We believe people are the core assets to most businesses. That’s why ConnectAndSell is fortunate to be led by an intense and rowdy bunch who each have a track record of massive success. They are here because they see all the earmarks of a great company; amazing technology, a defensible space, a product that delivers unparalleled productivity to its customers, a big addressable market, and plenty of room to innovate. The leaders of ConnectAndSell are free-thinkers, intellectually curious, have work ethics that put others to shame, and are passionate about building great companies.
Shawn McLaren
Founder and Executive Chairman
In 2007 Shawn gave up his quest for the perfect golf game because he discovered, as he terms it, a system that liberates Sales Warriors (aka Conversation Pigs) by providing so many conversations with decision makers so efficiently that it removes all excuses for non-performance and brings smiles to the usually harried faces of VP of Sales and CMOs. Prior to connecting the dots at ConnectAndSell, Shawn’s early successes included selling encyclopedias door to door in the Michigan winter and building both code and company for the world’s first mainframe storage system, earning him the nickname ‘the father of storage.’ Thirty years ago, Shawn snubbed his nose at Big Blue and built a wildly successful technology company in their wake. Today, he brings his pioneer spirit to the leadership team of ConnectAndSell.
Chief Executive Officer
Chris has been participating in software start-ups as a founder or at a very early stage for most of the past 30 years. His focus has consistently been on creating and taking to market simple products that can be used successfully the first time they are touched, without taking a course or reading a manual. His belief is that the most powerful part of any software system is the human being that we inappropriately call a “user”, and that the value key in software is to let the computer do what it does well (go fast without getting bored) in order to free up human potential.
Hitesh Shah
CTO & CPO
Hitesh is an entrepreneurial technologist with a successful track record spanning 15 years across several top tier venture funded start-ups shipping complex products at scale, on time and within budget. He brings a unique blend of business and technology acumen combined with precision execution and people leadership that results in unusual collaboration and business success through the usual start-up experimentation and churn around technologies, products and markets. Hitesh’s specializations include highly distributed, scalable systems and big data. Hitesh is known to fill up whiteboards with his incessant stream of ideas. He enjoys coaching First Lego League robotics teams, tweaking his home theater acoustics (they do get better once in a while) and planting fruits and vegetables in his garden.
Manny Bulotano
Chief Financial Officer
20+ years experience in finance, administration and operations experience for public and private sector companies in the electronics services, software, distribution and defense contracting industries. Prior to joining ConnectAndSell, Manny served as the CFO of DPMS, Inc., a Gladstone Investment Company, Quantum3D as Vice President of Finance and Administration, and consulted to BT-INS (British Telecom), ESilicon, Verifone, Hitachi GST, Nanometrics, Alien Technology and Sanmina. He is also an outstanding member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants.
Jonti McLaren
President/ Sr. VP of Sales and Marketing
Jonti has 20+ years serial entrepreneurship and executive management experience as a co-founder, CEO, COO and CRO of funded enterprise software companies. He is a seasoned start-up executive having founded two pioneering identity management companies: Securant Technologies, the first web single sign-on enterprise company, where Jonti led as CEO; and Symplified, the first subscription based cloud security company, where Jonti served as President & COO. Jonti brings broad start-up through expansion stage expertise across the entire business spectrum with an emphasis in operations and Go-to-Market activities. Jonti also has extensive knowledge in SaaS, cloud computing, security and infrastructure technologies.
James Townsend
VP Customer Success
James Townsend is passionate about helping sales organizations achieve outstanding results using ConnectAndSell. A former ConnectAndSell customer himself, he brings a wealth of knowledge and a unique perspective to the organization. His recipe for customer success is rather simple – just like conversations, relationships matter. Once you get the relationship right, everything else is mechanics. He thrives on maximizing the value ConnectAndSell can deliver to our clients by leveraging his insight and experience to embed ConnectAndSell seamlessly into organizational workflows. He also contributes to ConnectAndSell product development through his extensive, SaaS focused, technology leadership experience. When he is not working James enjoys spending time with his young family, golfing and skiing.
Board of Directors
Shawn McLaren – Executive Chairman
Chris Beall – Board of Directors
Jonti McLaren – Board of Directors
Eric Olden – Board of Directors
“Eric is a serial technical founder who co-founded Symplified (acq RSA), Securant (acq RSA) and now Strata Identity (Strata.io). He is a co-author of the SAML identity standard. Olden graduated from UC Berkeley and is an active angel investor.”
