The Rootstock Board of Directors brings vision, drive, and commitment to deliver the leading Cloud ERP solution for manufacturing, distribution and supply chain.
Alex is a private equity investor in several enterprises, including two SaaS companies. He is a consultant to one of those companies whose software is used in auto and equipment lending companies. He is Chairman of the Board and active in the workout of a defined benefit plan financial services and software company.
Previously, Alex was the co-founder and President of Career Choices, Inc., a successful company in the for-profit postsecondary education business. Career Choices, Inc. was sold to a major NYSE-traded company in 2003. Before that, Alex was the CEO of the California Culinary Academy, which was a publicly traded (NASDAQ) for profit company.
Alex has extensive experience in investment and merchant banking. He served as a Managing Director, General Counsel and CFO for several years of Richard C. Blum & Associates, which grew from $10 million to over $450 million under management. He also participated in several partnerships that acquired companies and was active in investing in several public companies. Alex held the position of First Vice President, General Counsel and a director of Sutro & Co. Inc., a NYSE member broker dealer and investment banking firm. Earlier, Alex was an associate with the law firm of Pillsbury, Madison & Sutro.
Alex holds a BA degree from Yale University, and a JD degree from The University of California at Berkeley (Boalt Hall), where he was an editor of the California Law Review.
Pat Garrehy is the Founder, President, and CEO for Rootstock Software® and has an extensive background as a software architect and engineer. With over 30 years of management, sales and technical experience, Mr. Garrehy brings a unique blend of analytical focus and business savvy to the table.
As CEO, Mr. Garrehy has applied his extensive background to the development of Rootstock’s nimble and powerful cloud based (SaaS) solution. In addition, Mr. Garrehy sets the company’s strategic direction and provides overall leadership for the entire management team.
Mr. Garrehy is also the founder and former CEO of Relevant Business Systems, a client-server ERP software provider with an exclusive focus on discrete manufacturing companies. Relevant, which was sold in 2006, remains the most profitable division of the acquirer to date. The software is currently utilized in a number of business operations, including major divisions of Lockheed and Solectron with sales of over one billion dollars.
As a University of California at Berkeley graduate, he holds a BS degree in business and mathematics as well as a MBA in finance from the University of Southern California.
Donald Caldwell is the founder, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Cross Atlantic Capital Partners Inc., based in Radnor, PA.
Don serves on the board of several publicly and privately held companies and civic organizations, including Quaker Chemical (NYSE), Rubicon Technology Incorporated (NASDAQ); Management Dynamics; Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts; the Committee for Economic Development and has been a principal in 15 IPOs.
Until March 1, 1999, he was President and Chief Operating Officer of Safeguard Scientifics, Inc. where he also previously served as Executive Vice President. Prior to joining Safeguard in 1993, Mr. Caldwell held a number of executive and financial positions, including Chief Administrative Officer of a predecessor company of Cambridge Technology Partners, Inc. (Massachusetts), a provider of information technology consulting and software development; Executive Vice President and then President of Atlantic Financial; and as a partner in the national office of Arthur Young & Co., a predecessor to Ernst & Young, LLP.
Brent has served as a Managing Director of Northgate Capital since co-founding the firm in 2000. He has been an investor in Silicon Valley’s premier venture capital funds as well as an angel investor in several silicon valley start-ups including Data Domain, Nvidia, VA Linux, and Verisity.
Brent’s current activities include overseeing investments in Palo Alto Networks, Solexel, Kovio, Aoptix Technologies, Clearwell Systems, AdMob, and Meraki among others. Brent currently serves on the board of directors for Zazzle, a Kleiner Perkins-backed portfolio company. Brent also serves as an advisory board member to US Venture Partners.
Active in the community, Brent is on the board of the Stanford Hospital Stroke Center, and also serves as a proud board member for the National Hockey League’s San Jose Sharks.
The Rootstock ERP Executive Council advises the board on matters of market, customer and international strategy and positioning. Jan Baan, Jim Bensman, Bill Happel and T. Lee Wylie make up this high-powered and extremely experienced team of manufacturing and ERP industry senior executives. Their experience covers corporate ERP selection, use and operations, and large enterprise customer requirements including global deployments.
T. Lee Wylie is the former CIO of Gartner and the creator of the ERP concept and has over 40 years of experience in IT and manufacturing. He held manufacturing and engineering leadership roles in General Motors and IBM. Mr. Wylie led the team that designed, developed, and implemented the plant floor systems for GM’s Saturn startup. Mr. Wylie currently serves as the chairman of the ERP Executive Council for Rootstock. He holds a BS in Industrial Engineering from Penn State and an MBA from the University of Detroit.
Jan Baan is the former chairman and CEO of Baan Software. Jan’s vision led Baan to an industry leadership position in the ERP market and, ultimately, a Fortune 500 company. Baan was co-founder of Cordys which focused on solving IT implementation and change issues challenging today’s extended enterprises. Baan currently directs the Vanenburg Group whose focus is on high tech innovative companies. He was an early investor in WebEx, acquired by Cisco Systems, and Top Tier, acquired by SAP.
Jim Bensman is the former president of SAP America responsible for creating SAP’s American operations. He was the founder of Western Data Systems, an enterprise software company that was acquired by Manugistics. Bensman’s other leadership positions include CEO of Geotrain Corporation and CEO of Eventra Corporation. In addition, Bensman served on the boards of Spectra Securities Software, Changepoint Corporation, Probaris Technology and Longview Solutions. He holds a BS in Electrical Engineering from Milwaukee School of Engineering.
