Board of Directors
We are a seasoned team of industry experts, including the former CEO of FrontRange Solutions®, the former Chief Architect of FrontRange Solutions® HEAT® and ITSM products, the original developer of HEAT, and the founder and past CEO of the Help Desk Institute (HDI).
Vance Brown
Chairman of the Board and CEO
Cherwell's co-founder, Chairman and CEO is one of the ITSM software industry's most notable thought-leaders and currently serves on the HDI Advisory Board. Prior to launching the market's most innovative software, Cherwell Service Management, Vance was President and CEO of GoldMine® Software Corporation (now FrontRange Solutions - the makers of HEAT).
Vance graduated summa cum laude from Wake Forest University and then from the University of North Carolina Law School with honors. He also completed a Stanford University Graduate School of Business Executive Program and a Harvard Summer Graduate Program. In 2009 Vance was given the Excellence in Entrepreneurship Award by Wake Forest University "in recognition of his entrepreneurial spirit, creativity, achievement and social responsibility." Vance also is a founder of the largest charter school in Colorado (www.tcad20.org) and the Band of Brothers Ministry (www.bandofbrothers.org)
Arlen Feldman
Board Member and CTO
Cherwell co-founder Arlen Feldman is a renowned software developer within the help desk, service desk, and customer relationship management (CRM) software industry. With nearly 30 years of experience, Arlen spearheaded many revolutionary software advances – most notably Cherwell's Codeless Business Application Technology (CBAT) and Platform-as-a-Service (Paas).
Arlen serves on the Microsoft® C# Customer Council—a small group of industry experts who advise Microsoft on the direction of .NET, Visual Studio and the C# programming language. He also authored two books - ADO.NET Programming and WPF in Action with Visual Studio 2008. Previously, Arlen was the chief architect for FrontRange Solutions.
Richard Mueller, CPA, CFA
Chief Financial Officer
Richard Mueller brings extensive financial experience to Cherwell. Currently, he manages an independent investment advisory firm that serves nation-wide clientele and an investment partnership. Previous experience includes: CFO and Board Treasurer for The Classical Academy; Group Vice President with Duff & Phelps; and with First Chicago, now part of JP Morgan Chase®.
As both a CPA and CFA, Rick began his career with a major public accounting firm. He graduated from the University of Illinois with highest honors and earned an MBA from the University of Chicago.
Ron Muns
Board Member and Innovation Officer
Considered by many as the "father of the help desk industry", Ron founded Bendata, Inc. (now FrontRange Solutions); launched one of the first help desk software solutions (HEAT); and founded the global professional association for IT support professionals, HDI (Help Desk Institute).
Earlier in his career, Ron served as a leading Big Six consultant in the help desk industry; as a software engineer and creator of several successful commercial software products; and as an IT strategist. Ron is a Certified Public Accountant, Certified Information Systems Auditor, and holds a Certificate in Data Processing. He earned a Bachelor's Degree in Business Statistics from the University of Texas at Austin.
Tim Oakley
Board Member
As the current CFO for iContact, Tim Oakley brings extensive financial and executive experience within the telecommunications, software, and internet industries. Previously, Tim was the CFO for CipherTrust and OpenSite Technologies. He also served as Director of Finance for MCI and and later joined Broadband Technologies, a publicly traded NASDAQ company, as chief financial officer.
Tim began his career in public accounting and holds a Masters of Business Administration from Emory University and a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration-Accounting concentration with honors from East Carolina University. A certified public accountant, Oakley is an active member of the American Institution of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) and the North Carolina Society of CPA's.
Timothy Pfeifer
Board Member
As a Cherwell co-founder, Timothy Pfeifer brings exceptional leadership to the Cherwell team. Prior to Cherwell, Timothy served as a Senior Attorney for First Data Corporation, and as Vice President & General Counselfor FrontRange Solutions® (formerly Bendata, Inc. and GoldMine Software Corporation).
Timothy earned a J.D. degree from the University of Washington, School of Law, graduating as a member of the Order of the Coif; a management degree from Pepperdine University, graduating magna cum laude; and has attended an executive education program through Stanford University's Graduate School of Business.
Tony Probert
Board Member of Cherwell Software Ltd., Managing Director for Europe, Middle East, Africa
Tony has been in the UK and European help desk and service management industry since the late 1980s. He previously served as European Managing Director for GoldMine Software (formerly Bendata, Inc. and currently FrontRange Solutions®), growing the European business from a two person start-up to more than 100 employees with revenues in excess of $15 million.
Tony has held a variety of senior management positions with responsibility for sales, channel management, marketing and international business development for a number of software companies including DataCore Inc, Centennial and his own VAR start-up, representing DKSystems of Chicago, USA.
Richard Wells
Board Member, Insight Venture Partners
Richard Wells has over 12 years of experience in investing and advising managers of high growth software and Internet companies. He currently serves on the boards of BeyondTrust, Enigma, HealthcareSource, Kinnser, Metalogix, PHD Virtual, Smartbear Software and is active with the board of Zumba Fitness. Richard previously served on the boards of Netsmart Technologies (acquired by Genstar Capital) and Primavera (acquired by Oracle), and was active with the board of Buddy Media (acquired by Salesforce.com).
Richard joined Insight in 2005 after previously serving as an investment team member at Technology Crossover Ventures (TCV), with a focus on software, online media and e-commerce. Richard also worked in product management for enterprise data protection products at Veritas Software (now part of Symantec), and in field sales for Paciolan Systems (now part of Ticketmaster).
Richard received a BS from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania (Phi Beta Kappa, summa cum laude) and an MBA from the Harvard Business School. He grew up in Southern California and resides in Manhattan with his wife and son. Thanks to his father's New England roots, Richard is an avid Boston Red Sox fan and is already having a lot of fun making his son one too.
