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Discover Convio Open

Are you open to the possibilities in online marketing, fundraising and advocacy? Convio Open offers applications, integration tools, APIs and partnerships that meet the growing demand of nonprofit organizations like yours to tap into the new Web while leveraging existing Convio solutions.

Gene Austin, Chief Executive Officer
Vinay Bhagat, Founder and Chief Strategy Officer
Jim Offerdahl, CFO and Vice President
David Hart, Chief Technology Officer
Sara Spivey, Chief Marketing Officer
Gary Allison, Vice President of Engineering
Marc Cannon, Vice President of Services
Tom Krackeler, Vice President of Common Ground
Angie McDermott, Vice President, Human Resources
Randy Potts, Vice President of Sales
Hayden Stewart, Vice President, Information Technology
Fred Waugh, Vice President of Alliances

Gene Austin, Chief Executive Officer

Gene is a Fortune 500 technology veteran, with two decades-plus of experience leading growth of young companies as well as major business units at global corporations.

Since joining Convio in July 2003, Gene has been the driving force behind the company's product innovation, strong customer acquisition, expansion of technology infrastructure and staff, and growth. During this time, Convio has grown its customer count to more than 1,200 organizations. Convio has made Red Herring's list of "100 Top Private Companies," been named to Forbes' list of "Fast Growing Privately Held Technology Companies" and ranked No. 1 on the Austin Business Journal's list of "Top 25 Fastest Growing Companies."

Gene is experienced in growing companies like Convio that are based on the "software as a service" (SaaS), or on-demand, model. He served as Senior Vice-President of Sales and Marketing at Careerbuilder.com, an on-demand, Internet recruiting company, where he contributed significantly to growth leading to a 1999 public offering. After CareerBuilder.com, Gene worked at Dell as Vice-President and General Manager of Internet Servers, and most recently, Gene was BMC Software's Vice President and General Manager of Enterprise Data Management, a $600 million business unit.

Gene is active in the Austin community. Following his success as the 2006 and 2007 chair of the "20,010 in 2010 Initiative" for the Austin Chamber of Commerce, he was named Chair of Education and Talent for the Chamber, where he also serves on the Executive Committee of the Board of Directors. Austin is also active on the Board of the Westlake Chap Club in the Eanes Independent School District.

Gene has an MBA from Washington University in St. Louis and BS in Engineering Management from Southern Methodist University in Dallas.

Vinay Bhagat, Founder and Chief Strategy Officer

Vinay Bhagat is a recognized thought leader in the nonprofit sector. Vinay founded Convio in April 1999 after volunteering at a public television pledge drive and seeing the opportunity to leverage Internet technology to drive better fundraising results. Today, as chief strategy officer, he oversees corporate strategy and is actively involved in research and client success strategies.

In 2006, Vinay was named Fundraising Professional of the Year on the agency side by Fundraising Success Magazine. In 2004, Vinay received an honorable mention as one of the top 25 people worldwide who are changing the world of the Internet and Politics by Politics Online.

A frequent speaker at conferences, Vinay has addressed events hosted by the Association of Fundraising Professionals, Direct Marketing Association Nonprofit Federation, Council for the Advancement and Support of Education, Independent Sector, Integrated Media Association, Politics Online, Public Broadcasting System and National Voluntary Healthcare Association. Vinay also is a widely published author, including a chapter in "People to People Fundraising: Social Networking and Web 2.0 for Charities" and articles that appear regularly in DM News, Journal of the Direct Marketing Association Nonprofit Federation and on OnPhilanthropy.com. Vinay serves on Advisory Council of the Direct Marketing Association Nonprofit Federation, where he chairs the Marketing Committee.

Prior to Convio, Vinay was director of ecommerce at Austin-based Trilogy Software, working with Fortune 500 companies to develop their Internet strategies. Before joining Trilogy, he was a consultant at Bain & Company in London, Hong Kong and Kiev.

Vinay holds degrees from Harvard Business School (MBA) where he graduated as a Baker Scholar, Stanford University (MS) and Cambridge University (MA) in England. He has volunteered for several Austin and international nonprofits.

Jim Offerdahl, CFO and Vice President

With more than 25 years of experience in the technology industry serving in progressive CXO positions, Jim has a strong record of scaling companies, maximizing revenue growth, driving profitability and strengthening marketplace leadership.

