Leadership

Mark Briggs

Chairman & CEO

Mark Briggs serves as chairman and CEO of Validity, a company he founded in partnership with Silversmith Capital Partners. He has over 25 years of experience building and leading high-growth technology companies with a strong track record of generating exceptional shareholder value. Most recently, Mark served as CEO of ABILITY Network, recognized in the Forbes Cloud 100 as one of the top 100 cloud companies in the world, which was acquired by Inovalon (NASDAQ:INOV) for $1.2 Billion.
Prior to ABILITY, Mark held executive leadership positions at Carefx Corporation, at NaviNet, was the President of MPI Solutions at QuadraMed Corporation, and served as the Chairman and CEO of LinkSoft Technologies, a company that he founded. Mark is a member of the Board of Advisors to the Dartmouth Guarini School of Graduate and Advanced Studies and is a Senior Advisor to Silversmith Capital Partners, a leading Boston based growth-equity firm.

Mark holds a Master’s in theoretical physics and a Bachelor’s degree in physics, both from Dartmouth College.

Wayne Parslow

VP, Channels – EMEA/APAC

Wayne Parslow serves as Executive Vice President of Validity for International and is building a world-class sales and go-to-market team to maximize Validity’s opportunities across the UK & Ireland, EMEA, LATAM and APAC. In addition to general management, he is responsible for the development and execution of business plans, go-to-market programs, sales management, strategic partnerships, and public representation for the International markets, and to develop the business at least in line with the aspirations of the US domestic market.

For over 25 years, Wayne has been successfully building, scaling and restructuring international companies in various industries, including document and workflow management, integration and interoperability, web application development, security, access management, eCommerce, business process management and the application of open source and open standards.

Prior to Validity, he served as head of European, Middle Eastern and African markets for global digital identity company, ThreatMetrix.

Wayne received his Bachelor of Science in Applied Science from Kingston University.

Gary Hall

Chief Financial Officer

Gary Hall serves as the Chief Financial Officer for Validity. Gary has over 20 years of experience leading finance and operational teams at high-growth, technology companies and helping these companies generate significant shareholder value through public and private offerings and successful exits.

Prior to joining Validity, Gary was the Chief Financial Officer of Casa Systems, Inc., a provider of ultra-broadband solutions for mobile, cable, fixed and converged service providers, and helped lead the company through significant growth, culminating in an Initial Public Offering in 2017. Prior to Casa System, Gary was the Chief Financial Officer of eCopy, a provider of document management solutions, which was sold to Nuance Communications in 2009. Gary was also the Controller and then Chief Financial Officer of MatrixOne, a product life-cycle management software company, and he helped lead the company’s Initial Public Offering in 2000 and the sale of the Company to Dassault Systems in 2006. Gary is a Certified Public Accountant and worked at Deloitte, a multinational professional services firm.

Gary holds a M.S. degree in Finance from Bentley University and a B.S. degree in Accounting from Southern New Hampshire University.

Bonnie Malone

VP – Client Services

Bonnie is passionate about excellent customer experience. With a background in marketing, merchandise buying, and retail management, she helps companies stay relevant amid the changing digital landscape.

Bonnie leads the Customer Success team at Validity, the most trusted name in customer data quality. She is an active Email Experience Council committee member, featured speaker for events, and has written for the company blog and TotalRetail.

Josh Stuber

VP – Customer Success, Americas

Josh Stuber is a customer centric leader focused on delivering value and leveraging customer feedback to ensure long term relationships. Josh currently runs the Validity Global Renewal Team, responsible for spearheading Customer Retention and Renewals across the globe.

In addition to his executive career, Josh serves on the board of West Georgia Habitat for Humanity, a charity that brings people together to build homes, communities and hope for impoverished families.

Mike Piispanen

President & Chief Operating Officer

As President & Chief Operating Officer at Validity, Mike Piispanen helps manage the company’s expansion, overseeing strategies that deliver future innovations for data management, sales productivity, and email marketing optimization.

Josh Stuber

VP – Customer Success, Americas

Josh Stuber is a customer centric leader focused on delivering value and leveraging customer feedback to ensure long term relationships. Josh currently runs the Validity Global Renewal Team, responsible for spearheading Customer Retention and Renewals across the globe.

