Michael Praeger is the Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of AvidXchange, Inc., the leading provider of on-demand accounts payables management and automated payment solutions. Since founding AvidXchange in 2000, Michael has been an active participant and speaker on “payables and payment automation” at various industry conferences and considered a thought leader within the industry in developing creative solutions and best practices for payables and payment automation.
Michael has spent the last 20 years founding, managing, merging and selling technology and web services-related companies. Prior to establishing AvidXchange, Michael was Co-Founder of PlanetResume.com, a technology career enhancement and recruiting site that successfully completed its merger with CareerShop.com and CareerTV.net in November 1999. Prior to that, he was Co-Founder and CEO of InfoLink Partners and InfoVentures, LP. Michael also served as an Associate with Summit Partners, a Boston-based Venture Capital and Buyout partnership with more than $1 billion under management. He received a B.S.B.A. in Finance from Georgetown University. Michael is also a graduate of the “Birthing of Giants” executive entrepreneurship program at MIT.
Michael is currently active in the Entrepreneurs Organization (EO), as well as the Young Presidents Organization (YPO). Michael is also currently serving on the advisory board of the North Carolina Technology Association (NCTA), and on Comdata’s Customer Advisory Board. Michael is revered as a leading business-to-business provider of innovative electronic payment solutions.
Steve has served in strategic leadership roles for large businesses within highly-competitive and rapidly-changing industries. Steve has joined AvidXchange as the Chief Operating Officer. Previously, Boehm most worked for eBay Inc. as Senior Vice President, Global Customer Experience, where he led a 9,000-person team across 25 locations and 15 time zones. He led customer service, billing and payments, risk and policy and customer trust teams. His and his teams’ focus was to make eBay easier to use, more reliable, and more consistent from the customer’s standpoint. Prior to that, Steve spent the majority of his career in the financial services and payments sectors. He held senior leadership positions at First Data Corp., Wells Fargo/ Wachovia Corp. and Visa. He and his wife Mary reside in Matthews, NC.
Joel’s diverse experience, which includes international senior financial leadership roles at private and public companies, includes long-range financial planning and forecasting, operational accounting, annual budgeting, mergers and acquisitions and building and developing top talent.
Joel joined AvidXchange in 2017 as the Chief Financial Officer. Previously, Joel was the CFO at Quantros, a software-as-a-service (SaaS) company in Greenville, S.C., that offers an enterprise-wide suite of applications that helps hospitals better manage the quality and safety of patient care. Prior to Quantros, Joel was the Senior Vice President of Finance for BenefitFocus, a leading SaaS provider of benefits administration software and solutions, and the CFO for the International division of Blackbaud. He began his career as an auditor at KPMG. Joel is a CPA and received his bachelor’s degree in Accounting with honors from the University of South Carolina.
Tim has spent 18 years in the technology arena, the first ten years of which were at Digital Equipment Corporation, which is now HP. There, he spent his first five years in operations, then after spending six months in a full time sales training program, he spent his second five years in sales selling solutions into Fortune 10 accounts, achieving top 5% performer status. After leaving Digital, Tim took a four year hiatus from technology in the mid-90’s to run a family-owned beverage manufacturing company. He then returned to technology to join Market Velocity as COO, an ASP that sells market making software to technology companies. Tim was instrumental there in taking the company from pre-revenue to $10 million. He left there post merger after four years. He then founded a consulting company focused on executive search of sales talent in the technology arena, where AvidXchange was a client, and where since, he has joined to run internal operations and to manage the acquisition of talent. Tim holds a B.S.B.A from the University of New Hampshire and an MBA from Boston University.
Since joining AvidXchange in 2000, Chris has architected the core system infrastructure as well as building a team of highly-skilled software and system engineers. Chris previously served as the Director of Application Development for e-Netrics where he spent two years designing, developing and implementing enterprise level e-commerce applications. Chris has many years of experience in the information technology arena with an expertise in enterprise-level B2B e-commerce applications. He graduated Magna Cum Laude from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte with a B.S. in Computer Science. Chris also served five years in the military.
