed datastore.
Prior to that, Gadea was in an engineering position at Google. He developed client-side code on Windows, did Java/C++ server backends, and finished with mobile development for Android. Gadea graduated from Carleton University with a BS in software engineering.
12. Dheeraj Pandey
Company: DevRev
Title: Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer
Dheeraj Pandey is the Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of DevRev. DevRev’s AgentOS, purpose-built for the SaaS vertical, comprises three modern CRM apps for support, product, and growth teams. Founded in October 2020, the company raised over $85 million in seed money from investors such as Khosla Ventures and Mayfield, making it the largest seed in the history of Silicon Valley.
Pandey got his start 25 years ago as a Software Developer at Trilogy Software, Inc. From there, he went on to Zambeel, Inc. before eventually rising to Co-Founder and CEO at Nutanix, Inc., his most recent position prior to joining DevRev.
Pandey graduated from The University of Texas at Austin with an MS in computer science and from Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur with a BS in computer science.
13. Ananth Siva
Company: Movius
Title: Chief Executive Officer
Ananth Siva is the CEO at Movius, the leading global provider in cloud-based secure mobile communications software. Under Siva’s leadership, Movius empowers enterprises to deliver better engagement for their clients. He also currently serves as Strategic Advisor to Hyperlook Transportation Technologies, and is the Co-Founder & Chairman of Infensa Bioscience.
Prior to his current roles, he fulfilled roles for reputable companies such as IBM, @Road Inc., Trimble Navigation Ltd. and 24/7.ai. Before becoming Movius’s CEO, Ananth helped bridge the gap between the product and sales organizations as the company’s Chief Strategy Officer.
Today, Siva continues to accelerate the growth trajectory at Movius, positioning the company as a global leader in secure omnichannel communications and AI-powered solutions. Siva graduated from UWS, Sydney with an MBA in international business.
14. Mathilde Collin
Company: Front
Title: Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer
Mathilde Collin is the Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Front, a modern customer service platform that helps companies delight their customers, engage their teams, and build stronger businesses. Under Collin’s leadership, the company has reimagined the help desk for real-time team collaboration across every customer communication channel, then powered it up with AI and automation to resolve issues and help teams work faster.
In addition to her current role, Collin also serves as a board member on Welcome to the Jungle — an online audio and video media company that curates job opportunities so people can find more sustainable career paths offering candidates total transparency.
Collin has 12 years of experience, previously working as a Project Manager at Concord. She graduated from HEC Paris with an MBA in entrepreneurship.
15. Eyal Feldman
Company: Stampli
Title: Chief Executive Officer
Eyal Feldman is the Chief Executive Officer of Stampli — an AI-powered accounts payable automation solution that makes AP departments far more efficient, without requiring them to rework their ERP or change their existing processes. Stampli's unique approach centers all AP-related communication, documentation, and workflows into one place for complete visibility and control.
With 27 years of experience, Feldman first got his start in 1997 as a Business Analyst at Colgate-Palmolive. He eventually moved onto VP and Business Solution Division Manager at Ness SES, his most recent position prior to joining Stampli.
Feldman has an MBA from the Solvay Brussels School of Economics and Management and a BA in economics from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.
16. Jonathan Yaron
Company: Kiteworks
Title: Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Jonathan Yaron is the Chief Executive Officer of Kiteworks, a platform that provides customers with a private content network that delivers content governance, compliance, and protection. Prior to rising to CEO, Yaron became the Chairman of Kiteworks Board of Directors — a role he continues to fulfill. As CEO and Chairman, he plays a key role in Kiteworks’ mission to empower organizations to effectively manage risk in every send, share, receive, and save of sensitive content.
Yaron has over 25 years of enterprise software industry experience, as well as extensive strategic and operational expertise. Prior to Kiteworks, he spent 21 years as the Founder, CEO and Chairman of Enigma, a service lifecycle management company he eventually sold to PTC.
Yaron is a graduate of Tel Aviv University, holding a BA in economics and management with a specialization in operation research.
17. Christine Spang
Company: Nylas
Title: Co-Founder and CTO
Christine Spang is the Co-Founder and CTO of Nylas. Hundreds of thousands of developers around the world use Nylas to increase velocity and seamlessly build customizable email and scheduling capabilities through state-of-the-art APIs. Nylas is the only platform that gives developers universal access to email, calendar, and contact providers through a single integration.
Spang has 16 years of experience, dating back to 2008. Before joining Nylas, she was a principal developer at Oracle. Prior to that, her other positions included Software Engineer at Ksplice, and Perl Hacker at Best Practical Solutions, LLC.
Spang graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a BS in computer science.
18. Holly Grogan
Company: Appspace
Title: Chief People Officer
Holly Grogan is the Chief People Officer of Appspace, the first workplace experience platform that connects people, places, and spaces through digital signage, space reservation, an employee app, a modern intranet, and more. With Appspace, organizations can replace disjointed tools and unite their digital and physical workplaces with a single platform, making work an experience everyone loves.
Beginning her professional career 26 years ago, Grogan got her start in 1998 as a Branch Manager at Personnel Management, Inc. From there, she went on to Newton Park, before eventually rising to Chief HR Officer at ENAVATE, her most recent position prior to joining Appspace. Grogan graduated from Georgia State University with a BA in sociology.