In addition to his executive career, Josh serves on the board of West Georgia Habitat for Humanity, a charity that brings people together to build homes, communities and hope for impoverished families.

Helen Parslow

VP Marketing, International

Helen Parslow serves as Vice President of Validity for International managing a world class go-to-market team to maximize Validity’s opportunities across the UK & Ireland, EMEA, LATAM and APAC.

Helen is a seasoned marketing leader who is passionate about building brands and is experienced in developing and executing insights-driven marketing plans and World class event presence that span both our global and international marketing initiatives.

Prior to Validity, she served as Head of Marketing and Business Development at Medeanalytics, EMEA. Marketing data solutions for healthcare unlocking the value of data for better patient outcomes.

Helen received her BA (Honours) Business studies degree from Nottingham Trent University.

Chris Bryan

VP Sales – EMEA

Chris Bryan serves as Vice President of Sales for the UK & Ireland at Validity International managing Validity’s go to market efforts in the region.

Chris brings 27 year’s experience working for technology companies predominantly SaaS based Software Companies. Chris is passionate about enabling everyone to make better fact based, data driven decisions coming from the Business Intelligence and Visual Analytics space (Qlik, Business Objects (SAP), Crystal Decisions) building and developing highly successful Sales & Business Development teams.

Chris is passionate about Sales Best Practice to deliver positive outcomes with excellent service for our customers and supporting his teams personal and professional growth.

Chris Hyde

SVP – Strategy and Operations

As Senior Vice President and Global Head of Data Solutions at Validity, Chris is responsible for executive direction, roadmap, and overall management of Validity’s data solutions. He works closely with industry operators, customers, and data analytics to drive an informed product strategy.

One of the first International employees of Validity, Chris brings 25+ years experience as an individual contributor and leader in Pre-Sales, Product, and Customer Success roles across multiple startup and large enterprise software companies.

With a passion for technology, Chris is a regular contributor to events, blogs and an active member of the International Salesforce Community.

Cecilia Belele

VP – Sales, LATAM

Cecilia Belele serves as Vice President for LATAM. She is responsible for leading sales team and also oversees general management of the region.

Previously she served as Regional Director for Return Path and earlier as Channel Director responsible to develop the partner program for LATAM Region. With an extensive experience leading sales teams and executing strategic business plans she helps Validity to increase its presence in Latam market.

Cecilia has Bachelor of Economy with an MBA for Business and Technology Management

Kevin Randall

Head of PMO/IMO

Kevin Randall serves as the Head of the Integration and Project Management offices at Validity. Kevin brings 15 years of experience in Integration, Portfolio, Operations, and IT Service Management as well as a track record of developing the teams, processes, and systems to scale growth oriented organizations.

Kevin received his Bachelors from Bentley University in Waltham MA.

Guy Hanson

VP – Customer Engagement

Guy is a passionate advocate for intelligent use of customer data to drive responsive sales and marketing programs. With a knowledge base spanning twenty years, he is globally recognized as an email & data expert and thought leader.

Over the past decade Guy led Return Path’s global consulting team and worked with world-famous clients across 6 continents to improve their email delivery, subscriber engagement and revenue.

Now Validity’s VP for Customer Engagement (International), he continues to explore his passion for email and data and share it with his clients to maximise their program value. He’s a strong believer in giving back to his community, speaking at flagship events, providing training, and producing fresh and insightful thought leadership.

Outside of work, Guy has had long-term involvement with the DMA, currently sitting on the email council and involved with key pieces of research. He is a regular contributor to the industry press, and a 3-time finalist as data storyteller of the year!

Alexander Rubin

VP – Receiver Business Development

Alex Rubin serves as Vice President Business Development at Validity. He is responsible for data acquisition efforts including mailbox provider and filtering company relationships. Alex has worked in leadership roles at several successful start-ups including Return Path (acquired by Validity), RemarQ (acquired by Critical Path), and Rocket Science Games (acquired by Sega Software).

Alex was born, raised and currently lives in San Francisco, CA. He holds a BA from UC Berkeley and an MBA from UCLA.

Brendan Peregrine

VP – Sales, Americas

Brendan Peregrine serves as the Vice President of North American Sales for the midmarket. Brendan has spent the last 12 years in sales leadership roles, building process driven teams that achieve results.