Prior to joining Convio, Jim was president and CEO of Austin-based Traq-Wireless, a market-leading provider of on-demand, mobile resource management software and services to enterprises. Under Offerdahl's leadership, Traq's revenue grew nearly 7x in less than three years, and the company significantly enhanced its product capability. Before Traq, he served as COO and CFO for Pervasive Software, a developer and marketer of data management solutions for independent software vendors, where he guided the company through its successful IPO and secondary offerings. Jim also served as CFO for Tivoli Systems, a developer and marketer of systems management software for corporate IT environments worldwide, where he led a successful IPO in 1995. Tivoli was acquired by IBM in 1996 for $743 million.

Jim currently serves on the Board of Community New Start, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the transformation of communities by addressing the economic, social, physical and spiritual needs of individuals and families one city block at a time. Jim has also served on the Board for the Texas American Cancer Society and was Chairman of the Board for the Texas chapter of AeA (formerly known as the American Electronics Association).

Jim has an MBA from The University of Texas at Austin and a BS from Illinois State University.

David Hart, Chief Technology Officer

David brings 20 years of engineering leadership experience to Convio. He joined Convio from Tivoli Systems (an IBM company). Most recently he held the role of Consulting Engineer, reporting directly to the Chief Technology Officer, where he was responsible for the technical direction and architecture for the company across multiple business units. He previously held the role of Development Director, where he led large engineering teams of up to 80 people across different locations. Prior to Tivoli, David spent 15 years at GTE Data Services and Northern Telecom.

David holds a bachelors degree in Mathematics from Brown University and a masters degree in Engineering from the University of Texas.

Sara Spivey, Chief Marketing Officer

As the company’s first Chief Marketing Officer, Sara brings more than 20 years of marketing, strategy and leadership experience with established global technology leaders to Convio. As CMO she leads the marketing/communications function which includes corporate marketing, advertising, product marketing, product management, new media initiatives and corporate communications. Most recently Sara was Vice President, Marketing for rPath, Inc., a start-up in the virtualization software market. Prior to rPath she served as Vice President, Worldwide Sales, and Strategic Account Alliance Development for Advanced Micro Devices. While at AMD she also served as Chief of Staff to the Chief Sales and Marketing Officer. Sara spent more than a decade in various marketing and sales roles with Quantum Corporation working her way up to Vice President, Marketing for the Network Attached Storage Division where she was responsible for all phases of marketing, communications and demand planning. She began her career with Hewlett-Packard where she learned a process approach to business and developed an interest in marketing.

Sara is a member of the National Charity League in Austin, Texas. She and her daughters' philanthropic interests include Mobile Loaves and Fishes, an organization providing food, clothing and dignity to those in need, and Recycled Read which supports the Austin Public Library System.

A published novelist, Sara also holds a master's degree in Business Administration from The Amos Tuck School of Business Administration at Dartmouth College and graduated from the University of California, Davis with a bachelor's degree in Economics and Political Science.

Gary Allison, Vice President, Engineering

Gary brings 20 years of engineering leadership experience to Convio. He joined Convio from Simdesk Technologies, Inc., where he was Senior Vice President for Software Development, Data Center Operations and Customer Service. In that role, he was responsible for the technical direction, architecture and delivery of enterprise-level highly scalable on-demand computing services designed to serve millions of individuals and small businesses in the United States and internationally. During his tenure, he was the co-inventor of several proposed patents involving secure on-demand services. He previously held the role of Vice President of Engineering and Customer Service for Pervasive Software, where he drove product delivery and had an increasing span of responsibility for customer satisfaction and product quality.

Gary is active in the Austin community supporting the Austin Children's Shelter and volunteering at Gateway Community Church. Gary holds a master's degree in Software Engineering from the University of Houston Clear Lake and graduated magna cum laude from Texas A&M University with a bachelor's degree in Computer Science.

Marc Cannon, Vice President, Services

With more than 20 years of global consulting and service experience Marc has a track record of building first class services organizations that lead clients to success. Marc has a strong record of scaling services organizations, developing partner programs and implementation of innovative programs and ideas that drive results for clients.

Prior to joining Convio, Marc led the Worldwide Consulting business at Adobe Systems, Inc. where he played a huge role in driving customers to success through innovative software and services approach leading to higher engagement levels and overall growth. Prior to Adobe, he has held similar roles at Autodesk, Inc., think3, Cadence Design Systems, Inc. and Accenture.

Marc is a 1982 graduate of Boston University where he earned a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering. He earned his Masters of Business Administration from San Diego State University in 1986.

