The Top 50 SaaS CEOs of 2022

The Software Report is pleased to announce The Top 50 SaaS CEOs of 2022. The leaders on this year’s list represent companies of every size, from those with thousands (or 10,000+) employees, to those with fewer than 50. They also run the gamut from enterprise resource planning software to design and publishing, hospitality management, and transportation and logistics. What these awardees have in common is their expert leadership of some of the most transformative, impactful SaaS companies in the industry. They have demonstrated that with strong, innovative leadership, the best software solutions thrive and are rapidly adopted across the global economy.

Some of the distinguished honorees on this year’s list include Reggie Aggarwal, Founder and CEO of Cvent, which he has grown into a platform supported by 4,700+ employees powering millions of virtual, in-person, and hybrid events for thousands of organizations, including 50% of the Fortune 500. Meanwhile, Co-Founder and CEO of Canva Melanie Perkins has shepherded her company’s growth into a $40 billion enterprise with 100 million monthly users that now competes with the likes of Microsoft. And Co-Founder and CEO Dylan Field has made Figma a powerhouse that brought in $340 million in revenue in its latest fiscal year and was recently acquired by Adobe for approximately $20 billion in cash and stock.

2022’s awardees were selected based on thousands of nominations from colleagues, peers, and other software industry professionals and in-house industry research. While it is always difficult to assign rankings, as every CEO on the list deserves the utmost recognition, we weighed the quality and consistency in the nominations submitted on behalf of each candidate with the overall size and impact of the organizations they lead. Each nominee was evaluated closely, with particular attention paid to the written commentary provided and/or independent research. Our team then conducted further review into each company’s recent achievements to establish this final list. Please join us in celebrating The Top 50 SaaS CEOs of 2022.

 

1. Darren Roos
Company: IFS
Title: Chief Executive Officer

Darren Roos celebrated four years as Chief Executive Officer of IFS in April 2022. His vision spearheaded the transformation of the company internally through modernization and digital transformation and externally with the promise of delivering value to customers and putting them at the heart of the IFS business and product development strategy.

Roos built his career in global software businesses over 20 years. He previously served as President of SAP’s global ERP Cloud business, with prior roles as General Manager of Northern Europe and Chief Operating Officer of EMEA for the company. Roos also was formerly the President of EMEA, APJ, LATAM at Software AG, during which time he also served on Software AG’s Group Executive Board. In addition to his IFS role, Darren is a board director at Sitecore and launched InnerWings, a confidence building foundation.

 

2. Simon Paris
Company: Finastra
Title: Chief Executive Officer

Simon Paris takes responsibility for Finastra’s strategic direction and growth. His leadership steers the company as it becomes the world’s leading ecosystem orchestrator for providers and consumers of financial services everywhere. With this clear strategic intent, he champions the company’s core technology solutions and open development platform in accelerating collaboration and innovation to unlock the potential of people, businesses, and communities.

A firm believer in the principles of doing well by doing good, Paris chairs the World Trade Board and is passionate about how technology and open trade can drive financial inclusion and improve people’s lives. He also serves on the Board of Directors for Everbridge, a critical event management (CEM) software company, and on the Board of Directors for Thomson Reuters. An inspiring and trusted fintech thought leader, Paris speaks regularly at large-scale events including the annual World Trade Symposium, Paris FinTech Forum, and The Milken Asia Summit. He is a strong advocate for diversity and inclusion, with refreshing and candid views on equality in the workplace. Featuring in Bank Innovation’s “Innovators to Watch” list back in 2018, he has since been named a top 50 Financial Technology CEO by The Financial Technology Report two years running, as well as a top 20 CEO in Europe by the Software Report. He was also recognized in the CEO Today Awards 2021.

Paris joined Finastra (formerly Misys) as President in 2015, was appointed Deputy Chief Executive Officer in 2017, and became Chief Executive Officer in June 2018. He brings more than 25 years of sales, management, and global leadership expertise to the company, having previously held the role of President, Industry Cloud, at SAP. Prior to that, he was a senior consultant with McKinsey & Company. Paris holds an MBA from the INSEAD Business School and a bachelor’s degree in business & European languages from the European Business School.

 

3. Reggie Aggarwal
Company: Cvent
Title: Founder and Chief Executive Officer

Reggie Aggarwal is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Cvent, a market-leading event and hospitality software company. He founded Cvent in 1999 and has grown it to 4,700+ employees and roughly 21,000 customers worldwide. Cvent’s platform powers millions of virtual, in-person, and hybrid events for thousands of organizations, including 50% of the Fortune 500. Cvent was publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange until going private in 2016. In December of 2021, Cvent returned to the public markets on the Nasdaq.

Aggarwal has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, and Businessweek, and interviewed on leading news networks including CNN and BBC. He has received numerous accolades, including Entrepreneur of the Year in Washington, D.C. by Ernst & Young, and was selected among thousands of nominations as the #1 SaaS CEO by The SaaS Report in 2018 and 2019. He was also named CEO of the Year by the Washington Business Journal, one of the 100 Most Intriguing Entrepreneurs by Goldman Sachs, and a Rising Star by Forbes Magazine.

 

4. Mike Ettling
Company: Unit4
Title: Chief Executive Officer

Mike Ettling is the Chief Executive Officer of Unit4, a cloud-based enterprise software company which powers many of the world’s most people-centric mid-market organizations. Unit4 is in business for people, developing enterprise software and ERP applications designed to improve efficiency and productivity for customers and creating an environment that allows people to spend more time on meaningful work.

Ettling is a highly regarded global thought leader in the IT and cloud software industries and is an active investor/advisor for emerging companies. He is known as a leader who builds and motivates world class teams, champions diversity, and exudes a deep passion for how technology can transform the workplace and empower individuals.

Prior to joining Unit4 in 2018, Ettling was President of SAP SuccessFactors, a leader in providing cloud-based software for human capital management. Before that, he was CEO of NGA HR (now Alight), a global HR/payroll services provider. He also held a variety of executive positions at global IT solutions company, Unisys, including heading the Global Business Process Outsourcing division and serving as Managing Director for Australia and New Zealand. Ettling holds a master’s in finance from London Business School and is a graduate of the University of Witwatersrand, South Africa.

 

5. Yogesh Gupta
Company: Progress
Title: President and Chief Executive Officer

A technologist at heart, Yogesh Gupta is passionate about how technology can make life simpler—both for businesses and individuals. Since joining Progress in October 2016 as its President and Chief Executive Officer, he has strengthened the company’s market position, improved customer relationships, launched new products, acquired three companies and significantly improved operating margins and cash flow. Progress has also refreshed its Board of Directors, increasing the diversity of the Board with four new independent members to build a strong new leadership team that can drive further success.