With a background in data and years of working in data related business, Brendan is passionate about coaching problem solving skills in the data and world with his teams. Previously Brendan served as Vice President of Sales at Greenway Health, after spending 10 years in operations and services roles.

Elaine Ginsberg

VP – Sales Operations

Elaine Ginsberg serves as Vice President Sales Operations. Elaine brings over 25 years of operations, sales and product experience to Validity. She has a solid track record building organization infrastructure and executing programs utilizing process, technology and employee engagement to drive rapid growth.

Prior to Validity, Elaine served as SVP Customer Operations & Success for ABILITY Network, a leading healthcare technology company, recently acquired by Inovalon; and held leadership roles with Vitera Healthcare Solutions, Sage Healthcare and Emdeon.

Thomas Bartel

SVP – Data

Tom Bartel is Validity’s Senior Vice President of Data Services. Tom has more than 20 years of email delivery, data, technology, operations, and privacy experience. He most recently joined Return Path through its acquisition of ThreatWave, where he served as CEO/Founder. Prior to that, he has held roles at Return Path, MessageMedia (acquired by DoubleClick), and founded several other startups.

Tom is actively involved in key industry organizations, such M3AAWG and ESPC, and advises start-ups and non-profits. Tom has a Bachelor in Speech Communication from Colorado State University.

Karen Friedrich

SVP, Global Sales and Channels

Karen Friedrich serves as Senior Vice President of Enterprise and Channel Sales for North America. With over 15 years’ experience in enterprise software sales and strategy, Karen has a track record of success in both the private and public sector markets including sales management, product strategy, marketing, channel management, and solution deployment. Karen brings an entrepreneurial drive, strong relationship development skills, and credibility gained through sales and operational experience.

Prior to joining Validity in 2018, Karen served as VP of Channel Sales at MedeAnalytics, Inc. a leading analytics company for providers and payers, and held sales leadership roles at Harris Corporation, Carefx Corporation, and WebMD.

Steve Doyle

Chief Information Officer

Serving as Validity’s CIO, Steve Doyle is responsible for creating and executing upon the business-aligned vision and roadmap for Information Technology systems and solutions at Validity, including IT Corporate Services, telephony, corporate networking, and Core Business Systems. Steve brings more than 25 years of prior industry experience in a variety of IT roles, all in High Tech, SaaS-based industries.

Prior to joining Validity, Steve was Vice President of IT & Business Systems for Endurance International Group, where he oversaw Corporate IT, Infrastructure, CRM, Data Warehouse, and other mission-critical business applications for Endurance’s 4,000+ employees, globally.

Lily Cua Willess

SVP – Strategy & Corporate Development

As Senior Vice President of Strategy & Corporate Development, Lily is responsible for developing and executing cross-organizational strategies that drive scale and growth for Validity.

Lily started her career as a consultant at PwC, and has since moved into high-growth technology startups where she has held various leadership positions at industry-leading SaaS companies. Prior to Validity, Lily ran Strategic Partnerships for Optoro – a VC-backed reverse logistics company – where she was responsible for the company’s channel revenue and network of distribution partners. Before that, she was the Co-Founder and COO of Aspire – a tech-enabled employee engagement company – where she managed all business strategy and operations. Aspire was acquired by Raffa, P.C., now a part of Marcum LLP.

Lily graduated Summa Cum Laude from Georgetown University with a BSBA in Finance and Chinese. Hoya Saxa!

Mike Fairchild

VP – Financial Planning & Analysis

Michael Fairchild serves as the Vice President of Financial Planning & Analysis for Validity and brings to us his expertise regarding all aspects of strategic corporate financial planning, and valuable analysis which drives business decisions.

Michael brings 12+ years of financial experience in SaaS technology companies, ranging from start-up companies to large enterprise technology companies. Prior to Validity, Michael supported the growth of a Rhode Island based start-up, from venture backed to private equity sponsorship. Additionally, he spent 5+ years in various roles at IBM in the SaaS finance group, where he supported mergers & acquisitions, integration, and growth of over 10 acquired technology companies into a single business unit.

Michael holds a Master’s of Business Administration from Suffolk University’s Sawyer Business School and a degree in economics from Dickinson College.