Tom Krackeler, Vice President of Common Ground

Tom Krackeler has spent the last 10 years developing web technology that enables nonprofits to acquire, engage, and retain supporters online. Tom leads Convio’s Common Ground product line, a nonprofit constituent relationship management solution that built on the Force.com platform from Salesforce.com. Tom joined Convio in 2007 and has also served as Vice President of Product Management where he was responsible for product strategy and planning. Prior to joining Convio, Tom was Senior Vice President of Products at GetActive Software, where he oversaw the company's engineering, product management, and user experience teams. Before GetActive, Tom worked in the nonprofit sector at the Environmental Defense Fund and as a consultant with Accenture.

Tom has a BA in Political Science and Philosophy from Duke University and an MPP in Public Policy from UC Berkeley. He currently serves on the board for the Nonprofit Technology Enterprise Network.

Angie McDermott, Vice President, Human Resources

Angie is a seasoned human resources leader with two decades of experience helping companies in all stages of growth attract, develop, and retain key talent — from young, fast-growing organizations to Fortune 500 firms. With in-depth expertise in leadership and team effectiveness, Angie blends the science of organizational development with the art of creativity, humor and practical, results-producing approaches.

Angie's background includes six years at Dell, Inc., where she served in a variety of senior manager roles to help build talent and leadership capabilities as the company's employee population increased by fivefold — from 8,000 to 45,000. At Dell, she helped create innovative programs for global leadership development, and also for training, developing, engaging and retaining employees at all levels. Before Dell, Angie spent seven years as a consultant at Procter & Gamble where she played a key role in building scalable, global people systems for hiring the best talent and keeping employees involved and motivated to enhance the organization's effectiveness. Most recently prior to joining Convio, Angie founded and was president of McDermott Consulting, working with companies in the United States, Europe and Africa on leadership development as well as enhancement of executive and team performance.

Active in the Austin community, Angie serves on the Board of Directors of the Austin Jewish Academy. She is a member of the Society for Human Resource Management and the Society of Industrial-Organizational Psychology, and has acted as the Continuing Education Chairperson. Angie received her Ph.D. in Industrial-Organizational Psychology from the University of Houston, where she also completed her undergraduate and Masters Degrees in Psychology.

Randy Potts, Vice President of Sales

Randy is focused on building a seasoned software sales team into a dominant force in the CRM marketplace for nonprofit organizations. Previously, as Vice President of Sales at Internet recruiting company, Careerbuilder.com, Randy was a key player in starting and building the sales organization, taking the company public, executing and integrating acquisitions and getting Careerbuilder profitably sold. While leading a 160-person sales force, Randy exhibited an ability to hire, train and retain excellent sales talent and inspire them to excel. Prior to his five years at CareerBuilder.com, he spent 15 years in sales and sales management roles with IBM, Goal Systems, Legent and Platinum Technologies — all providers of systems software and services, working both domestically and internationally. During his tenure at those companies, he also managed marketing teams, aggressively opened new markets and managed complex direct/indirect sales channels.

As his family has been touched by breast cancer, he has become increasingly active both as donor and as a volunteer for multiple organizations fighting the disease including The Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation and American Cancer Society. Likewise, believing that equal and easy access to quality education is key to a strong community and nation, Randy supports private schools that serve economically disadvantaged children.

Hayden Stewart, Vice President, Information Technology

Hayden brings over 25 years of engineering and information technology leadership experience to Convio. Before joining Convio, he held the position of Senior Director of Field Technical Services at Forgent Networks where he led the Professional Services, Network Engineering and Sales Engineering teams and was responsible for all pre-sales technical activity, customer installations and post-sale product customizations.

Before Forgent Networks, Hayden was the Vice President of Engineering for TriActive where he led the rapid development and launch of the product line, as well as the development and refinement of business processes for the Development, Quality and Operations teams. Hayden has also held executive positions at Pervasive Software, Tivoli Systems/IBM, Intel, Dell and Motorola.

Hayden holds a bachelors degree in Business Administration from Texas State University.

Fred Waugh, Vice President of Alliances

Fred is responsible for driving the growth of Convio’s partner business, including managing Convio’s authorized implementation partners, expanding Convio’s network of integrated technology solutions, and managing strategic partners (including salesforce.com). Fred joined Convio in 2000, with more than 15 years of experience in successfully bringing technology solutions to market. Fred joined Convio from Tivoli Systems (an IBM company), where he was responsible for building Tivoli's industry leading line of Internet and messaging management products. Fred has also held product management and marketing positions at Compaq Computer, Sun Microsystems and Farallon Communications. He began his career as a business journalist.