Prior to Progress, Gupta served as President and CEO of both Kaseya and FatWire Software. He was also Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Strategist for CA Technologies, where he worked for more than 18 years. He got his start as a software engineer for Burroughs Corporation. Gupta is also currently a member of the Board of Trustees for both MassTLC and Beth Israel Lahey Health. He earned a Master of Science in computer science from the University of Wisconsin–Madison and a Bachelor of Technology in electrical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras.

 

6. Sanjit Biswas
Company: Samsara
Title: Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer

Sanjit Biswas co-founded Samsara with John Bicket in 2015 to make it easier and more affordable for businesses to deploy sensors at a massive scale. Prior to Samsara, Biswas was the CEO and co-founder of Meraki, one of the most successful networking companies of the past decade. He grew Meraki from his PhD research into a complete enterprise networking portfolio, with cloud-based management that revolutionized the deployment of large networks. Meraki's sales doubled every year from inception, earning the company tens of thousands of customers. In 2012, Cisco acquired Meraki for $1.2 billion. Under Biswas’ leadership, Cisco Meraki continued to grow at over 100%, making it one of Cisco's fastest-growing product lines in history.

Samsara listed its shares on the New York Stock Exchange in December 2021. It currently operates in North America and Europe and has more than 20,000 customers. Biswas has been recognized as a TR35 honoree by MIT Technology Review, a Technology Pioneer by the World Economic Forum, and has received awards for academic research in computer networking. He holds a Master of Science in electrical engineering and computer science from MIT and a Bachelor of Science in computer systems engineering from Stanford University.

 

7. Brian Stafford
Company: Diligent
Title: Chief Executive Officer

Brian Stafford is Chief Executive Officer of Diligent Corporation, the world’s largest GRC SaaS provider with more than $500 million in revenue. Stafford assumed the role of CEO in March 2015 and is responsible for all day-to-day operations, with a focus on accelerating global growth and incorporating scale into the business in order to seamlessly manage the growth.

Stafford previously served as a Partner at McKinsey & Company, where he founded and led their Growth Stage Tech Practice. While there, he concentrated on helping Growth Stage Technology companies scale faster and did extensive work with SaaS companies, focusing on growth strategy, sales operations and strategy, pricing, international growth strategy, and team building. Prior to his tenure at McKinsey, he was the Founder, President, and CEO of CarOrder, a division of Trilogy Software based in Austin, Texas.

Stafford is a board member at Brooklyn Academy of Music and is the author of the book “Governance in the Digital Age.” He holds a master’s degree in computer science from the University of Chicago and a Bachelor of Science in economics from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

 

8. Melanie Perkins
Company: Canva
Title: Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer

Melanie Perkins raised one of Australia’s largest early stage investment rounds as Chief Executive Officer of Canva, a disruptive online design and publishing tool. Canva has been growing rapidly since its launch in August 2013 and is now empowering millions of people from every corner of the globe to create great designs and reach their goals, whether that's landing a job with a stylish resume, getting their business off the ground by creating great marketing materials, or connecting with their community by designing great social media graphics.

Canva was launched in 2013 by Perkins, now-husband Cliff Obrecht, and Cameron Adams in Sydney, Australia, and was valued by private investors at $40 billion in September 2021. Canva has attracted more than 100 million monthly users to its freemium software, with 500,000 teams from companies like Intel and Zoom paying for it. Previously, Perkins founded her first company, Fusion Books, an online design system for schools to create their yearbooks. Fusion Books is now the largest yearbook publisher in Australia and recently expanded to France and New Zealand. She earned undergraduate degrees in communications, psychology, marketing, and management from The University of Western Australia.

 

9. Jesper Andersen
Company: Infoblox
Title: President and Chief Executive Officer

A seasoned networking and software industry executive with a track record of building large businesses, Jesper Andersen is the President and Chief Executive Officer of Infoblox and is largely responsible for the company’s continuing growth and innovation. Prior to joining Infoblox in December 2014, he served in a number of roles at Cisco Systems, including Senior Vice President for Network Management. Previously, he held senior management positions at Oracle, Peoplesoft, Pivotal Software, and Computer Resources International. Andersen is passionate about building world-class teams, driving disruptive innovation, building strong dependable customer relationships, and delivering great business results.

Andersen’s role at Infoblox encompasses driving the company’s technology strategy and excellence in the way it builds, sells, and deploys its products and solutions for customers. Its products serve nearly 8,000 worldwide customers by controlling, securing, and automating their critical infrastructure and networks. Infoblox is proud to provide these critical network services without which the internet as we know it simply wouldn’t work. Being one of the leading DNS and DHCP companies in enterprises around the world, Infoblox is effectively the phone book of the internet and intranets.

In addition to his duties at Infoblox, Andersen is also a Board Member for The Ethical Tech Project and Sea Street Technologies. He was formerly a Goodwill Ambassador for the Copenhagen Goodwill Ambassadors and a Board Member of Telx. Andersen holds a master’s degree in computer science from Aalborg University in Denmark.

 

10. Dylan Field
Company: Figma
Title: Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer

Dylan Field is Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Figma, a web-based vector graphics editing software company. Field founded Figma in 2012 with Evan Wallace, who he met while the two were computer science students at Brown University. That year, Field received a Thiel Fellowship—a $100,000 grant conditioned on his leaving school to begin working full-time on the company. He moved to San Francisco with Wallace, where the two spent four years preparing the software for its first public release in 2016.

Fields grew Figma into a powerhouse bringing in $340 million in revenue in its most recent fiscal year. In September 2022, Adobe agreed to acquire Figma for approximately $20 billion in cash and stock. Prior to co-founding Figma, Field interned for both LinkedIn and Flipboard and served as a research assistant at Microsoft. He has received numerous recognitions for his work. In 2015, he was named to the Forbes 30 under 30 list; in 2019, he was named an INC Rising Star; and in 2020, he was named one of Business Insider's "10 people transforming the technology industry.” He is an angel investor in venture-backed startups, and Forbes reported in 2021 that he was an angel investor in OpenSea, an NFT marketplace startup.

 

11. David Felsenthal
Company: EAB
Title: Chief Executive Officer

David Felsenthal is Chief Executive Officer of EAB, an education research, technology, and marketing and enrollment solutions firm. EAB works with more than 2,500 K-12 schools, universities (including 90% of the U.S. News & World Report Top 100 colleges), and companies to drive transformative change across five major areas: enrollment; student success; institutional strategy; data analytics; and diversity, equity, and inclusion.