Diane Gordon

SVP – Customer Success

Diane Gordon is an accomplished C-level executive with over 25 years of driving retention and growth by creating scalable infrastructure in support of profitable P&Ls and customer loyalty, the basis for minimizing churn. She designs and leads the development of market-leading products, programs and solutions, achieving high growth, while ensuring customer loyalty, and healthy renewal and NCVI rates for technology companies. Diane’s career includes executive roles in customer care, operations, marketing, product development, product management and corporate development.

Greg Kimball

SVP – Global Head of Email & Ecommerce Solutions

As Senior Vice President and Global Head of Email & Ecommerce Solutions at Validity, Greg is responsible for executive direction, roadmap, and overall management of Validity’s email offerings. He works closely with industry operators, customers, and data analytics to drive an informed product strategy.

Prior to joining Validity through the acquisition of Return Path, Greg was the Co-Founder of two venture capital-backed technology companies: Nifti – a marketing analytics company, and Cinch – a social polling company. He initially honed his product and operational management interests as a project engineer for high-rise developments.

Greg has BSBAs in Economics, Finance and Real Estate from University of Denver and an MBA from Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business.

Kate Adams

SVP – Marketing

As Senior Vice President of Marketing, Kate leads all of Validity’s marketing efforts.

Prior to Validity, Kate was Vice President of Marketing at Drift, where she discovered her passion for helping and marketing to sales professionals and marketers. While there, Kate built the demand generation function from the ground up, achieving more than 200% in pipeline growth. Before Drift, Kate led the demand generation and marketing operations teams at SmartBear, where she managed the pipeline generation for a portfolio of more than 20 products.

Kate has also led marketing and product for a number of early stage startups ranging in size and industry, from education and healthcare to employee engagement. She is passionate about bringing businesses to life in the hearts and minds of prospects and customers by creating amazing customer experiences across the entire customer lifecycle.

Kate holds a Bachelor’s degree in Spanish Language and Literature from Regis College.

Eduardo Ugarte II

SVP-Legal

As SVP of Legal, Eduardo owns the global legal function at Validity.

Eduardo has practiced law for more than 20 years in both corporate and law firm environments. Eduardo has broad legal experience in SaaS commercial transactions, risk management, M&A, due diligence, entity and product integrations, intellectual property, data privacy, regulatory compliance, and corporate governance.

Eduardo has an LL.M. in Securities and Financial Regulation from Georgetown University Law Center, a J.D. from the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, and a B.A. from the University of Dallas.

Jim Quagliaroli

Silversmith Capital Partners

Jim co-founded Silversmith Capital Partners in 2015 and has served as a Managing Partner since inception.

Over his career, he has served on the board of 25+ tech companies. Past and current board seats at Silversmith include Absorb Software, Centauri Health Solutions, Formstack, impact.com, JETNET, Market Access Transformation, Net Health, Opensignal, PDFTron, Proven Optics, RedAwning, TMA Systems, and Validity.

Jim spent 15 years as a growth equity investor prior to co-founding Silversmith. Jim joined Spectrum Equity in 2002 and became a Managing Director in 2009. At Spectrum Equity, Jim sourced, led, and served on the board of numerous enterprise SaaS, information services, and healthcare IT companies. Investments of note included MedHOK (acquired by Hearst), Net Health (acquired by Carlyle), and Passport Health Communications (acquired by Experian).

Jim received an AB, magna cum laude, in English & American Literature from Harvard College (1997). At Harvard he was nominated by the College for a Rhodes Scholarship and awarded the John P. Reardon Jr. Award as the class’ most outstanding scholar-athlete. He serves a Trustee of The Roxbury Latin School.

Sri Rao

Silversmith Capital Partners

Sri joined Silversmith Capital Partners in 2015 and is a General Partner. At Silversmith, Sri focuses on investments in SaaS & Information Services, including sales, marketing and customer service related technology companies. His investment experience at Silversmith includes ActiveCampaign, DistroKid, Impact, PDFTron Systems, RedAwning Group, and Validity.

Prior to Silversmith, Sri was Senior Director of Advertising Products at salesforce.com where he served in various roles to create and scale the Salesforce Marketing Cloud business unit after joining Salesforce through its acquisition of Buddy Media. Prior to Buddy Media, Sri was an Associate at TA Associates and an Analyst with Jefferies Technology Investment Banking group.

