We’re happy to announce the addition of Doug Milone to our team. As Vice President of Services Programs at AvidXchange, Doug is excited to be part of our company’s record growth and play an active role in shaping not only our future, but the future of payables as we know it. In today’s blog, we sit down with Doug and discuss his career, aquariums, and what attracted him to AvidXchange.
So Doug, tell us a little about yourself…
“Originally from the Boston area, I graduated from Bentley College (now Bentley University) with a BS in Accountancy. In my first professional role as Staff Accountant at Just for Pets Superstores, I was involved with the move of our warehouse to another city, as well as the implementation of our call center software and other projects. I was promoted to Director of Purchasing, as it was a small company and they didn’t want to lose me and knew I needed more challenges.
In 1998, I decided to move to North Carolina. In the process of looking at accounting positions in Charlotte, my sister-in-law, who was part of IBM’s SAP Consulting Practice, asked if she could submit my resume to her manager. I ended up joining IBM and was certified as a FICO Consultant for their SAP Practice. I went on to lead several large scale SAP implementations and was subsequently recruited by SAP America.
During the summer of 2005, I also started working with our financial planner at Money Counts, Inc. to help her build a business foundation from which we could grow. This was a very small company, so I also needed something to pay the bills. I started contracting with Bank of America in their Enterprise Data Warehouse projects. The following spring, they invited me to join as an associate.
I continued in both roles for about five years until our first daughter was born in late 2010. I then took a new leadership position driving service delivery and change in Bank of America’s Mortgage line of business. Over the last six years, I’ve led various portfolios of projects with a team of Program Managers, Project Managers, Scrum Masters, and Agile Train Engineers, including leadership and support of a multi-year $250 million program”
Outside of work, I’ve maintained aquariums since I was six years old. My interest started with a goldfish bowl I won at a fair when I was five. I lost the fish quickly, unfortunately, as my little brother and sister thought they had been in the water for too long. On my next birthday, I convinced my parents to buy a 10-gallon tank. Since then I’ve had who knows how many aquariums. In 1993, I made the switch to saltwater and now keep a 450-gallon reef aquarium!”
Why AvidXchange? What attracted you to the company?
“I’ve spent my entire career driving transformation and change in business, from growing companies to consulting engagements to leading large-scale systems integrations for clients. For the last 18 years, I’ve worked at Fortune 25 companies – I always knew I wanted to get back to my roots and join a growing business. When I first heard about AvidXchange, I became attracted to the culture and the potential for massive growth. The more I learned about AvidXchange and its passion for payments and the people who process them, the more it seemed my entire career was setting me up for this moment.”
What are you most excited about working on here?
“The company is at an inflection point as we look to grow by 10x, and I’m most excited about being involved as we determine that path forward. We get to transform the company into its future self and being involved in the projects that will help determine that path is exciting and honestly a very rare opportunity.
As they grow, many companies lose their agility and nimbleness as they have to solve problems in a more cross-functional way. I’m excited to be able to compliment the AvidXchange leadership team in a way that allows us to move forward by adding structure without undue burden, and do it in a way that builds upon the existing sense of urgency that a small company inherently has while maintaining the great culture and flexibility to pivot to new products and markets. I’m excited to be part of the team that defines the future!”