19. Tara Stava
Company: Buildertrend
Title: Vice President of Software Development
Tara Stava is the Vice President of Software Development of Buildertrend, the leading residential construction management platform. Since 2006, they’ve empowered contractors to take control of projects and bring efficiency, organization, and seamless communication to every aspect of their business.
Stava is a Software Engineer with over 15 years of professional experience in the .NET environment and SQL. She has a wide array of experience across mentoring, coaching, and building up entry-level developers, as well as in web development from design through implementation, feature requests, to bug fixes.
Before joining Buildertrend, Stava was a Development Manager at PremierWireless. Earlier in her career, she worked with West Corporation as a systems analyst. Stava graduated from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln with a BS in computer engineering.
20. Amy Nordness
Company: iManage
Title: Chief People Officer
Amy Nordness is the Chief People Officer of iManage, a cloud-native platform at the center of the knowledge economy, enabling every organization to work more productively, collaboratively, and securely. In her role, she drives iManage’s teams forward by implementing results-oriented programs and initiatives that add value, improve service, support growth, and reduce costs.
As a human resources professional with over 10 years in the industry, Nordness has extensive professional development and change management experience. Her focus on large-scale project management capabilities for human capital initiatives helps iManage forge strong and trusting relationships across all levels in a deadline-driven global professional services environment.
Nordness first got her start 26 years ago as an HR Generalist. From there, she went on to IBM Global Services, before eventually rising to VP of Human Resources at SAP Fieldglass. She previously graduated from the University of Iowa with a BA in elementary education.
21. Ashley Boyer
Company: Fluxx
Title: Chief Revenue Officer
Ashley Boyer is the Chief Revenue Officer of Fluxx, a cloud-first grantmaking solution leading the industry. Purpose-built for grantmaking by grantmakers, Fluxx is women-led, a DEI champion, and a Pledge 1% member organization.
Today, more than 400 world-class foundations and government organizations use Fluxx, including 10 of the top 20 foundations, granting more than $15 billion annually and impacting more than 150,000 non-profits.
Boyer has 15 years of experience, beginning her career in 2009. Before joining Fluxx, Boyer was an SVP of Sales and Marketing at Community Brands and before that a VP of Sales at Social Solutions. Earlier in her career, she worked with Windstream Communications as a Business Account Representative. She graduated from Bowling Green State University with a BA in marketing.
22. Dean Chabrier
Company: Egnyte
Title: Chief People Officer
Dean Chabrier is the Chief People Officer of Egnyte, a software company combining the power of cloud content management, data security, and AI into one intelligent content platform. More than 22,000 customers trust Egnyte to improve employee productivity, automate business processes, and safeguard critical data.
The platform also offers specialized content intelligence and automation solutions across industries, including architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC), life sciences, and financial services.
Fueled by a passion for creating world class employee experiences, Chabrier has a proven track record of building high performing teams and organizations across the tech industry. She is an alumnus from Extreme Networks, Jive Software, Yahoo, Clarify, Sun Microsystems and Intel.
23. Gloria Ramchandani
Company: Copado
Title: SVP, Business Technology & Transformation
Gloria Ramchandani is the SVP of Business Technology & Transformation of Copado, the leading DevOps and AI-driven test automation platform for Salesforce. Backed by Insight Partners and Salesforce Ventures, Copado helps development teams build end-to-end digital transformation.
More than 1,500 global brands rely on Copado’s cutting-edge solutions, including Coca-Cola, T-Mobile and Volkswagen. The company is proven to drive 20 times more frequent releases, 95% less downtime, 10 time faster testing and 20% greater productivity.
Ramchandani began her professional career 14 years ago, starting in international sales and marketing at Atlanta Convention & Visitors Bureau. From there, she went on to AirWatch, before eventually rising to Director of Strategy and Insights at 7Summits, an IBM Company. She graduated from Georgia State University with an BA in business administration.
24. Jacqui Whiting
Company: 8x8
Title: Vice President, Global Commercial Operations
Jacqui Whiting is the Vice President of Global Commercial Operations of 8x8, inc. a SaaS provider transforming the future of business communications through an integrated contact center, voice communications, video, chat, and API solution built on one global cloud communications platform.
8x8 uniquely eliminates the silos between Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) and Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS) to power the communications requirements of all employees globally as they work together to deliver differentiated customer experiences.
Whiting has 14 years of experience, previously serving as a Director of Commercial Operations at Verizon. She graduated from Saint Mary's College of California with an executive MBA and from the University of California, Berkeley with a BA in social science.
25. Bethany Sanders
Company: Smarsh
Title: Vice President, Business Development and Partner Sales
Bethany Sanders is the VP of Business Development and Partner Sales of Smarsh, a platform that enables companies to transform oversight into foresight by surfacing business-critical signals in all their digital communications. Regulated organizations of all sizes rely on the Smarsh portfolio of cloud-native digital communications capture, retention, and oversight solutions to help them identify regulatory and reputational risks within their communications data.
Before their time at Smarsh, Sanders served as the VP of Business Development at CellTrust Corp., and VP of Global Business Development at Good Technology. Other high-level roles include Director and Manager positions at companies including Samsung Electronics, Motorola Mobility, BlackBerry, and T-Mobile. Sanders holds a bachelor's from Emory University and a master’s from Mercer University.