He graduated from the Jerome Fisher Program in Management and Technology at the University of Pennsylvania with a BS from The Wharton School and a BAS from the School of Engineering and Applied Science.

Mike Volpe

Silversmith Capital Partners

Mike is a highly regarded executive with over 20 years of go to market leadership experience in the technology sector,and is a Senior Advisor with Silversmith Capital Partners. He is also active in the Boston SaaS and startup communities as an executive coach and advisor, well as an angel investor in more than 50 startups. Mike most recently served as VP, Go to Market, B2B Payments at Capital One. He transitioned to this role after serving as CEO at Lola.com, a corporate travel SaaS platform that was acquired by Capital One. Previously he was CMO at Cybereason, a cybersecurity SaaS company, where he helped the company increase its sales pipeline by 650% in a single year and grow revenue by 5x during his tenure. Mike was also part of the founding team at HubSpot, where he spent eight years growing the company from five people to over 1,000 employees and $175 million in revenue, and through a successful IPO

Mark E. Hastings

Providence Strategic Growth

Mark Hastings is the Founder and CEO of Providence Strategic Growth. PSG has approximately $5B in AUM and has invested in over 200 software companies in North America and Europe. The firm is headquartered in Boston, MA and has offices in London, UK and Kansas City, MO. He received a Master of Business Administration from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and a Bachelor of Arts from Colorado College.

Tom Reardon

Managing Director, Providence Strategic Growth

Tom Reardon joined Providence Strategic Growth in 2015 and is a managing director. Mr. Reardon is currently a director of FluentStream, Formstack, INE, LogicMonitor, ShootProof, SignUpGenius and Skybox Security. Prior to PSG, Mr. Reardon was a general partner at WestView Capital Partners, where he focused on software and technology-enabled business service investments. Before WestView, he was a director at CIBC Capital Partners. Mr. Reardon received a Master of Business Administration from Harvard Business School and a Bachelor of Arts from Harvard College.

Barbara Cooke

SVP – Customer Success

Barbara Cooke serves as Senior Vice President of Customer Success for Validity, where she is responsible for accelerating business value for customers and delivering an exceptional service experience through our market-leading cloud solutions.

Barb brings more than 25 years of international leadership experience to Validity through senior commercial, customer and operational roles at global technology organisations, including Cloudreach, Nasdaq and Thomson Reuters. She led these organisations through significant change, including post-merger integrations, the launch of new businesses from the ground up and organisational structure transformations that radically enhanced customer experience, improved efficiencies and drove product and service innovation. She has lived and worked extensively across eight countries in Europe, Asia, Australia and North America, gaining first-hand experience in developing value-add, unique offerings and service strategies to multi-cultural customers.

Barb spent her early career leading and training teams for The Ritz Carlton Hotel company which ingrained her philosophy on what it means to deliver an exception customer experience. She is originally from Dallas, Texas and holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology from Southern Methodist University.

Alain Marcuse

Chief Information Security Officer

Alain Marcuse serves as Chief Information Security Officer for Validity and oversees all strategic and operational aspects of data privacy, compliance, and security for the company.

Alain brings more than 30 years of experience in information security, data privacy and global 24×7 IT infrastructure operations to Validity. He has led high-growth, global, IT, security and privacy teams in organizations based in the Americas and Europe.

Prior to joining Validity, Alain led RSM’s cybersecurity consulting practice in New England and its data privacy practice nationally. In this and prior roles, he has led large-scale engagements in designing, developing and managing security and privacy programs for a wide range of companies and industries, as well as major incident response, litigation support and regulatory enforcement matters following some of the most visible data security breaches in the country. He has also been responsible for global 24×7 SaaS operations including infrastructure, security, and customer service.

He has also served as Consul of Belgium in New England, and is an Adjunct Instructor in the Master’s in Information Security Leadership program at Brandeis University, from which he received M.A. and B.A degrees in Computer Science. He holds multiple security and privacy certifications and serves as co-chair of the International Association of Privacy Professionals’ Boston chapter and is a frequent presenter at a variety of security and privacy industry events.

Reed Malleck

Chief Financial Officer

For the past 21 years, Reed has served in CXO roles (CEO/co-founder, COO, CFO) for start-ups and early/mid stage companies in the medical devices, healthcare IT, active RFID, SaaS, avionics and life-sciences industries. He has extensive experience in M&A, and in venture/PE/debt financing. He was most recently CFO of Invicro, a CRO (Contract Research Org) in drug discovery and development.

