Executive Team

Mark is a results-driven, highly successful leader in the global technology and software industry with more than 30 years of experience in marketing, finance, strategy, business development and executive management. He has led high technology organizations in the pursuit of significant growth, international expansion and evolution.

Prior to joining the SAVO Group, Mark served as the President and Chief Executive Officer of MatrixOne, Mark led the company to exponential growth in sales and revenue, established a world-class management team and led two rounds of venture financing and an Initial Public Offering (IPO). His vision and leadership transformed the organization into the industry leader in product lifecycle management software and services, resulting in a growth in sales from less than $20 million to $145 million and an eventual sale of the company for more than $400 million.

Prior to joining SAVO, Mark was President and CEO of Supply Scape Corporation, a leading software provider to the pharmaceutical and life sciences industry. He has also held positions at Digital Equipment Corporation. Mark has a Bachelor's in Accounting from American International College in Springfield, Massachusetts.

Kurt is the Executive Vice President of Sales Enablement and Marketing at SAVO. As the leader of SAVO's Sales Enablement team, Kurt plays a critical role in helping clients develop their strategic vision for sales enablement, compelling business cases and the efficient positioning of products and services to achieve their critical business initiatives. He is a results-driven, highly successful leader in the global technology and software industry with more than 15 years of experience in sales, marketing, solution strategy and business development.

Prior to joining SAVO, Kurt served as Vice President of Sales and Marketing at NovaQuest LLC where he led the market development efforts for a regional start-up focused on providing solutions to customers' product management lifecycle needs. Kurt also held the position of Vice President of Industry Solutions at SupplyScape Corporation, a leading software provider to the pharmaceutical and life sciences industry.

In addition, Kurt spent 11 years at MatrixOne Inc. in a variety of roles including Global Solution Sales, Product Management and Marketing and most recently as Vice President of Industry Solution Strategy for Dassault Systemes. During his year tenure, Kurt was responsible for developing sales methodology, business value propositions and solution strategy to drive revenue across eight industry verticals.

Kurt is a graduate of Iowa State University and holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Industrial Technology.

As a senior finance executive for more than 15 years, Craig Nickerson joins SAVO as Chief Financial Officer. In this role, Craig has responsibility for financial planning and analysis, accounting and reporting, internal controls, banking, treasury, legal and corporate information technology functions for SAVO. He is also responsible for managing relationships with external auditors, bankers, legal counsel, investors and the board of directors.

Most recently, Craig operated in the role of CFO at Applied Global Technologies, a private equity-backed firm, specializing in the development and delivery of video conferencing software solutions. Prior to this, he served as CFO of Dynetech Corporation, a firm specializing in the development of consumer-based software technology products. During his tenure, the company grew annual revenues from $50 million to more than $300 million, with an EBITDA in excess of $40 million. Additionally, he led successful acquisitions ranging in value up to $135 million and asset sales exceeding $100 million. One of his key accomplishments was facilitating the company’s transition to a SaaS-based business model that supported over 60,000 monthly subscribers.

Prior to Dynetech, Craig was Senior Director of Finance and Administration for TriQuint Semiconductor. During his tenure, this publicly-traded telecommunications company grew revenues from $75 million to more than $350 million. Additionally, he was an integral part of a team that led a successful $325 million secondary offering and ultimately, a sale of the company in excess of $1.4 billion. Prior to TriQuint, Craig served in other senior financial executive roles, including leading a medical device firm through an initial public offering. Craig began his career in public accounting.

Craig is a graduate from the University of Central Florida where he attended on a soccer scholarship and left the University with Bachelor of Science Degrees in Finance and Accounting. He is also a Certified Public Account.

Mike brings over 30 years of experience in sales, sales management, sales operations, services and customer support. As Executive Vice President of Global Sales and Services, he is responsible for driving all sales activity across the organization, executing on our world-class consulting services, while continuing to deliver excellent customer support.

Mike comes to SAVO from Dassault Systemes where he was the Senior Vice President of Sales for North America and responsible for $340 million in software and $90 million in services revenue. In this enterprise sales role he managed relationships with 800 customers in 11 industries as well as the US Federal Government, and was responsible for 300 sales, sales management, sales operations and technical personnel.

In 2006, Mike managed the integration of both MatrixOne into Dassault, playing a major role in building the direct selling organization. In 2010 he led the integration of Dassault’s acquisition of IBM North America PLM sales and technical resources, effectively doubling the sales organization.

From 1984 to 2006 Mike was with MatrixOne (formally Adra Systems) where he started as Director of Manufacturing, Quality Assurance and Customer support. He progressed to VP of Professional Services and Customer Support in 1989, then to VP, Customer Success and Corporate Officer in 1997. At the time of acquisition by Dassault Systemes, he held the position of Senior VP Global Sales, Marketing and Services for the $150 million company.

