Top SaaS CEOs 2021LEAVE A REPLY
Profile
Chris Sullens is the Chief Executive Officer of CentralReach and is leading the company in its mission to provide an end-to-end platform of software and services that enable Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) clinicians and educators to produce superior client outcomes for people with autism. 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. Since he joined, CentralReach has won a handful of awards including Deloitte Technology Fast 500, NJBIZ Fast 50, Silver Stevie for Most Innovative Company of the Year, NJBIZ Best Places to Work, and Best in Biz Company of the Year – demonstrating the positive effects of the investments the company is making in its 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, which was recently acquired by IFS, an EQT-backed, global enterprise software provider based in Sweden. Sullens was responsible for developing the vision, setting the strategy and driving the execution for the company since joining in 2008. During his time there, Sullens transformed WorkWave through significant investment and 11 strategic acquisitions from a single product, single market, predominantly on-premise company, to a multi-product and multi-market SaaS company that is now the leading provider of cloud-based solutions for the field service and last mile logistics industries. Sullens grew employee count from 38 to almost 300 and increased revenue by 800% while maintaining double-digit EBITDA margins, creating an award-winning culture and building a world class SaaS leadership team.
Sullens also sits on the board of directors for CentralReach along with a few other organizations including Fulfill of Monmouth and Ocean County, OnePlus Systems, CultureIQ, NJ Tech Council and the Monmouth School of Science Dean’s Council. He has a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Virginia Tech and an M.B.A. with Honors in Finance, Strategy and Entrepreneurship from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.
Chris embodies what it means to be an entrepreneur. He is known for his ‘people-focused’ leadership style and scaling high growth technology companies. Much of Chris’ success as a leader stems from his hyper-focus on building a mission-driven culture that invests in hiring and developing passionate people, evolving products through speedy innovation, transforming clients and employees into raving fans, and continuously investing in the company’s systems, processes and structure. This playbook of making significant, continuous investments in people, process and systems was one he honed in his last CEO role at WorkWave, a leading SaaS platform for field service and last mile logistics companies, where we increased revenue, staff and profits by 10x in 10 years and earned a 40x return for his investors from the time he joined until he sold the business in 2017. His rapid success at CentralReach, a SaaS company in the behavioral health space, validates his approach to creating rapidly growing, scale up market leaders.
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