For 22 years prior to these activities, Reed held leadership roles at Hewlett-Packard Co. to include Controllerships in semiconductor, analytical chemistry instrumentation, and computer businesses. He managed Controllership, Tax and Treasury for HP Asia Pacific and – separately – Internal Audit for Asia Pacific. He also managed operations and Controllership for HP’s Patient Monitoring business in HP’s Medical Products Group. Reed holds an MBA in Operations and a BS Finance from The University of Colorado.

Gary Learner

SVP – Engineering

As a Senior Vice President of Engineering, Gary oversees all strategic and operational aspects of Validity’s Product Development and executes on the business-aligned technology roadmap.

Gary brings more than 25 years of leadership experience to Validity through senior technical and operational roles in technology-led organizations, including Verizon Media, PictureTel and Polaroid.
As a co-founder of several companies, Gary built multi-disciplinary and multi-cultural teams to deliver market-leading products and solutions. He led these organizations through meaningful change, including post-merger integrations and organizational transformations to enhance product innovations and to improve efficiencies and customer experience.

Gary received a BS degree in Computer Science from Northeastern University and an MBA in International Business from Boston University

MJ McCarthy

SVP – Global Account Management

MJ McCarthy serves as Senior Vice President of Global Account Management for Validity, leading the teams responsible for retaining and growing Validity’s broad customer base.

Prior to joining Validity, MJ spent over 9 years leading Account Management at Everbridge, helping to scale a 20M business through IPO in 2016 to its present-day status as one of New England’s top performing SaaS companies. As part of Everbridge’s evolution, MJ implemented a customer success model to increase focus on solution adoption and value realization across strategic customers. During her tenure, Everbridge consistently achieved best-in-class customer retention, net promoter score (NPS) and customer satisfaction (CSAT) scores based on feedback.
Recognized for her leadership in account management and customer success, MJ received a 2021 Stevie® Award, one of the world’s premier business accolades.

Prior to Everbridge, MJ held sales and account management leadership positions at CCBN, Thomson Financial, and Thomson Reuters.

Andy Dittrich

VP – Financial Planning and Analysis

As Vice President of Financial Planning & Analysis, Andy is responsible for leading budgeting, forecasting, and analyses that support all major corporate decisions.

Andy began his career as an investment banker at Chestnut Partners – a life sciences industry focused boutique – and has since moved into corporate finance roles. Prior to Validity, Andy was Vice President of Corporate Development & Strategy at Invicro – a global CRO offering imaging biomarkers, core lab services, analytics & software solutions to pharma/biotech sponsors – where he was responsible for both FP&A and corporate development activities of the company.

Andy holds an MBA from The University of North Carolina Kenan-Flagler Business School, a BA in Economics from Middlebury College, and is a CFA® charterholder.

Ryan Policella

VP – Global Account Management

Ryan Policella serves as the Vice President of Global Sales Development for Validity, leading teams in the US, UK, Brazil and Australia responsible for lead generation for our new business sales organization.

Prior to Validity, Ryan spent the past 4 years at CloudHealth Technology building and leading the Sales Development organization which was later acquired by VMware. Before CloudHealth Ryan held numerous positions in Sales and Sales Leadership at Oracle supporting the Applications business unit and IaaS across all segments from Emerging Markets to Enterprise. Ryan’s extremely passionate about building and scaling SDR programs to not only drive revenue growth but to develop the next generation of Sales leaders.

Ryan holds a Bachelor’s degree in Business Management from Springfield College.

Chris Newhall

Chief Accounting Officer

Chris Newhall serves as the Chief Accounting Officer of Validity, where he is responsible for the Company’s global accounting, financial reporting, financial operations, tax, and treasury functions.

Chris brings more than 25 years of business management and strategic financial expertise to Validity. He has extensive experience working with global and domestic businesses to optimize financial performance. Prior to joining Validity, Chris served in executive accounting roles at BCG, a global management consulting firm, and IDEMIA, a global leader in security and identity solutions. He spent the first nineteen years of his career in leadership roles within the audit practice of PwC, serving clients across many industries including technology, software, and professional services. Chris’ experience includes working with early stage, venture/private equity backed companies as well as publicly traded companies.