Jim joined AvidXchange in April 2016 as Chief Information Security Officer (CISO). He has more than 30 years of IT experience, with the past 15 years being focused on information security, privacy, and risk management. Recent positions Jim has held include VP of Information Security at Vantiv, CISO for Mercury Payment Systems, Head of Security Solutions for retail banking at Barclays Bank, Global Head of Information Security for Amazon.com, and Chief Security Executive for Corillian (Internet banking and security solutions). Jim has current certifications as a Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP), Certified Information Privacy Professional (CIPP/US and CIPP/E), Certified Information Security Manager (CISM), and Certified in the Governance of Enterprise IT (CGEIT). He holds an MS in management from Stanford University, an MBA from City University, an MS in engineering from Northwestern University and a BS in system design from Marquette University. He is also a member of the FBI InfraGard program.
Todd has over 26 years of experience with both public and private companies of varying sizes and industries in nearly every aspect of human resources. Todd began his career with Owens Corning where he advanced to HR leadership positions at several manufacturing locations, as well as at the corporate level. After a decade of working with Owens Corning, Todd transitioned to the electronics industry as the HR Leader of Bose Corporation’s Columbia, SC facility. After his time at Bose Corporation, he then joined Solectron Electronics as their North American Human Resources Leader. For the past 11 years, Todd held Senior HR positions at Bank of America, focusing on talent management, development, and organizational effectiveness. While at Bank of America, Todd was also a member of the senior leadership team for the Merrill Lynch acquisition. Todd holds a BSBA in Human Resources Management from The Ohio State University. His family resides in the Lake Norman area.
Tom Spencer has over 20 years experience leading teams and delivering for customers. Tom spent the last 15 years at Intuit in a variety of roles including VP of Sales, Marketing, and Customer Support. As VP of Sales Tom’s responsibilities included direct revenue growth for business products and services such as professional accounting and tax solutions, payroll, bill pay, and QuickBooks offerings. While at Intuit Tom also helped grow and develop the Intuit Professional Partner Network for accountants. Prior to joining AvidXchange, Tom consulted in private industry with a variety of small and midsize companies on their sales and marketing capability to help create value for customers.
For more than 20 years, Mike Bates has been a product management leader who delivers great customer experiences for the enterprise, small business, and consumer markets. Mike currently serves as the SVP of Strategy and Product Offerings for AvidXchange. Prior to joining Avidxchange, Mike was the product leader for the Intuit QuickBooks Desktop and Online payments division, where he delivered integrated payment solutions for consumers and small business. Before joining Intuit, Mike served as the product offering leader at MRI software, where he was responsible for the global commercial and residential portfolios. While at MRI, he focused on delivering end-to-end financial, tenant and residential management solutions within both the self-hosted and SaaS environments. Mike spent his early career with both Rockwell Automation and IBM delivering web-enabled and hosted solutions serving enterprise businesses. Mike’s passion for winning extends outside the office as a competitive triathlete.
Red Maxwell is a proven design and branding professional with over 20 years experience in the marketing field. Prior to joining AvidXchange, Red started the in-house advertising design department at Polo Ralph Lauren in New York then founded two digital advertising agencies – working with clients like Duke Energy, Yahoo!, Tiffany & Co., and Accenture.
As Chief Marketing Officer for the SilkRoad Equity family of companies, which include InterAct Public Safety Systems, SilkRoad technology, SolidSpace, TrueLook and MissionMode, Red helped grow SilkRoad’s HR SAAS business ten-fold in just over 4 years. Maxwell was also instrumental in strategically positioning two of the portfolio companies for $20 million and $30 million Series A fundings.
In 2008, he spoke at the AvidXchange User Conference on the “Evolution and Advantages of Working with SaaS Model Companies” and has been involved with design and execution strategy for the AvidBill Network. Red later served on AvidXchange’s Board of Directors from 2009-2015, and joined the company’s executive team upon the Bain led capital investment in 2015.
Ross Agre joined AvidXchange in 2015 as Chief Legal and Risk Officer. Prior to joining AvidXchange, Ross was the Chief Legal Officer of Mercury Payment Systems, a fast-growing US payments provider with gross revenues exceeding $1.2 Billion owned by Silver Lake Partners and acquired by Vantiv, Inc., where Ross served as acting General Counsel following the acquisition. Ross served in a variety of prior General Counsel roles, and spent the first 7 years of his career in the London, New York, and Washington, DC offices of the law firm Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy. Ross received his law degree from Columbia University and his undergraduate degree from Dartmouth College.