Bill Happel is the former vice president of General Motors and general manager of the GM Locomotive Group. Bill worked in various disciplines at General Motors Corporation including manufacturing, engineering, information technology, sales, college relations and general management. He worked in several divisions of GM including automotive components, power train, sheet metal fabrication, railroad locomotives and defense products. He earned a BS Industrial Engineering from Penn State, an MS Industrial Engineering from the University of Michigan and the Senior Executive program at the Sloan Business School of MIT.
The Rootstock Management Advisory Committee advises the senior management team on matters of operational and product functional scaling, as well as funding and strategic corporate development. Simon Wilson and Max Rayner are both accomplished senior software industry executives having both operated at C-class level and in advisory capacities to a range of international and fast growing B2B Cloud software companies.
Simon’s background includes 30 years of international software industry experience encompassing operational, financial and strategic positions. He has been instrumental in successfully running, growing, financing, buying and selling both public and VC-backed companies. In addition to Rootstock, Simon serves on a number of boards and advisory committees of software companies.
Simon previously held CEO, CFO and Corporate Development roles in a range of software companies; these included CEO of MediaTile, the market-leading SaaS solution provider to the digital signage market, which was acquired by Corum Digital, and CFO/EVP-Operations of SurfControl PLC, a publicly traded internet security company, which was acquired by Websense. Prior to SurfControl, Simon was a partner in KPMG’s U.S. Corporate Finance Practice, where he specialized in corporate development strategy and M&A services for U.S. and international software and IT services companies.
Simon is currently the Chairman of PCI-PAL PLC and has served as independent director at Endace PLC (acquired by Emulex), M86 Security, where he was also Chairman (acquired by Trustwave), and Workshare (acquired by SkyDox). Simon has also provided international growth, fund-raising and M&A advisory services to a wide range software companies, including PCI-PAL PLC, July Systems (acquired by Cisco), and The Innovation Group PLC (acquired by The Carlyle Group).
Simon holds a BComm (honors) from Birmingham University, England. He is a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales; he is also a member of the Chartered Institute of Marketing.
Kirk Crenshaw has over twenty-five years of experience as an executive, entrepreneur and start-up advisor. Kirk’s experience includes leading marketing at high-tech companies such as DemandBase, Appirio (acquired by Wipro), and 2lemetry (acquired by Amazon). Currently, he is a co-founder of Sip Tequila, a platform built to bring hand-curated, super-premium and boutique tequilas to market in the US. He also advises companies such as Studio Science, Traackr, Woobot, Supperbell, and Instore. He holds a B.S. in Finance and Marketing from the Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley.
Ted served as Vice President of Business Development for Rootstock Software during its first two years on the Salesforce.com platform.
An entrepreneur and turnaround CEO, Ted helps start-ups and established companies grow through his firm Ted Ventures.
Ted has established or advised software companies in supply chain management, ERP, data analytics, and NoSQL databases (semantic web). Ted also has established, led, or advised manufacturing companies in optical networking, industrial components, and office products for business and consumer markets.
Ted graduated from the University of Minnesota Carlson School of Management and is co-founder and chairman of Christianson Systems – a leading manufacturer of pneumatic conveying systems for bulk materials. Ted is named on four patents, passed the CPA exam, and received Minnesota’s “World Trader of the Year” award.
Steve has over 40 years’ experience as owner, President and Chairman of various private companies, including New York Fabrics (acquired by JoAnn Stores), NYF Properties, TurnItIn (acquired by Insight Venture Partners) and 2lemetry (acquired by Amazon).
Steve is an investor and advisor to various early-stage companies, often leading early-stage investment rounds and serving on the board of directors. He has had a long-held interest in education, serving as a math coach for competitions, mentor for an entrepreneurial class at UC Berkeley and competitions at various universities, and has served on the Board of The College Preparatory School. Steve is also past Chairman and current board member of The Partners Program, a non-profit educational organization that provides free academically enriching summer programs, year-round tutoring and more for underserved Oakland middle school youth. Steve is a graduate of Stanford University, an avid cyclist and a Berkeley resident.
Maximillian Rayner is a Partner at Hudson Crossing, a strategic advisory firm where he focuses on market and technology strategies, agile business transformation and product innovation. Hudson Crossing clients range from global hotel brands to private equity and venture capital firms, world leading financial services companies, leading casino and entertainment groups, airlines, travel distribution and technology companies and startups in e-commerce and big data solutions for digital marketing.
In his practice areas, Mr. Rayner has advised some of the world’s leading companies on transformational investments and technology projects: Amadeus, American Express, Booking Holdings, Choice Hotels, Expedia Group, Flight Centre Travel Group, Four Seasons, Hilton Worldwide, Hotelbeds, Hyatt Hotels Corporation, Lychee.com, Mandarin Oriental, Travelport, and leading investors such as Battery Ventures, Comvest, EQT, and Thoma Bravo.
Prior to becoming a partner at Hudson Crossing, Mr. Rayner served as TravelClick’s SVP of Product Engineering & General Manager for Reservations Solutions.
Mr. Rayner also served as CTO at Travelzoo, where he led Travelzoo’s Product Development, Engineering and IT.
Prior to that, Mr. Rayner served as EVP of Products & Services and CIO at information security provider SurfControl (sold at a 63% stock value premium).
Mr. Rayner served as VP of Systems Architecture at Salesforce.com where its team designed Salesforce.com’s Internet-scale hosting platform, and as head of Sun Microsystems’ business intelligence systems and global Internet engineering.
Mr. Rayner holds an MBA from UCLA (Finance) and a BA from Dartmouth College (Computer Science & Engineering).