Chris holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Accounting from Babson College. He is a Certified Public Accountant in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) and the Massachusetts Society of Certified Public Accountants (MSCPA).

Brian Prusak

VP – Corporate Controller

Brian Prusak serves as Vice President, Corporate Controller for Validity, leading the teams responsible for financial reporting, accounting operations, payroll, revenue operations, and accounting systems.

Prior to Validity, Brian held a similar role at iCAD, a publicly held, global leader in medical technology. As the Vice President and Controller, he was also responsible for all SEC filings. Prior to iCAD, Brian served in various roles with responsibility for the operational and financial functions at Skillsoft Corporation, a global leader in corporate digital learning. Brian’s experience includes leading teams through mergers and acquisitions, and the transition from a public to private company.

Brian holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Accounting from Bentley University and an MBA in Finance from Southern New Hampshire University.

Alan Hawley

SVP – Sales

Alan has more than 15 years experience in leading successful sales teams within fast growth SaaS and Infrastructure technology organizations. Before Validity Alan served in executive-level sales roles at industry leaders including Compuware Corporation [CPWR], Everbridge [EVBG], Smartbear Software, and Tomorrow.io. Most recently Alan served as Chief Revenue Officer for Tomorrow.io [formerly Climacell] where he dramatically scaled annual revenues by focusing on customer centric solution selling to core industry markets across North America, Latin America, Europe and Asia.

Having experienced great success on the sports field in his youth, Alan looked to take all the attributes of successful sports teams and apply that to his management style. Alan has built his career on managing customer centric teams where accountability, passion and focus result in the enjoyment of team success.

Andrew Lazarus

Chief Financial Officer

With over 20 years of experience as a CFO in the SaaS and technology-based services industries, Andy has been successfully leading both private and public companies through significant phases of organic growth, mergers and acquisitions and capital markets transactions. He has been particularly adept at guiding international operations spanning multiple product lines and business units with a history of driving profitable revenue growth. During this period, Andy has helped position Genesys Conferencing, SilverSky and Pilot Air Freight Services for highly successful strategic sales to industry leaders.

Prior to being a CFO, Andy spent more than ten years in investment banking advising telecommunications and internet service providers in the execution of IPO’s, leveraged finance and M&A.

Andy holds an MBA from the NYU Stern School of Business and a BS in Finance and Accounting from Babson College.

Geoff Charron

Chief Technology Officer

As Chief Technology Officer at Validity, Geoff is responsible for technology strategy, engineering, platform operations, and security across our family of products. Geoff has more than 25 years of experience leading high-performing global teams at high-growth software companies. Most recently, Geoff was CTO at Inovalon (a leading healthcare technology company) where he transformed the technology organization, processes, and architecture including migrating the majority of the products to commercial cloud. Prior to Inovalon, Geoff led the ABILITY engineering organization through a significant growth phase culminating in acquisition by Inovalon. Earlier in his career, Geoff led engineering teams at a number of security products companies.

Geoff has a Master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering and a Bachelor’s degree in Manufacturing Systems Engineering from WPI.

Jeff Hassemer

SVP, Marketing

Jeff is a distinguished and forward-thinking marketing executive, strategist, and transformational powerhouse. He brings over twenty years of extensive marketing leadership, management, and operations experience helping organizations break through and elevate the enterprise to another level. He is recognized as a highly sought-after and prominent executive, industry expert, and catalyst for change. Jeff is an unstoppable force that has been honored to help organizations drive marketing excellence, flourish in ambiguity, and accelerate growth transforming businesses into thriving enterprises. He demonstrates a proven track record of success championing continuous improvements to deliver remarkable gains in a rapidly evolving environment.

Jeff has been recognized as a dominating positive influencer throughout his career, bringing a vast knowledge of personal development, industry processes, business development solutions, and strategies, delivering a distinctive advantage and setting him apart from other leaders. His experience encompasses translating challenges into world-class marketing strategies, providing scalable solutions, and transforming organizations into the biggest names in the world.