Serdar Dincaslan has spent 20 years as a financial services executive in the United States and overseas. Serdar worked for CapitalOne Financial Services in credit, marketing, service, and sales network management/partnerships. He later worked for Encore Capital Group in strategy, marketing, and channel leadership roles. Serdar also worked for Oliver Wyman in retail and business banking, where he consulted large bank and private equity clients in Istanbul and Europe. He has also been the CEO of two leading internet companies in InsureTech and FinTech, where he compared insurance and banking products for consumers in Turkey with a few millions users. Prior to joining AvidXchange, he was the CMO/ CSO for one of the largest bank sales channels in public insurance owned by one of the largest global insurers (Ageas) and Sabanci Group. Serdar is the proud father of two boys, and holds a BSc in Chemical Engineering from Bogazici University and Management & Technology MBA from RPI with an emphasis in Entrepreneurship and Finance.
Paul Cavnaugh joined Avidxchange in February 2016 as the Chief Information Officer. He has over 25 years of IT experience with the past 10 in key leadership roles sponsoring, running, and delivering Global IT solutions within Fortune 200 companies. Paul has provided guidance to CEOs and senior executive management in support of business strategy, growth, turnaround office initiatives, and IT transformation. Prior to joining Avidxchange, Paul served in various leadership positions including Global Chief Information Officer at Billabong, Senior Vice President at Velocity Solutions, and Senior Vice President at TITAN GS. He has experience in building and operating Global Shared Service Organizations, including hosting and managed services, Retail Supply Chain and Logistics, Business Process Outsourcing, and India Center of Excellence Operations. His experience building IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS cloud technology solutions on a global scale across industries aligns with Avidxchange’s growth and expansion footprint.
He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Management Information Systems and Finance from the State University of New York, and a degree in Systems Analysis and Design from SUNY Millard Fillmore College. He is also a graduate of the elite Society for Information Management (SIM) Chicago Chapter for senior IT professionals, and is certified in Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) Service Management.
Jay has over 20 years of sales, product management, project management, and consulting experience in the technology industry. Jay has been a leader at AvidXchange for nearly a decade in a variety of strategic roles across multiple teams, including Professional Services, Product Management, and, most recently, Strategic Initiatives. In the course of his time at AvidXchange, he created the company’s first Product Management Department, and is currently spearheading the Strategic Initiatives Team focused on corporate development and high impact projects. Prior to joining AvidXchange in 2006, he founded a company that specialized in online channel development for companies adding the web as a sales channel. Jay also delivered software solutions for Market Velocity, a web-based rebate management platform used by major technology companies such as HP. Jay received his B.A. in Business Management from Luther College in Decorah, IA, completed Graduate courses at McColl School of Business, Queens University of Charlotte, NC and holds a Project Management Professional (PMP) certification from Project Management Institute.
Colleen Taylor is Executive Vice President, New Payments, at Mastercard. In this role, she is responsible for driving volume growth from B2B, Government and new economy (P2P, C2B, B2C, BlockChain, etc.) sources. Colleen joined Mastercard from Capital One, where she most recently served as head of Treasury Management and Enterprise Payments. She was also the Market President for Brooklyn & Queens. Colleen has had a successful career in finance with various positions at Wachovia Bank/Wells Fargo and J.P. Morgan in the US and the UK. She is a Spelman College graduate and received her MBA from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. Colleen chairs the Samaritan Village Daytop Foundation Board, serves on the board of Year-Up New York and is a trustee of Spelman College, her alma mater.
Nicolas Westphal is Head of Technology Private Equity outside Quebec for CDPQ, a leading Canadian institutional investor with C$270 billion under management. His experience includes five years in Silicon Valley where he was Director of Strategy & Corporate Development for Intuit, the leading financial and accounting software provider for small businesses, and for Juniper Networks, the leading provider of software-oriented networking products. Prior to Silicon Valley, he worked for nine years in private equity for both AEA Investors and Bain Capital. He managed investment processes in US, Europe and Asia, and actively participated on four Boards of Directors. Nicolas started his career with the New York office of the Boston Consulting Group in the technology & financial services practices. He’s a graduate from MIT in technology & policy and from Ecole Polytechnique in Paris.
In addition to his work with QED, Nigel works in an advisory capacity with General Atlantic Partners and Oliver Wyman Consulting. He serves on the board of numerous for-profit companies, including Red Ventures, GreenSky, CAN Capital, Media Math and Prosper. Over the course of its eight year history, QED has invested in numerous industry leaders including Credit Karma, Transunion, and SoFi. Formerly, Nigel served on the boards of the Economist, Brookings, National Geographic, Klarna, Braintree, Transunion, and Capital One.