In addition to guiding the company through a period of strong organic growth with annual revenues now over $400 million, Felsenthal has also provided the leadership necessary to complete several acquisitions that have expanded EAB’s services. What guides EAB’s work, and inspires its more than 1,700 employees, is a firmly held belief in the power of education to transform student lives, help communities thrive, and make society more equitable. EAB continues to grow while staying true to this mission.

Felsenthal previously served as President, Chief Operating Officer, and Chief Financial Officer of The Advisory Board Company. In 2001, as CFO, he helped take The Advisory Board Company public. The company subsequently grew from $70 million in revenue and 400 employees to more than $750 million in revenue with 3,700 employees across 10 offices and three continents.

 

12. Jeremy Johnson
Company: Andela
Title: Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer

Jeremy Johnson co-founded Andela in 2014 on the premise that brilliance is evenly distributed, but opportunity is not. With that as its backbone, Andela invests in Africa’s most talented software developers to help companies build high-performing engineering teams. It is a global talent marketplace that connects companies with vetted, remote technologists. Broadly recognized as a leader in the transition to remote work, Andela has catalyzed the growth of tech ecosystems across six continents and has become a trusted talent partner for hundreds of leading engineering firms, including GitHub, Cloudflare, and ViacomCBS. Andela is backed by investors including SoftBank, Whale Rock, Generation Investment Management, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, Spark Capital, and Google Ventures.

Prior to Andela, Johnson co-founded 2U, which powers world-class online education and has continued to become globally recognized in the space. While there, he served in multiple leadership roles as they took 2U to the public market. Johnson has been recognized broadly for his work as an innovator in both education technology and the future of work. He has spoken at the White House and Congress in addition to most major global tech conferences, and he has been recognized by Fast Company as “One of the 100 Most Creative in Business” and by Goldman Sachs as “One of the 100 Most Intriguing Entrepreneurs.”

Outside of Andela, Johnson serves on the Presidential Advisory Board for Job Creation for the African Development Bank, he is a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations, he has served as a Member of The Commission on the Future of Undergraduate Education for the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and he co-authored a book for the World Economic Forum: “Education & Skills 2.0: New Targets & Innovative Approaches.”

 

13. Shoaib Makani
Company: Motive
Title: Founder and Chief Executive Officer

As Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Motive, originally known as KeepTruckin, Shoaib Makani has spent nearly a decade pushing his company to continually deliver new technologies to improve the safety and productivity of critical physical businesses. Motive has been on the forefront of Internet of Things (IoT) hardware production, working to use AI to reimagine how industries including construction, logistics, agriculture, and delivery do business in the modern world.

Makani began his career serving on the front lines of tech giants such as Google and Yahoo, working in marketing and analytics at both companies before joining AdMob in 2008. He holds a bachelor’s degree in government and economics from The London School of Economics and Political Science.

 

14. Mikko Kärkkäinen
Company: RELEX Solutions
Title: Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer

RELEX Solutions, the legendary Finnish SaaS developer that has optimized planning and logistics for some of the world’s top brands, is headed by Mikko Kärkkäinen, its Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer. Under his guidance, RELEX has quickly grown into one of the top providers of SCM systems throughout Europe and North America, posting unmatched growth throughout its expansion into offices in 12 countries.

Prior to his accomplishments in building RELEX, Kärkkäinen was a postgraduate research fellow and project manager at Helsinki University of Technology. He also distinguished himself as a consultant in supply chain issues through Sedecon Consulting. Kärkkäinen holds a master’s degree and a doctorate in supply chain management from Helsinki University of Technology.

 

15. Chaim Indig
Company: Phreesia
Title: Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer

Since co-founding Phreesia, the nation's leading patient intake management platform, Chaim Indig has helped revolutionize the patient intake experience. Under his leadership as Chief Executive Officer, Phreesia has established a broad national footprint, developed strategic partnerships with some of the world’s largest healthcare companies, and earned accolades for its role in making healthcare more efficient and patient-centered. In 2019, Phreesia was named the 2019 Category Leader for Patient Intake Management by the research and insights firm KLAS.

Prior to founding Phreesia, Indig held key roles at Spotfire and OLAP@Work. He is also a recognized business leader, trusted industry expert, and sought-after speaker. He was a finalist for Ernst & Young’s “Entrepreneur of the Year” Award and was featured in the Stanford Social Innovation Review as a healthcare innovator.

 

16. Nick Mehta
Company: Gainsight
Title: Chief Executive Officer

Nick Mehta is the Chief Executive Officer of Gainsight, the platform that helps companies of all sizes and industries drive durable growth through customer-led and product-led strategies. He works with a team of more than 1,400 human beings who together have helped create the Customer Success category that's currently taking over the SaaS business model worldwide. Gainsight is a five-time Forbes Cloud 100 recipient and Mehta has been named the #2 CEO by the Software Report, has a 99% approval rating on Glassdoor, and received the “Entrepreneur of the Year for Northern California” award. On top of all that, he was recently rated as the #1 CEO in the world (the award committee was just his mom, but the details are irrelevant).

Mehta is a member of the Board of Directors at F5 and has co-authored two books on customer success and the customer success economy. He is passionate about family, football, philosophy, physics, fashion, parody music videos, and SaaS Customer Success. People told him it’s impossible to combine all of those interests, but Nick has made it his life’s mission to try.

 

17. Dan Rodrigues
Company: Tebra
Title: Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer

Dan Rodrigues is Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Tebra, a leading cloud-based healthcare technology platform formed in 2021 with the merger of Kareo and PatientPop. Tebra recently announced it had secured more than $72 Million at over $1 billion valuation to expand its digital healthcare technology platform. The investment solidifies Tebra’s position as the digital backbone for independent practices and accelerates R&D to power a new era of healthcare.

Rodrigues founded Kareo in 2004 with the vision of making medical billing easy for doctors and their staff. Today, Tebra helps more than 100,000 healthcare providers run more efficient and profitable practices, while delivering outstanding patient care. Headquartered in Southern California, Tebra has more than 1,000 employees who are passionate about improving healthcare. Prior to launching Kareo, Rodrigues started creating technology for the healthcare industry in 2001 as a Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Skematix, a software consulting firm based in Southern California. In the late 1990s, he was Co-Founder and CEO of Scour, a very popular search engine for finding music and video files online used by more than 10 million consumers. He began his career as a software developer for RealNetworks and Visio.

 

18. Michael Sullivan
Company: Acquia
Title: Chief Executive Officer

Michael Sullivan has been President and Chief Executive Officer of Acquia, since December 2017. He joined Acquia from Micro Focus, where he participated in the merger of Micro Focus with Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s software business. The combined company became the world’s seventh largest pure-play software company and the largest U.K. technology firm listed on the London Stock Exchange.