Early in his career, Jeff was a pioneer in early Marketing Technology solutions around database marketing and campaign management. In the early 2000’s, he parlayed that into digital marketing capabililties such as email marketing, display advertising and more. From 2001 to 2006, Jeff served as a Director of Product Strategy within DoubleClick, Inc. (now Google Ads) a digital advertising company. In 2006, he served as the Director of Product Marketing for Responsys, Inc. (now Oracle Marketing Cloud) transforming the business from a $14M email service provider to a $65M cross-channel campaign management solution. From 2008 to 2010, Jeff achieved a distinguished promotion performing as the Chief Marketing Officer and Senior Vice President of Product for Entiera, Inc., a SaaS-based cross-channel campaign management organization.

Since then, Jeff has been a Product and Marketing executive for Experian Marketing Services, Vericast, Trueffect, and has acted as a Fractional CMO for several start up companies. Now serving as Senior Vice President, Marketing for Validity.

Jim Tobolski

SVP, Global Account Management

As Senior Vice President of Global Account Management at Validity, Jim is entrusted with the vital responsibilities of ensuring customer retention, fostering expansion, and driving growth. With an impressive career spanning over 25 years in the field of enterprise software and data sales, Jim has consistently showcased his expertise in devising and executing transformative strategies that deliver exceptional results for both customers and industry-leading organizations.

With an unwavering commitment to customer experience, Jim’s has earned a distinguished reputation for shaping and implementing innovative strategies that not only cultivate strong client loyalty through value-driven engagement, but also inspire revenue expansion and growth. His success is underpinned by his adeptness in orchestrating highly organized collaborations among cross-functional sales and customer success teams.

His extensive background across martech, adtech, data/custom analytics, and identity resolution is complemented by his exceptional industry insights and invaluable team relationships. Jim’s multifaceted expertise and leadership make him a driving force in the ever-evolving landscape of enterprise software and data sales.

Lidiane Jones

Silversmith Capital Partners

Lidianne joined Silversmith Capital Partners in 2025.

Before joining Silversmith, she served as the CEO of Bumble, continuing her track record of leading digital transformation and delivering products that empower users with enterprise scalability and machine learning.

After serving as Executive VP and GM of Digital Experiences at Salesforce, she was selected to lead Slack as CEO following its acquisition by Salesforce. There, she guided customers in creating fully connected, personalized experiences across Experience, Commerce, and Marketing Clouds. Jones has also held leadership roles at Sonos, Inc. and Microsoft, and previously served on the boards of Compass Working Capital and Astound Commerce.

Validity Leadership Team

Meet Our Leadership Team

Mark Briggs

Mike Piispanen

Tim Adams

Frank Capecci

Matt Gore

Chris Newhall

Jim Tobolski

Barbara Cooke

Karen Friedrich

Cynthia Price

Jennifer Gibson

Chris Hyde

Tony Slavinsky

Thomas Bartel

Board of Directors

Mark Briggs

Jim Quagliaroli

Mike Volpe

Mark E. Hastings

Tom Reardon

Lidiane Jones

Mark Briggs

Chairman & CEO

Wayne Parslow

VP, Channels – EMEA/APAC

Gary Hall

Chief Financial Officer

Bonnie Malone

VP – Client Services

Josh Stuber

VP – Customer Success, Americas

Mike Piispanen

President & Chief Operating Officer

Josh Stuber

VP – Customer Success, Americas

Helen Parslow

VP Marketing, International

Chris Bryan

VP Sales – EMEA

Chris Hyde

SVP – Strategy and Operations

Cecilia Belele

VP – Sales, LATAM

Kevin Randall

Head of PMO/IMO

Guy Hanson

VP – Customer Engagement

Alexander Rubin

VP – Receiver Business Development

Brendan Peregrine

VP – Sales, Americas

Elaine Ginsberg

VP – Sales Operations

Thomas Bartel

SVP – Data

Karen Friedrich

SVP, Global Sales and Channels

Steve Doyle

Chief Information Officer

Lily Cua Willess

SVP – Strategy & Corporate Development

Mike Fairchild

VP – Financial Planning & Analysis

Diane Gordon

SVP – Customer Success

Greg Kimball

SVP – Global Head of Email & Ecommerce Solutions

Kate Adams

SVP – Marketing

Eduardo Ugarte II

SVP-Legal

Jim Quagliaroli

Silversmith Capital Partners

Sri Rao

Silversmith Capital Partners

Mike Volpe

Silversmith Capital Partners

Mark E. Hastings