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.
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.
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.
Christina Quaine is the Chief Information Security Officer who has spent the last 19+ years focused on IT Audit, Vendor Management, IT and Payment Card Industry (PCI) compliance. Most recently she served as the Chief Privacy Officer for Ally Bank where she was responsible for regulatory compliance, governance, incident management and Data Loss Prevention (DLP).
She received her BS from Wayne State University and her MS from Walsh College in Business Information Technology and holds the following certifications: CGEIT, CIPP/US, CISA, ITIL and PMP.
Christina resides in Waxhaw with her family and is a volunteer with ParaGuide and Project2Heel.
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.
Heather Caudill has created a career for herself over the last 20 years out of her innate passion for delivering an exceptional experience for customers. This passion has manifested itself in many roles throughout the years that were ultimately preparing Heather for her current position as Senior Vice President of Relationship Management for AvidXchange.
Since beginning her career with AvidXchange in 2002, Heather has worked in technical support and project management where she gained a deep knowledge of the solution and, more importantly, of the customer. As the company has grown exponentially, Heather has remained a constant voice for customer advocacy, and served as much-needed connective tissue throughout the organization. Her exemplary relationship skills have made her a revered leader at AvidXchange.
Heather received a Bachelor of Arts from UNC Charlotte, and her MBA from the Jack Welch Management Institute. She lives in Charlotte, NC with three kids, four dogs, and a very supportive husband that keep her busy and inspired.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Ryan Stahl, a strategic legal and business advisor, joined AvidXchange in 2015 as the Deputy General Counsel, Vice President and was recently promoted to General Counsel, Senior Vice President. With more than 16 years of broad based legal experience representing public and private companies, Ryan received his J.D. degree from the University of Michigan Law School and his undergraduate degree from the University of Dayton. Prior to joining AvidXchange, Ryan was instrumental in leading Mercury Payment Systems, a rapidly growing payments provider, through its nearly completed initial public offering and its subsequent sale to Vantiv, Inc. Ryan began his legal career with Sidley Austin in Chicago.
Patrick Milburn has over 20 years in Software Engineering experience and has served in multiple leadership roles managing large multinational development teams. Prior to joining AvidXchange, he was Vice President of Development at McKesson in the health care software industry. There he led the development and architecture of over 50 clinical and financial solutions, including three designated as FDA Class I & Class II medical devices. He also led the Development Center of Excellence (DCE) whose mission was to realize the full potential and excellence of the Organization to deliver high quality solutions through scaled agile best practices. Patrick and his wife of over 20 years moved from New England to Charlotte in 2000. He is the proud father of two girls and holds a BSE in Computer Science & Engineering from the University of Connecticut.
Eveline is passionate about helping individuals and teams learn and develop. She possesses 20+ years of experience fostering talent management and HR process and systems transformation in large corporations across many industries, functions and time zones. Her expertise is in enhancing the effectiveness of people and organizations: change and transformation, learning and leadership development, performance and talent management.
Previously she worked in large companies, including AES Corporation (energy), Accenture (Andersen Consulting), Deloitte (DTT), Fannie Mae and Morgan Lewis in roles leading global talent management, HR process and systems transformation, employee relations and compliance, learning and development, and recruiting. She earned her B.S. Marketing from the University of Maryland and is a certified professional coach. She enjoys international travel and is active in several volunteer groups developing leaders and building networks for positive change and personal fulfillment.
Martin joined AvidXchange in June 2017 to build out a Financial Planning and Analysis (FP&A) function. His team is responsible for Strategic Planning, Forecasting & Budgeting, Analysis, and both internal reporting for management as well as external for AvidXchange’s board and investors. His team is charged with driving improved business performance by partnering with business leaders and sharing insights and analysis as well as education. Martin has spent his career in financial services and payments, holding executive positions at Citicorp, Wachovia, Wells Fargo and Bank of America in roles spanning Strategic Planning, Finance, Operations, Risk Management, and Treasury. Before joining AvidXchange, Martin led Finance for PayPal’s Global Technology and Operations division. Martin earned his MBA in Finance from Pace University in New York and his undergraduate degree at the State University of New York at Albany. Martin and his wife enjoy traveling, the beach, and spending time with their two sons and extended families.
John currently serves as a Vice President at Avidxchange, working on cross company initiatives. Prior to the merger with Avidxchange, John was the Chief Operating and Marketing Officer at Piracle and served as the Secretary of the company’s Board of Directors.
At Hewlett Packard, John served as a Director at Hewlett Packard for eight of his twenty years at the firm, the last six as a Director of New Business where he led worldwide teams who were responsible for creating new businesses in the Imaging and Printing Hardware, Software and Services business units. In between stints at Hewlett Packard, John was a principal in Apexx Technology and helped lead a successful exit via an acquisition by eSoft, Inc. Prior to moving into technology, John worked at the Bank of Boston in the Asset Based Financing Group.