Sullivan was responsible for the information management and governance product portfolio both at Micro Focus and at HP, where he was senior vice president and general manager for SaaS. Prior to joining HP, he led the Protect business unit at Autonomy, which delivered risk and compliance solutions to Fortune 1000 companies. He joined Autonomy through the acquisition of Zantaz, where he was senior vice president of operations and services. He was also the founder and CEO of Steelpoint Technologies, a pioneer in technologies for the intelligent management of unstructured information.

Sullivan was recognized by Ernst & Young as an Entrepreneur of the Year finalist in both 2000 and 2004. Earlier in his career, he was a software developer for Raytheon. A lifelong resident of Massachusetts, he holds a degree in computer information systems from Bentley University.

 

19. Abhinav Asthana
Company: Postman
Title: Founder and Chief Executive Officer

Bay Area API development company Postman is headed by its Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Abhinav Asthana. In eight short years, the company has grown to a user base in excess of 20 million people across the world working within 500,000 organizations. With over $400 million in venture capital raised to date, it has truly earned its status as the world’s leading API platform.

Asthana possesses considerable experience both as an entrepreneur and as an engineer, working to deliver key projects for the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, Yahoo, and BITS360. He went on to found and lead both Grayscale Design and TeliportMe before starting Postman as a small side project that quickly grew into the worldwide standard for API. He earned a bachelor’s degree in electronics, programming, and multimedia from the Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani.

 

20. Krish Subramanian
Company: Chargebee
Title: Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer

Billing and subscription management superstar Chargebee is led by its Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Krish Subramanian. In his more than eleven years at the helm of the company, Chargebee has built itself into one of the top supporters of SaaS providers worldwide, forging key partnerships with brands including Stripe and PayPal to help fintechs reinvent their revenue operations. Recently, the company celebrated a $3.5 billion valuation following a successful $250 million round of capital fundraising.

Prior to his time with Chargebee, Subramanian worked as a technology specialist at Cognizant Technology solutions and held tech leadership positions with Tata Consultancy Services for more than six years. He holds a bachelor’s degree in computer science and engineering from Bharathidasan University.

 

21. Chris Cabrera
Company: Xactly
Title: Founder and Chief Executive Officer

Chris Cabrera is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Xactly. Headquartered in Los Gatos, California, Xactly offers an award-winning suite of solutions for sales performance management, sales effectiveness, sales compensation, and employee engagement. With more than two decades of successful senior management experience, Cabrera has led Xactly from a small startup in 2005 to a public company, followed by a $564 million private equity deal.

Shortly after founding Xactly, Cabrera established the XactlyOne Foundation, a nonprofit coordinating volunteer opportunities and projects for employees in local communities. To date, XactlyOne has raised and donated over $500,000 and more than 15,000 volunteer hours to organizations in need. Additionally, Cabrera has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and is a regular contributing writer to Forbes. He was also named the “Alumni Entrepreneur of the Year'' by the Lloyd Greif Center for Entrepreneurial Studies at the USC Marshall School of Business.

 

22. Sharat Sharan
Company: ON24
Title: Co-Founder, President, and Chief Executive Officer

Sharat Sharan is Co-Founder, President, and Chief Executive Officer of ON24, a leading sales and marketing platform for digital engagement. Through interactive webinars, virtual events, and personalized content experiences, ON24 provides a system of engagement powered by AI for businesses to scale engagement, conversions, and pipeline to drive revenue growth. ON24 serves more than 2,100 customers worldwide, including three of the five largest global technology companies, three of the six largest U.S. banks, three of the five largest global healthcare companies, and three of the five largest global industrial manufacturers.

Previously, Sharan co-founded and served as Vice President and General Manager as well as Group Vice President for Hearst New Media and Technology, where he developed the firm’s innovation agenda and digital strategy to move its media properties—including magazines, newspapers, and broadcast television—online. Prior to Hearst, Sharan served as Business Development Manager and Product Manager for AT&T Network Wireless Systems. He earned an MBA from The University of Chicago Booth School of Business and a Master of Science in computer science from Virginia Tech.

 

23. Zack Rosen
Company: Pantheon
Title: Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer

Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Pantheon Zack Rosen leads the mission, strategy, and long-term vision of the company and the continued improvement and evolution of the product into an agile digital experience platform for enterprises. Under Rosen’s leadership, Pantheon continues to grow rapidly, while retaining a focus on its talented and passionate team, loyal customer base, and the guiding mission of furthering the open web.

Rosen pioneered the first large-scale Drupal website for the Howard Dean campaign in 2003, which helped revolutionize the business model of politics from offline to the Internet. In addition, he has successfully co-founded a variety of organizations over the past fifteen years, including Chapter Three, a full-service web agency specializing in Drupal development; Mission Bicycle, a San Francisco-based bicycle manufacturer; California YIMBY, an advocacy group that is working to solve California’s housing crisis; and Act Now Coalition, the goal of which is to understand U.S. COVID Risk Levels for 3,000+ counties and 50 states and was built in partnership with Georgetown University Center for Global Health Science and Security, Stanford University Clinical Excellence Research Center, and Harvard Global Health Institute.

 

24. Katherine Kostereva
Company: Creatio
Title: Founder and Chief Executive Officer

Katherine Kostereva is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Creatio, a global vendor of one platform to automate workflows and CRM with no-code and a maximum degree of freedom. For the past 20 years, Kostereva has been helping organizations accelerate their customer-facing and operational processes through automation. Thanks to her determination, excellent leadership skills, and entrepreneurial spirit, she grew Creatio into a global company with more than 700 employees in five offices around the world and a local presence in 14 countries.

Creatio is recognized by top analyst firms, including Gartner and Forrester. It’s been included in five Gartner Magic Quadrants and seven Forrester Waves and was named a Leader in two Gartner Magic Quadrants—Salesforce Automation and CRM Lead Management—in 2019, 2020, and 2021. It also has some of the highest customer satisfaction scores in the industry.

In February 2021, Kostereva and Creatio closed a $68 million minority investment led by Boston-based growth equity firm Volition Capital. The funds are being used to invest in R&D, marketing, and sales and to support Creatio's network of partners in 110+ countries worldwide. Kostereva has been recognized on several lists, including Top 25 SaaS Influencers, Ones to Watch in 2021, Top 50 SaaS CEOs, and Top 50 Women Leaders in SaaS from 2018-2021. She has received several awards, including a Gold Stevie® Award in the Female Entrepreneur of the Year category in 2020, Executive Leader of the Year in the 7th Annual 2020 Customer Sales and Service World Awards, and more.