Mike holds an MBA from the High Tech Executive Program at Northeastern University, a BSET from Notheastern University, and an Associate Computer Technology degree from the ITT Technical Institute.

Jane's career includes over 25 years of experience as a senior executive, leadership consultant and advisor to senior management teams and boards of directors. Jane brings an in depth understanding of organization dynamics, corporate structures and the roles of the individuals and organizations.

Jane has expertise in developing leadership, organizations and systems that position companies to respond to rapid changes in technologies and markets. She has extensive experience in all phases of mergers, acquisitions and consolidations as well as leading a company through the IPO process. She has designed and implemented innovative and progressive programs and processes for executive and employee development, succession planning, leadership assessment and cross cultural and diversity workplace issues. She has been successful in leading intact and virtual teams to achieve organization and company goals.

Prior to SAVO, Jane worked with established and emerging organizations in a diverse group of industries including technology, financial services, manufacturing and insurance. Jane's leadership and executive positions include Vice President Human Resources Millipore Corporation and Senior Vice President Human Resources at Cullinet Software, Inc., Bank of Ireland/First Holdings and MatrixOne, Inc.

Jane holds a Bachelor's degree in Psychology from The American University.

Brian Study is SAVO's Executive Vice President of Customer Success. In this role, he has overall responsibility for the success of SAVO's customers throughout the lifetime of their relationship with SAVO. Brian and his team work with SAVO's clients and prospects to understand how SAVO fits in their business and technology architecture and helps ensure each client has access to SAVO's best practices around our product and sales enablement.

In addition to sales enablement, Brian has extensive background in CRM technology integration, content management, portals, technology program management and the organizational issues related to technology implementation. He has more than 20 years of experience using information technology to help clients create and implement solutions that enable change and achieve results.

Prior to SAVO, Brian was Vice President/Associate Director at Digitas, a marketing consulting firm. In this role, Brian provided content management and web development expertise to Digitas' clients and led the technology enablement practices for the Chicago office. Prior to joining Digitas, Brian held a variety of leadership positions at Roundarch and Deloitte Consulting.

Brian has a BS in Economics from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

Daniel West is the Executive Vice President, Strategy & Corporate Development at SAVO. In this role, Daniel is responsible for strategically defining the growth path, programs and priorities for SAVO, which includes forming strategic partnerships, alliances and market expansion programs. With nine years of executive-level sales enablement experience, he comes to SAVO with a reputation as one of the industry’s thought leaders and innovators. He has built and managed the sales enablement function in three of the software industries’ most successful companies, as well as managed global strategic alliance programs and direct sales teams.

Prior to joining SAVO, Daniel was Vice President, Education and Enablement at Informatica, the global leader in data integration. Daniel was responsible for managing Informatica’s customer education business and the enablement of the company’s internal and external ecosystem. Together these functions drove the development of the skills necessary for customer success across Informatica’s value delivery system.

Daniel previously worked at HP Software where he was most recently responsible for planning and executing the route-to-market strategy for a $350M software license business. With extensive experience at creating specialist sales organizations, he was responsible for the successful delivery of a series of integrated cross-sell / up-sell marketing, enablement and sales execution programs that drove $94 million in incremental revenue.

Prior to his role at HP, Daniel held various management positions at Mercury Interactive (acquired by HP) in Alliances and Global Enablement and Education. In these roles he grew indirect revenues by more than 100 percent and successfully transformed and built an integrated enablement and education function that serviced the needs of both the internal and external ecosystem.

Originally from Sydney, Daniel has a BA in Journalism and a Master of Commerce in Marketing from the University of New South Wales.

Sam Zawaideh is SAVO's Executive Vice President of Products and Solutions. With more than 24 years of executive technology experience, Sam is responsible for driving the vision, technology and execution for SAVO's product strategy, engineering operations and product development functions.

Prior to SAVO, Sam was Chief Product Officer for Dyadem Int. Ltd, where he was responsible for successfully growing, transforming and building the strategy, technology, services, and support of the company in less than three years into an enterprise software provider which was acquired by IHS in 2011.Prior to that Sam served as Senior Vice President of Worldwide Strategic Customers at Dassualt Systemes where he addressed the technical solution and strategic needs of some of the world's largest enterprises.

Sam also served as Senior Vice President of Products and Solutions and Customer Service for MatrixOne driving its products and solution strategy and execution. Sam was part of the executive team that drove the growth and IPO of MatrixOne and its sale in 2006. As Vice President of Global Service from 1996-2000 Sam was responsible for the creation and growth of MatrixOne business services to over $70M. Sam has held a number of senior management and senior technical positions at Adra systems, Sherpa Corp and Johnson Controls.

Sam holds a Bachelor's in Electrical Engineering and a Masters in Computer Engineering from Manhattan College in New York, and was a PhD candidate in Software Engineering at Wayne State University.