While under Nigel’s leadership, Capital One pioneered an information-based strategy that fundamentally transformed the consumer lending industry. Combining advanced statistical marketing techniques with nascent information technologies, the company reduced costs to conventional borrowers, extended capital to overlooked consumers, expanded internationally, and produced extraordinary returns for investors.
Matt is based in New York City and focuses on investments in financial technology and services. He sees a huge amount of revenue, profit and market cap shifting from regulated financial institutions to entrepreneur-led insurgents, across payments, lending, capital markets and insurance. More blathering on these topics can be found at www.finsurgency.com.
Matt started his investing career at Bain Capital private equity in 1995, having worked previously at Bain & Company, and attended Williams College, where he majored in rugby. In 2000, Matt founded Village Ventures, which he ran for 12 years and where he focused on early-stage fintech investing. In 2012 he rejoined Bain Capital Ventures.
Outside of work, Matt enjoys spending any free moments with his wife, Jessica, and their three children. Matt serves as the Chairman of the Board of the Williamstown Theatre Festival, a regional theater associated with Williams College. He is a Senior Advisor to Endeavor, an organization leading the global movement to catalyze long-term economic growth by selecting, mentoring and accelerating the best high-impact entrepreneurs around the world. He is obsessed with military history, and some day will write a book connecting the strategy and tactics of insurgency with what he has learned about entrepreneurship.
Brad has been an early stage investor and entrepreneur since 1987. Prior to co-founding Foundry Group, he co-founded Mobius Venture Capital and, prior to that, founded Intensity Ventures. Brad is also a co-founder of Techstars.
In addition to his investing efforts, Brad has been active with several non-profit organizations and currently is chair of the National Center for Women & Information Technology and co-chair of Startup Colorado. Brad is a speaker on the topics of venture capital investing and entrepreneurship and writes the blogs Feld Thoughts, Startup Revolution, and Ask the VC.
Brad holds Bachelor of Science and Master of Science degrees in Management Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Brad is also an art collector and long-distance runner. He has completed 23 marathons as part of his mission to finish a marathon in each of the 50 states.
Jim most recently served as Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of CT Communications where he directed the financial and regulatory development functions and was responsible for Finance/Accounting, IT and Investor Relations departments. He has 15 years of experience as the Chief Financial Officer for several telecommunications companies. Prior to joining CT Communications in 2002, he was with Houston Cellular, where he served as Chief Financial Officer for over 11 years. He also served as Chief Financial Officer for three emerging telecommunications companies: American Lightwave Communications Inc., Crescent Communications Inc., and Prepaid Telecom Corporation. He was responsible for the financial reporting functions at each company as well as assisting with cash management, forecasting and operations. He is a Certified Public Accountant and gained his initial professional experience with Price Waterhouse. Hausman and his wife, Rita, have two children and reside in Mooresville, NC.
Mr. McLaughlin is the Founder and Managing Partner of Financial Technology Partners (aka FT Partners), a San Francisco-based boutique investment bank focused exclusively on financial technology. A Wharton MBA and Palmer Scholar, Mr. McLaughlin formerly was a senior investment banker in Goldman, Sachs & Co.’s Financial Technology Group, and was the senior investment banker in the Financial Institutions Group in San Francisco before leaving the firm in 2002 to form FT Partners. Steve has been advising FinTech companies for over 18 years. Steve’s firm was awarded “Investment Bank of the Year” in 2011 for the third time since 2004, and the firm has also received numerous awards for its outstanding transaction results. Steve was recognized as Dealmaker of the Year in three times since 2007.
Referred to as the “Architect of Financial Technology” by The Daily Deal, Mr. McLaughlin has been a constant and central figure in some of the largest and most successful transactions in the sector.
John C. (Hans) Morris, age 50, joined Visa Inc. as President in July 2007. From November 2002 until joining Visa Inc., he served as Chief Financial Officer of Citi Markets & Banking (CMB), the capital markets, banking and transaction services business of Citigroup Inc. In this capacity, he was responsible for finance, operations and technology for CMB. Prior to this role, he served in positions of increasing responsibility with Salomon Smith Barney and its predecessor companies for 22 years, including most recently as Vice Chairman and Chief Operating Officer of the Salomon Smith Barney Investment Banking Division from March 2000 to November 2002. Mr. Morris holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Dartmouth College.