 

25. Ganesh Shankar
Company: RFPIO
Title: Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer

Ganesh Shankar is the Chief Executive Officer and one of the founders of RFPIO, the industry’s leading software for response management. Using cloud-based automation technology, RFPIO fills a critical, and often missing, part of the sales process and helps organizations increase their sales win rates across the board. Shankar has a strong background in product management, and today leverages that experience to drive excellence for the employees and customers of RFPIO.

Shankar successfully led product development and software implementations for Fortune 500 enterprises as an Associate Director – Product Design at Exterro Inc. It was then, surrounded by an outdated approach to responding to RFP responses, that he pursued his dream to create proposal management software that would make a positive impact on the industry.

Shankar was recognized as the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year (PNW) Winner (2020); was voted Top CEOs to Work For in Portland, Top CEOs for Women, and Top CEOs for Diversity by Comparably; and included in Portland Business Journal’s 40 Under 40.

 

26. Ross Wainwright
Company: Alida
Title: Chief Executive Officer

Ross Wainwright is a seasoned software executive with a 30-year track record of identifying and fast-tracking opportunities that not only disrupt existing market habits but also transform customer results to produce successful business outcomes.

Wainwright joined Alida in December 2019. As the company’s Chief Executive Officer, he leads with compelling and transformative alternatives to existing solutions in the Customer Experience Management (CXM) software space. He has led several major business initiatives at the company, including a major rebrand from Vision Critical to Alida, expanding into the CXM market, implementing several global office expansions, and delivering more than 20 intuitive products and 190 enhancements in just two years. Under his leadership, Alida has acquired significant new funding from various financial institutions.

Prior to Alida, Wainwright served as CEO for Dimension Data/NTT, and before that spent 15 years at SAP with his last role being the EVP & Global Head of S4 Hana Cloud. He is a goal oriented, motivational leader with extensive global P&L management experience, and he has an established track record of building and leading high performing organizations, driving a transformation leadership agenda, and delivering consistent revenue and profit growth.

 

27. Bertram Thorslund
Company: Lenus
Title: Founder and Chief Executive Officer

Bertram Thorslund is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Lenus. Lenus provides coaches with the tools and expertise they need to grow their business. It offers a cutting-edge coach-optimization system that allows coaches to maximize time spent on value creation while having a 10x scalability potential and impacting a greater number of lives. With global health on the decline, Lenus is democratizing the health industry by empowering coaches to grow and serve a greater number of people at a lower price, while maintaining their quality and client satisfaction.

Prior to founding Lenus, Thorslund served as a Business Analyst for the Sales Director and a Student Assistant for the Client Unit Manager at IBM. He earned a master’s in economics and business administration and a master’s in brand and communication management, as well as a bachelor’s in international business, all from Copenhagen Business School. He is a member of Mensa Denmark.

 

28. Howie Liu
Company: Airtable
Title: Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer

Howie Liu is Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Airtable, a software development company that has helped teams at over 300,000 organizations worldwide stay connected and achieve great things. Thanks in large part to Liu’s technological insight and savvy leadership, Airtable has climbed to the top ten of Forbes’ legendary Cloud 100 list and raised over $1 billion in investment capital over the last nine years.

Before launching Airtable in 2013, Liu led Salesforce’s social CRM product, and he also co-founded an intelligent CRM program for computer networking company Etacts. Liu earned a degree in mechanical engineering and public policy from Duke University, where he completed groundbreaking work in using neural nets and a genetic algorithm to design airfoils.

 

29. David Giannetto
Company: WorkWave
Title: Chief Executive Officer

David Giannetto is the Chief Executive Officer of WorkWave, which empowers service-oriented companies to reach their full potential through scalable, cloud-based software solutions that support every stage of their business life-cycle. WorkWave helps mobile workforce companies in the field service, transportation, and logistics industries mitigate the key pain points they face every day. This allows them to save money, save time, and improve customer service, all at the same time. The company’s fully-integrated suite of cloud-based software, mobile software, and marketing services solutions allow companies of any size to easily estimate jobs, schedule and route mobile workers, and service and bill customers with ease.

Giannetto has extensive SaaS strategic leadership and operational experience creating value propositions, product and service offerings, and internal operations that align with market opportunities to significantly increase growth and improve market position in software, information/big data, analytics, consulting, and emerging technology industries. He is the author of three books, a frequent writer for national magazines, and keynote speaker. Prior to WorkWave, Giannetto served as Chief Operating Officer of Astea International and as CEO of The Telos Group LLC. He earned an MBA from Rutgers University – Newark and a Bachelor of Science in business management from Monmouth University.

 

30. Kshitij Jain
Company: Joveo
Title: Founder and Chief Executive Officer

Kshitij (or KJ) Jain is a recruitment industry icon, recognized globally for his passion for solving the most difficult problems in the human capital ecosystem with technology. Jain founded Joveo with the mission of delivering the right “job to everyone”— a phrase that translated into the name “Joveo.”

With 20 years of recruitment marketing experience, he has a proven track record of building, leading, and managing innovative, high-growth organizations. As Joveo’s Founder and CEO, he drives the company’s long-term product and go-to-market strategies, as well as day-to-day operations.

Before Joveo, Jain founded MoBolt, which created the world’s best apply optimization technology. After its acquisition by Indeed in 2014, he was a part of the product team at the company. Prior to MoBolt, Jain ran product management for the Asia-Pacific region at Monster Worldwide, led cross-border sales for Eastern Europe, Asia Pacific, Middle East, and Africa, and was their global recruiting subject matter expert.

 

31. Brett Caine
Company: Airship
Title: President and Chief Executive Officer

Brett Caine is the President and Chief Executive Officer of Airship, which powers trillions of mobile app experiences for thousands of global brands. Founded in 2009 to power the world’s first commercial mobile app messages, Airship has expanded dramatically both geographically and in its offerings since Caine took the helm in 2014. Most recently, he led the acquisition of app store optimization leader Gummicube to offer the industry the first complete set of enterprise solutions to help brands master the full lifecycle of mobile app experience (MAX) management—from user acquisition through to activation, engagement, and loyalty. Caine led acquisitions of Apptimize and Accenage, bringing app UX experimentation and definitive European market share leadership to the company’s SaaS platform, respectively.

Caine brings over 20 years of executive leadership experience in scaling SaaS businesses from startups in emerging markets to global “go-to” choices in mature industries. As the former President of Citrix Online, he grew the company’s revenue from $40 million to $600 million over his 10-year tenure. Prior to Citrix Online, he held executive positions with several leading software companies, including Openwave Systems, Software.com, and Clarify, Inc. Caine is a board advisor to mobile, SaaS, and cloud startups.

