Nexidia has proven that they are the type of company that can really partner to help in operationalizing call intelligence to deliver pertinent, relevant results."
Lynn Costlow
Vice President of
Customer Service
U.S. Cellular

Executive Management.

John Willcutts, President & CEO

John joined Nexidia with an extensive background in technology and demonstrated leadership experience from having held executive positions for companies ranging from start-ups to publicly traded corporations. Prior to Nexidia, John was CEO of Orchestria the leading innovator of solutions designed to provide unprecedented levels of real-time visibility and control of all electronic communications, including e-mail, the Web and Instant Messaging.
 
John has served twice as Entrepreneur in Residence for Benchmark Capital, a leading investor in enterprise software and services, communications & security, semiconductors, mobile computing, consumer services and financial services. John also served as CEO of Encompass Inc., a startup software company that delivered the default end-user Internet experience for users of new PC’s. Encompass was subsequently acquired by Yahoo in 1999, and as a result of this acquisition, John, was appointed VP and General Manager of Corporate Yahoo! John has also held positions with Global Village where he served as VP of Engineering and at Atlanta-based Sofnet where he was Chief Technical Officer.

Jon Ezrine, SVP & Chief Operating Officer

Jon joined Nexidia from Witness Systems, a call center recording and optimization software company, where he served as CFO. Jon was responsible for all aspects of Witness Systems financial management from its start-up stage, through a successful IPO and as a public company. Jon was also instrumental in the company’s M&A, business development and strategic development initiatives. Prior to Witness Systems, Jon served as Controller for SQL Financials, now Clarus Corporation, as Controller for ITL Interiors, Inc, and as a senior staff accountant with Arthur Andersen & Co. from 1989 to 1992. Jon holds a BS in Finance from the University of Virginia.

Ryan Pellet, SVP, Strategic Consulting Services

Ryan is responsible for leading Nexidia’s Services organizations, which guide clients through the journey of leveraging Nexidia’s analytic portfolio.
 
Ryan has over 20 years of creating customer experience centric strategies for Fortune 100™ companies and is a recognized expert in business strategy development using behavioural and business analytics.  He is a recognized author, industry thought leader and key note.
 
Prior to joining Nexidia, Ryan was an officer at Convergys Corporation – the leader in customer relationship management and the largest customer experience outsourcer in the world. At Convergys, he was the lead executive for the Center for Applied Customer Analytics, and the Global Consulting Services Practice; where he led Convergys’ application and use of analytics within the company’s two-billion plus customer experiences/interactions.
 
Ryan founded the Finali Group, prior to its acquisition by Convergys.  He also served as a founding contributor to Accenture’s Global Customer Relationship Management Practice where he was an executive.

Thomas Allgood, SVP & Chief Financial Officer

Thomas joined Nexidia from Great Hill Partners, a private equity firm investing in high growth companies.  He served as Vice President of Finance and advised the CEOs and CFOs of Great Hill’s investments on key strategic and financial initiatives.  Thomas brings significant financial accounting, reporting and auditing experience and a background in analysis, budgeting and strategic development. Thomas also has extensive M&A and financing experience including public and private equity, senior debt facilities and mezzanine debt.
 
Prior to Great Hill Partners, Thomas was the Vice President of Strategic Development and Financial Planning and Analysis at Prommis Solutions, a business services provider.  Prior to Prommis Solutions, Thomas served as a manager with PricewaterhouseCoopers’ transaction services group.  Thomas was also an investment banking associate at Merrill Lynch.  He began his career as an auditor and consultant with KPMG.
 
Thomas is a CPA, received a BBA degree in Accounting with honors from the University of Georgia and a MBA from Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business.

Mark Reich, SVP, Technical Operations

Mark has over 20 years experience working in the computer industry. He currently serves as Senior Vice President, Operations where he is responsible for engineering, professional services, technical support, quality assurance and training. Most recently, Mark served as Senior Director, Client Services, for Yahoo!'s Enterprise Solutions division. Mark built Yahoo!’s first consulting, training and technical support organization targeted at Fortune 500 companies. Prior to Yahoo!, Mark served as Vice President of Operations for Encompass, Inc., which was subsequently acquired by Yahoo!. Encompass was a startup software company that delivered the default end-user Internet experience for users of new PC’s. Before joining Encompass, Mark was a Managing Consultant at Gemini Consulting, where he led engagements in the information technology and operations practice areas for Fortune 500 companies.
 
Earlier in his career, Mark served as Principal Engineer at Encore Computer Corporation, where he led an RFP response and won a $10M contract from DARPA for the development of a large-scale parallel processor system. Upon completing graduate school, Mark served as Project Lead for Digital Equipment Corporation, where he designed and developed a communications subsystem for the VAX11 family of computers. Mark holds a Bachelor of Engineering degree in Electrical Engineering from McGill University, an MS in Electrical Engineering from Carnegie-Mellon University and an MBA with honors from Boston University.

Drew Lanham, SVP/GM, Media

Drew leads Nexidia’s Media business unit, overseeing the group's product management, strategy, business development and sales. Prior to Nexidia, Drew was Vice President of Business Development for Good Technology (acquired by Motorola), where he initiated, negotiated and secured a cornerstone partnership with AT&T Wireless to resell the company’s flagship product, which transformed Good from a direct to an indirect sales model.
 
Prior to Good Technology, Drew held various leadership positions at Yahoo, including Vice President &  General Manager of Access (now Connected Life), a business unit which underpinned Yahoo’s premium subscription service business and accounted for more than half of Yahoo’s premium subscribers, eventually exceeding $1B in revenue for Yahoo.  Drew was one of two principals who negotiated and implemented Yahoo’s strategic alliance with SBC Communications (now AT&T).  In the role of Vice President of Business Development at Yahoo, he developed and managed complex alliances ($20M+) and distribution/licensing deals in media, technology/software licensing, wireless, and content components spanning all business units.
 