John has served in board positions for commercial entities and non-profits including Inovus Solar, Thorton Oliver Keller, The University of Montana School of Business Administration, The Idaho Association of Industry and Commerce, Girl Scouts and Hewlett Packard’s Political Advisory Committee.
John holds an MBA from the University of Montana and a Bachelor of Sciences in Finance from Boston College.
John enjoys working with start-up companies thru the Boise Angel Funds and spending time in the great outdoors, particularly fly- fishing and floating rivers with his family.
Tobby joined AvidXchange in December 2014 with more than 20-years of experience in the Financial Services industry. During his career, he has been accountable for various aspects of commercial product development and management, bank operations, sales support, corporate operations and pricing and revenue management. Tobby has also worked for large commercial and retail banking organizations as a Senior Consultant focused on operational effectiveness, efficiency and innovation.
Tobby has served on the Technology and Operations Committee of the Virginia Bankers Association, and as a government relations representative to the Virginia General Assembly, FDIC, CFPB and the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. He is also a member of the Delaware Bankers Association. He was Director and Treasurer on the boards of the North Carolina Chapter of The Huntington’s Disease Society of America and the Richmond Metropolitan Habitat for Humanity. He volunteers as a Certified SCORE Mentor and on build-crews for Habitat for Humanity and Project Homes.
Prior to entering the financial services industry, Tobby was a National Account Manager with a leading provider of commercial print, warehousing and logistical support to the banking and mortgage industries. Tobby also served 11 years with the United States Air Force and as a member of the Air National Guard which included service in the Allied occupation of Berlin, Presidential Security detail, Operation Desert Storm, and was stationed at various posts in the United States and abroad.
As VP of Product Marketing, David Campbell is responsible for providing actionable insight into product and market opportunities and leading AvidXchange’s activities to exploit those opportunities. With over 20 years of experience in software and technology, David has successfully conceived, developed, launched, and campaigned multiple, class-defining products and services in a variety of markets. Before joining AvidXchange, he led product management and product marketing for strategic initiatives at Avalara, a market leader in SaaS tax automation solutions. As VP of Product Management at FuelQuest, he helped grow the company into a premier provider of cloud-based supply chain and tax automation products for the oil and gas industry. David has also served in product leadership roles at a variety of successful technology companies, including Hewlett-Packard, IBM, TruLogica, Dazel, and BroadJump.
Henry is passionate about finance transformation. As the VP of Product Management at AvidXchange, Henry develops solutions that help clients automate purchasing and payables processes. Throughout his career, Henry has been a prolific spokesperson on purchase-to-pay automation. As the founder of PayStream Advisors, Henry’s thought leadership inspired hundreds of finance professionals to become automation strategists by leveraging insightful decision-making. Henry was also a manager with Ernst & Young’s Financial Services Consulting practice, and Vice President of Commercial Lending at Citibank. Henry has an MBA from the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill, and a BS in Finance from the Rochester Institute of Technology.
Bob Lewis leads our partner channel and alliance strategy at AvidXchange. He has more than 25 years of experience leading high-growth, global partner channels and programs for industry-leading technology companies selling financial software and SaaS solutions, including Bill.com, Concur, Microsoft, Intuit, and ADP.
Bob and his team focus on developing strategic partnerships with leading accounting system platforms, ERP, VARs and consultants and other technology companies where collaboration delivers value to our mutual customers and helps each partner win in the marketplace. AvidXchange is a partnership friendly company that invests in building long-term relationships with key partners in our target industries, markets, and ecosystems.
After graduating from the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill with a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration, Jim began his professional career in 1979 with Timberline Software Corporation, a pioneer in the development of application software for the construction and real estate industries. After serving in various sales and sales management roles, Jim was appointed to the executive team as Vice President of Sales in 1996. The company was purchase in 2003 by Sage Software, and he continued in his senior management role there until 2005, when he became President of CIS Consulting Group, Inc. in Charlotte, NC. In 2010, CIS was acquired by Viewpoint Construction Software, where he served as Channel Sales Manager for North America before joining Avidxchange as Vice President of Construction Sales in March of 2016.
Jim is a native of Concord, NC, and resides there with his wife Margie, who is a partner in a local CPA firm. They have three children and four grandchildren. He is a Lifetime Honorary Board Member of the Boys and Girls Club of Cabarrus County, having served in several leadership capacities there and at his church, Central United Methodist. He is a current board member of Uwharrie Capital Corporation in Albemarle, NC, the holding company for Uwharrie Bank. He serves on the Audit Committee, and previously served on the Board of Directors of Uwharrie Capital’s subsidiary, Cabarrus Bank & Trust Company. Jim enjoys travel and is an outdoorsman, particularly enjoying time he spends in the North Carolina mountains hiking, fly fishing, small game hunting, and snow skiing.