 

32. Benny Czarny
Company:OPSWAT
Title: Founder and CEO

Benny Czarny is the Founder and CEO of OPSWAT, a leading critical infrastructure protection cybersecurity firm with over 1,500 customers, 600 employees, and 11 offices worldwide. Founded with a personal investment in 2002 to offer a unique, market-driven approach to security application design and development, OPSWAT has been breaking new ground in the field of cybersecurity for more than 15 years.

Benny has over 20 years of experience in successfully identifying market needs and building, marketing, and selling innovative cloud-based security products and solutions. From the early days of computer viruses, he was interested and involved in the fields of encryption, network operations, and security vulnerabilities detection and research. Prior to founding OPSWAT, Benny held technical leadership positions at NetManage, Netect and BindView. Benny earned a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science from the Technion, Israel Institute of Technology.

 

33. Michael Reitblat (tie)
Company: Forter
Title: Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer

Over nearly a decade, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer Michael Reitblat has built global commerce authentication company Forter into one of the most trusted names in online shopping. Boasting more than $300 billion processed in online transactions and an incredible hundredfold growth in payments processed since 2018, Forter strives to achieve its goal of stamping out fraud from the online shopping experience.

Reitblat first developed his reputation as a changemaker and entrepreneur in executive positions with PaNGo Parking and venture capital fund MC Group. He has contributed his expertise to the advancement of digital design as a member of the Beyon3D board since 2013. A decorated officer of the Israeli Intelligence Corps’ Cyber Command, he holds degrees in economics, history, and computer science from Tel Aviv University and The Open University of Israel.

 

33. Andrew Barnes (tie)
Company: Go1
Title: Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer

Andrew Barnes is Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of training and onboarding software developer GO1, a company that raised more than $100 million this year in pursuit of its quest to combat the shortage of tech skills in the global workforce. In addition to his work with GO1, Barnes served as the director of nonprofit organizations Epilepsy Queensland and Cannon Hill Anglican College Foundation for many years.

Barnes has frequently been recognized for his achievements in management and leadership, having been granted special honors for entrepreneurship by multiple industry publications. A Rhodes scholar, Barnes earned a master’s degree in education focusing on learning and technology from the University of Oxford, and also holds advanced degrees in business strategy and economics from the University of Queensland.

 

34. Alessandro Garcia Vieria
Company: Solides
Title: Founder and Chief Executive Officer

Alessandro Garcia Vieira, widely known professionally as Ale Garcia, founded Brazilian SaaS great Sólides in 2008 and has served as its Chief Executive Officer ever since. Garcia leverages analytics and the latest achievements in AI to drive Sólides to transform how small and medium-sized enterprises meet their human resources needs.

Garcia is no stranger to the world of technological innovation, having previously founded agriculture software company Procreare Software and led that company to great acclaim for eight years. He currently serves as a business mentor with several organizations, including Endeavor, Founder Institute, and Inovativa Brasil MDIC. He holds a bachelor’s degree in statistics from Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais and a master’s degree in business and engineering innovation from UaiTec. He pursued further postgraduate study in design and innovation from Stanford University and the University of California, Berkeley.

 

35. Sean Fitzpatrick
Company: OTA Insight
Title: Chief Executive Officer

As Chief Executive Officer of OTA Insight since 2018, Sean Fitzpatrick has led the company through a high-growth phase to become the global leader in business and market intelligence solutions for the hospitality industry. Today, OTA Insight serves more than 60,000 hotels in 185 countries, providing cloud-based data solutions that drive better revenue, distribution, and marketing outcomes. Under his leadership, OTA Insight has grown from providing a single product to delivering a full commercial platform for hotel and vacation rental businesses. The high-growth company recently closed an $80 million Series B funding round and completed two acquisitions.

Fitzpatrick came to OTA Insight after serving as the Chief Operating Officer and Head of Product at HotSchedules, where he oversaw product strategy and design across the HotSchedules portfolio, as well as scaling the company and customer operations to serve more than 100,000 restaurants worldwide. Prior to joining HotSchedules, Fitzpatrick was Global Vice President of Strategy and Product Management at Oracle Corporation focused on developing managed services. He has more than 20 years of executive management experience in the technology industry and has held leadership and strategy positions with BearingPoint, BroadVision, and Nokia.

 

36. Ronni Zehavi
Company: HiBob
Title: Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer

In his capacity as Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of HiBob, Ronni Zehavi leverages his decades of leadership experience to transform operations for more than 2,500 leading multinational companies. His forward-thinking approach to human resources has produced unparalleled solutions to the problems of the modern workplace, for which the company has enjoyed a 50% growth in its valuation to $2.5 billion earlier this year.

A prominent fixture in the world of fintech, Zehavi has served as a board member or advisor to organizations including Tongo, Tufin, and Cyberstarts. He began his track record of excellence as an entrepreneur as co-founder of cybersecurity company Team8 and cloud-based acceleration technology provider Cotendo. Zehavi earned a bachelor’s degree in history from Tel Aviv University and a master’s degree in organizational sociology from Bar-Ilan University.

 

37. Chris Sullens
Company: CentralReach
Title: Chief Executive Officer

As Chief Executive Officer of CentralReach, Chris Sullens is leading the company in its mission to revolutionize the delivery of care for individuals with autism and related intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) by providing the only complete, end-to-end software and services platform that helps children and adults diagnosed with autism and IDD—and those who serve them—unlock potential, achieve better outcomes, and live more independent lives. Sullens brings decades of experience to the company and has a proven track record of building strong company cultures and taking customer-centric technology companies, like CentralReach, to the next level.

His keys to success include investing heavily in the company’s people, process, systems, and client satisfaction initiatives. Prior to CentralReach, Sullens spent 10 years as president and CEO of WorkWave, a leading provider of cloud-based software solutions for the field service and last mile logistics industries. He has a Bachelor of Science in mechanical engineering from Virginia Tech and an MBA with Honors in finance, strategy, and entrepreneurship from The University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

 

38. Diaz Nesamoney
Company: Jivox
Title: Founder and Chief Executive Officer

Diaz Nesamoney is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Jivox, which delivers a technology platform for personalized digital marketing. Nesamoney has had two prior successful ventures. He was previously Co-Founder, President, and Chief Operating Officer at Informatica, which he took from a startup to a publicly traded company. In 1999, Informatica pioneered data integration software as a category and is now the market leader with over $2 billion in revenue and a $10 billion market cap. Later, Nesamoney founded Celequest and served as its CEO until early 2007, when the company was acquired by Cognos/IBM. Celequest introduced the market's first Business Intelligence appliance, a disruptive innovation that led to its acquisition.