Prior to Yahoo, Drew was the Co-founder & Vice President, Business Development at Encompass (acquired by Yahoo in 1999). Drew holds degrees in Economics and Finance from Baylor University and is based in Palo Alto, California.

Howard Smith, SVP, Sales

Howard joins Nexidia as SVP of Sales after having served as a consultant and advisor to the management team.  Prior to Nexidia, Smith held the position of Vice President of Sales at Orchestria, the leading innovator of solutions designed to provide unprecedented levels of real-time visibility and control of all electronic communications, including e-mail, the Web and Instant Messaging. In less than three years, Smith established and grew Orchestria’s US business from a position of having no clients, to being the preferred email compliance solution among the majority of Wall Street’s most prestigious financial services firms. Prior to Orchestria, Smith led Yahoo!’s Enterprise Solutions sales force, from a position of no revenue in the enterprise portal market, to a position of industry leadership.  Smith has also served in a number of management, sales and consulting roles with Accenture, Oracle and EDS.

Jeff Schlueter, VP/GM, Legal Markets
As Vice President/General Manager of Legal Markets, Jeff is responsible for developing and implementing the Nexidia strategy providing audio discovery solutions to law firms, corporations, government regulators and other law enforcement agencies world-wide. In this role, he has developed the overall product strategy and guides both the channel management and service implementation efforts for these customer groups. Jeff brings 20+ years of telecom and marketing experience to Nexidia. He served as the Executive Director of Product Management at Cingular Wireless where he was responsible for the development and lifecycle management of all voice-related products and services in the Cingular portfolio. Jeff was also the Executive Director of Customer Base Marketing, responsible for all marketing programs into their base of 22 million subscribers for retention and revenue stimulation. Additionally, Jeff has held executive positions at Linx Communications, Boston Technology and US West, Inc. Jeff holds a Masters in International Management from the Thunderbird School of Global Management.


Mike Hutchison, VP, Professional Services
As Vice President of Professional Services for Nexidia, Mike is a seasoned veteran with more than a decade of Contact Center Management experience in multiple outsourced environments. Mike works directly with some of today’s leading organizations, helping them to realize the far-reaching benefits of speech analytics. Previously, Mike directed 1000-plus person call center operations and managed worldwide workforce optimization for industry-leading outsourcer, Telvista.


Larry Skowronek, VP, Product Management

As Vice President of Product Management for Nexidia, Larry is responsible for the research and development of the overall market strategy, product strategy, and development roadmap for Nexidia's speech analytics solutions. Larry brings nearly two decades of experience working with contact center tools and management to Nexidia. He has led product management, quality assurance, and consulting organizations for contact center management software vendors across the industry, including TCS Management Group/Aspect Communications (workforce optimization and CTI), Informiam/Genesys (real-time reporting and monitoring), and LiveOps (hosted contact center). This varied experience has produced a keen understanding of the best practices for managing the evolving contact center. He has put specific focus on leveraging the contact center as a value-adding business function, which contributes directly to a company’s achievement of strategic and corporate objectives. Larry holds a degree in Philosophy, with a minor in Science and Technology Studies, from Williams College, Williamstown, Massachusetts.

Jonathan Wax – VP EMEA Nexidia
Jonathan runs Nexidia’s EMEA operations and is responsible for managing and growing the business within the region. He started the EMEA operations in 2005 and now runs the team that is transforming the customer contact operations of a number of the region’s leading companies.

With a career that spans HP, IBM, Compaq, BA and Witness Systems, Jonathan is a highly experienced sales, relationship management and marketing professional who has spent the past 12+ years defining and delivering business intelligence and customer insight solutions that enable companies to optimise the people, processes and technology deployed within their contact centres. His in-depth understanding of the needs of the industry ensures that the solutions deliver the transformational analysis needed to improve operational effectiveness and build customer satisfaction no matter what the sector. Jonathan has BA Honours degree is Computer Studies and History from Oxford Brookes University.

Professor Mark Clements, Founder
Dr. Mark A. Clements received S.B., SM, E.E., and Sc.D. degrees in 1976, 1978, 1979, and 1982 respectively, all from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and all in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. During his graduate work, he was a National Institutes of Health fellow. Professor Clements came to the Georgia Institute of Technology in 1982 as an Assistant Professor. He is currently Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Director of the Interactive Media Technology, an interdisciplinary center that takes ideas from conception all the way to demonstrable prototypes. He has served on the IEEE Speech Technical Committee and as an Editor for IEEE Transactions on Acoustics, Speech, and Signal Processing. He was also the Technical Program Chair of the 1996 IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing.

 
In addition, Professor Clements taught and performed research for two years in France. Dr. Clements has been an active consultant to industry for over 25 years working for many start-ups as well as large companies. His current research interests involve digital processing of speech signals. In particular, he is interested in such problems as the application of digital speech technology to automatic recognition of speech in adverse conditions and sensory aids for the hearing impaired. Some of the interesting challenges arising from these applications include robust word-spotting, enhancement of speech in noise, formulation of robust perceptual distance measures, and real-time implementation. Dr. Clements also does work in efficient coding of speech signals, auditory modeling for improved speech analysis, speech production modeling, general digital signal processing, and pattern recognition. Professor Clements holds three patents, and has filed for five others. He has published over 100 scholarly papers and is author of two textbooks. He has successfully advised seventeen PhD dissertations, many of which have won awards.