In 2020, Nesamoney was selected by The Software Report as one of the Top 50 SaaS CEOs. He is a member of the Council of Global Advisors at the Yale School of Management and has been a board member for over 11 years of the American India Foundation, a leading international development organization charged with the mission of accelerating social and economic change in India.

Nesamoney holds a master’s degree in computer science from the Birla Institute of Technology and Science in India and is the holder of eight technology patents. He is also the author of the first book on Personalized Digital Advertising.

 

39. Danny Jenkins
Company: ThreatLocker
Title: Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer

Danny Jenkins is Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of ThreatLocker. ThreatLocker’s powerful suite of security tools are designed so that everyone from businesses to government agencies to academic institutions can directly control exactly what applications run on their networks. The company envisions a future in which all organizations can chart their own course free from the influence of cybercriminals and the damage their incursions cause, and its team of veteran cybersecurity professionals created ThreatLocker to make this vision a reality.

Jenkins is a leading expert in cybersecurity with over two decades of experience in building and securing corporate networks, including many roles on red teams and blue teams. He is dedicated to educating industry professionals about the latest cyber threats and frequently speaks on the topics of ransomware, zero trust, and zero-day vulnerabilities. Before taking the reins at ThreatLocker, he co-founded MXSweep, a global provider of email and internet security SaaS applications based in Dublin, Ireland, that sold exclusively through the channel. MXSweep later went on to be sold to J2. Jenkins was also the CEO at Sirrustec, specializing in whitelabeled channel delivered email security—Sirrustec sold to Censornet in 2014.

 

40. Tony Summerville
Company: Fleetio
Title: Founder and Chief Executive Officer

Tony Summerville is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Fleetio, a SaaS platform that helps organizations track, analyze, and improve their fleet operations. Fleetio is the central hub for managing all aspects of fleet maintenance and total cost of ownership for thousands of customers. Founded in 2012, the company helps organizations improve their fleet management operations by allowing users to manage maintenance, DVIRs, fuel, parts, inventory, vehicle assignments, recalls, and more all in one place. Fleetio has grown rapidly, landing a spot on the Inc. 5000 list by notably growing nearly 300% in the past three years, barely scratching the surface of what can be accomplished. The company powers public and private fleets in more than 80 countries in industries like consumer and business services, construction, transportation, and many others.

With a background in engineering, Summerville created Fleetio, shaking up the growing transportation market. He is an Endeavor Entrepreneur and is a leader in the startup community within Birmingham, Alabama. He has been recognized as a Top CEO and one of Birmingham’s “Top 40 Under 40” by the Birmingham Business Journal, and also serves as a board member for Venture for America and TechBirmingham.

 

41. John Herr
Company: Arcoro
Title: Chief Executive Officer

As Chief Executive Officer, John Herr is responsible for the strategic direction of Arcoro. He is a 25-year internet technology industry veteran with a proven track record scaling software businesses into large enterprises.

Before joining Arcoro, Herr spent five years as Chief Executive Officer and Board Member at Avetta. Under his leadership, Avetta grew to serve an active customer base of more than 100,000 in more than 100 countries. Having served in executive roles at some of the world’s leading SaaS and eCommerce organizations, including eBay, PayPal, Adaptive Insights, and Buy.com, Herr has a deep understanding of how to transform emerging businesses into world-class enterprises and how to grow and inspire talented teams.

Herr got his start as a strategy consultant for Bain & Company. He graduated from Harvard University with a Bachelor of Arts in economics and earned an MBA from Harvard Business School. He also serves as a member of the Arcoro Board of Directors.

 

42. Kevin O’Loughlin
Company: Nostra
Title: Founder and Chief Executive Officer

Kevin O’Loughlin is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Nostra. Nostra works with companies to help them reduce the headaches in IT and understand costs and solutions in plain English. Companies are able to outsource their IT to Nostra, and Nostra builds, monitors, and maintains their networks, servers, Cloud, and–most importantly–supports their users.

Nostra reviews what its customers currently have, develops a straightforward report, and advises on what is needed to make IT systems stable and secure. Most crucially, however, Nostra removes IT as a blocker for growth. It works with companies in Ireland and around the globe, in virtually every sector, from aircraft leasing to software development, manufacturing, retail, services, and more.

O’Loughlin founded Nostra in 2006, and since then he has made it into one of Ireland’s most trusted providers of managed IT and cybersecurity services with plans to nearly double its headcount in the next two years and expand into Microsoft Business Central ERP. Prior to Nostra, O’Loughlin served as a sales manager for Typetec. He studied at Dublin City University and Technological University Dublin.

 

43. Dan McCall
Company: Influitive
Title: Chief Executive Officer

Dan McCall is Chief Executive Officer of Influitive, the market-leading engagement platform for customer advocacy, community and loyalty programs. Adobe, Cisco, IBM, VMware and other leading brands rely upon Influitive to create and sustain trusting relationships with customers through targeted recognition, rewards, and personalized content—leading to brand advocacy and sparking customer-led growth.

Since taking over the helm in 2019, Dan has turned Influitive into a self-funded and profitable company, grew its customer base by 50%, and increased retention by 23%. Additionally, McCall has spearheaded a major software revamp for wider integrations and to better meet the growing demands of Customer Marketing and how those teams fuel and support the marketing funnel and sales pipeline, product innovation, and customer success.

McCall was also recognized as a top 50 SaaS CEO in 2021 by The Software Report. Prior to Influitive, McCall served as CEO of Lexumo and sat on the board of directors of Intronis (now part of Barracuda Networks). He has co-founded multiple successful companies, including Guardent (acquired by Verisign in 2004) and Virtual Computer (acquired by Citrix in 2012). He has also held senior positions in product management, marketing, product development, and corporate development at four publicly traded companies. He graduated Magna Cum Laude from the University of Connecticut.

 

44. Rose Bentley
Company: Qumu Corporation
Title: President and Chief Executive Officer

As President and Chief Executive Officer, Rose Bentley is responsible for overseeing global operations and implementing the strategic growth plan for Qumu. Her experience and leadership most recently at Teradata and Cisco were focused on developing and partnering to deliver technology-driven business solutions and services, optimizing go-to-market performance, providing a seamless customer experience, and driving profitable revenue growth.

Bentley joined Qumu as COO in March 2021. Since that time, she has spearheaded Qumu’s partner-led sales motions and customer success efforts, which were key to securing new logos, deeper customer relationships, higher retention, and cloud conversions. In 2021, Qumu’s partner-generated revenue grew 25% year-over-year and accounted for more than 30% of the company’s total revenue in 2021.

Prior to joining Qumu, Bentley held leadership roles at several SaaS technology companies, with an extensive background of revitalizing, scaling, and driving business growth. At Teradata, Bentley led operations and go-to-market strategy for the $1.8 billion revenue analytics company, growing partner sales and accelerating the shift from perpetual license to subscription-based revenue of over 90% in the cloud. She also led global sales and customer success at CloudCherry, which put the customer experience company in position to be acquired by Cisco Webex. Bentley also previously led sales and customer success for Satmetrix and Lyris.

 

45. John Murdock
Company: Centage
Title: Chief Executive Officer

John Murdock is an accomplished technology executive with over 20 years of experience in global software and services organizations. He’s excited to see Centage lead the transformation of modern FP&A with a cloud-based software platform that enables finance teams at small and medium sized businesses to streamline their entire planning process and make faster, more confident decisions.

Previously, Murdock was the Chief Revenue Officer at Centage for three years, and he is passionate about delivering an amazing experience for customers. Prior to Centage, he held senior leadership roles at Juniper Networks, Kaspersky Labs, and QuickPivot, where he was responsible for various aspects of sales, channels, and customer success, both domestically and internationally. Murdock holds a Bachelor of Science in Engineering from Northeastern University and pursued his MBA at Boston University’s Questrom School of Business.

 

46. Greg Taylor
Company: Orion Labs
Title: Chief Executive Officer

Greg Taylor is the CEO of Orion, the leading voice-first, intelligent collaboration platform that revolutionizes the deskless workforce. Under Taylor’s guidance, the platform has evolved into a best-in-class unified and real-time communication solution, serving enterprises with frontline operations around the globe. Taylor has raised over $43 million in funding for Orion and guided innovation investments in Orion’s category-leading platform, obtaining 16 new patents.

Taylor’s leadership shepherded Orion through the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, ensuring the company prioritized impacted customers like airline services and supported those spurred to innovate like transportation and logistics. Orion was proud to provide continuous support for its transportation authority customers as they navigated situations like providing meals to homebound individuals during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Furthering Orion’s commitment to supporting the global community during times of crisis, Taylor recently drove an effort to successfully provide Orion’s secure communication service to a Poland-based humanitarian supply chain and refugee logistics organization supporting emergency response in Ukraine. Taylor is a veteran entrepreneur executive in enterprise technology. His excellence in leadership was recently recognized when the L. A. Times named him a CEO Visionary.

 

47. Duke Chung
Company: TravelBank
Title: Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer

Duke Chung is Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of TravelBank, the all-in-one travel, expense, and corporate card management platform. Prior to starting TravelBank in late 2016, Chung founded Parature, a customer support solution acquired by Microsoft in 2014. While at Microsoft, he was inspired to create TravelBank as a modern budgeting, expense, and rewards app designed to incentivize employees to save companies money.

Chung has been widely recognized for his efforts in pioneering innovation, and has been named to Skift’s Corporate Travel Innovators in 2019, Fast Company’s Fast 50, and Washington Business Journal’s 40 under 40, among other honors. He provides thought leadership, serves as a chief evangelist, and is an active angel investor.

 

48. Steven Mih
Company: Ahana
Title: Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer

Steven Mih is a go-to-market leader who is experienced in growing startups to leaders in their respective fields. He’s an ardent fan of open source, distributed systems. Mih’s multifaceted go-to-market experience spans leading additional organizations, such as Aviatrix and Alluxio, where he was previously CEO, and Couchbase, Transitive, and Cadence Design Systems. In addition to serving as CEO of Ahana, he is a Presto Foundation Board Member.

Under Mih’s leadership, Ahana was founded in April 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic as an all-remote company. Ahana brings together decades of cloud, open source, database, and distributed systems experience to be the only commercial company focused on PrestoDB, the project hosted by the Linux Foundation’s Presto Foundation. Presto is the de-facto open source distributed SQL query engine for data analytics and for the open Data Lakehouse. Mih has taken the company from inception to Series A financing with $32 million in capital raised to date. Now in the market and in use by data platform teams, Ahana Cloud has continued to innovate. Presto is poised to become the new SQL query engine of choice for the Data Lakehouse.

 

49. Fermín Carmona
Company: Hotelverse
Title: Founder and Chief Executive Officer

Fermín Carmona has more than 20 years of experience in the tourism sector and is now Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Hotelverse, a technology company that aims to revolutionize the hotel room booking process and improve guests’ digital experience. Hotelverse specifically focuses on the creation of digital twins for hotels, using API. It builds an exhaustive digital replica (or twin) of each hotel, which is hosted in the hotel chain’s e-commerce. It is therefore possible to significantly improve the browsing experience, using filters and options to adapt the visualization of the hotel to each guest’s needs and wishes.

Carmona’s professional career includes collaboration with renowned national and international hotel companies that have given him a holistic vision of this changing market. He has held various senior management positions, where he had the opportunity to lead and innovate, working on more than 200 projects in the operations, research and product development, guest experience, analytics, marketing, sales, distribution, revenue management, and e-commerce departments.

Before launching Hotelverse with his partner and current COO Rafael Bover, he collaborated with Grupo Iberostar. Hotelverse emerged within this hotel chain as an inter-entrepreneurial project to solve the problem of significant use of intermediaries in sales, and to improve the web conversion rate. Carmona is also a member of the advisory board for Beonpric.

 

50. Farsheed Ferdowsi
Company: Inova Payroll
Title: Founder and Chief Executive Officer

Farsheed Ferdowsi, founder and current CEO of Inova Payroll, describes himself as a “serial entrepreneur.” During his prolific 40-year business career, he has founded ten companies, created countless software solutions, and is recognized as an online payroll pioneer. He was one of the first to create an internet payroll product, PowerPayroll, in the late 1990s with his company, PayMaxx. Other SaaS solutions followed, including the first employee self-service software, a micro-market online payroll product, and one of the first employee engagement online software portals.

PowerPayroll was recognized by Smart Business magazine as the Most Valuable Product for 2001 and won several other prestigious awards. Ferdowsi sold PayMaxx in 2005 and founded Inova Payroll in 2011, today a national top-three independent payroll/HR provider with offices across the country.

Over the years, Ferdowsi has served on the Board of Directors of XFormity Technologies, Inc. and nTelagent, Inc., as well as numerous local community boards. Farsheed was recognized by the Nashville Business Journal as the Entrepreneur of the Year and is an alumnus of Leadership Nashville. Ferdowsi has also authored two books, Mushroom in the Sand (2009) and Under the Staircase—A Martyr’s Journey (2022), a nonfiction biography of his father, Fatollah Ferdowsi.