Tom Spengler
Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder
Tom co-founded Granicus, Inc. as Chairman and CEO in 1999. Under his leadership, Granicus has become and remained the celebrated leader in government transparency for public meetings over the last 10 years. As the head of the executive team, Tom drives product innovation and growth strategies, which has led to several distinguished awards. The company ranked 185 on the Technology Fast 500™, Deloitte LLP’s ranking of 500 of the fastest growing technology, media, telecommunication, life sciences and clean technology companies in North America. Granicus is also ranked 419 of the fastest growing private companies in America on INC magazine’s 2009 Inc 500 list. Tom is passionate about changing the way citizens interact with government and has authored two white papers discussing the ways technology is being used to transform government. The first one is about Government Transparency and the second one covers the increasingly pressing topic, Governing in the Cloud™. Furthermore, Tom supports transparency at the grassroots level by working closely with clients and citizens to advance transparency initiatives. Prior to co-founding Granicus, Tom was a member of the premier Internet development group, Anderson Consulting (now Accenture), performing Internet strategy and development work for various companies including Q-pass, E-trade, Anderson's R&D division, and the United States Post Office. Prior to Anderson, Tom worked at Hewlett Packard to help develop leading Intranet communication tools used throughout the organization. Tom serves as a University Advisor for his alumni, Cal Polytechnic University San Luis Obispo, is a certified teacher for the International Institute of Municipal Clerks (IIMCC) and is a member of the MCEF Board of Directors, which supports scholarships and education for municipal clerks.
Ed Roshitsh
President
Ed joined Granicus in October of 2009. Prior to joining, he served on the Granicus Board of Directors. Ed has 22 years of experience at technology firms. Previously Ed served as senior vice president of sales and enterprise operations and was promoted in 2008 to executive vice president and COO at Vertafore, a software company focused on insurance agency solutions. Prior to joining Vertafore, Roshitsh held the position of vice president of worldwide sales at Blackbaud where he was responsible for sales, international operations and training. Under Roshitsh's leadership, the sales team grew revenue from $83 million in 2001 to over $155 million in 2005. Prior to Blackbaud, Roshitsh was vice president of sales, marketing and services for Data Processing Sciences Corporation (DPS), culminating a ten year period of successive sales career positions at DPS during which he helped grow software and services revenues.
Emery Jones
Chief Financial Officer and Co-Founder
As a co-founder of Granicus, Emery's focus is multi-faceted and far-reaching. In addition to building and expanding financial procedures, Emery's client-centered vision is at the base of Granicus' philosophical foundation. Emery brings a wealth of knowledge to his responsibilities in the financial sector. Before co-founding Granicus, Emery owned a successful financial consulting practice in the San Francisco Bay Area, offering financial advice and strategic planning to start-ups and small businesses. Emery received his B.A. in Accounting and Economics at the University of California at Santa Barbara.
Javier Muniz
Chief Technology Officer and Co-Founder
As CTO Javier draws on his broad knowledge of networking and application development to provide direction on product strategy and design for Granicus’ product development team. Javier enjoys leveraging new technologies to solve pervasive business issues for Granicus and its customers. In his role, he’s able to act as a visionary and technical expert to ensure products meet the desired goal for the company and our valued customers. Javier began his career at Sun Microsystems designing and managing remote access components of the Sun global network infrastructure. Later, he went on to WebTV Networks where he designed and developed applications used by the Network Operations Center to manage over 600 nodes that supported over 1 million active WebTV subscribers.
Nick Bhatt
VP of Product Development
Nick is an entrepreneur at heart who has worked many successful startups that grew under his watch and became financial successes due to extremely sought-after IPO offerings or acquisitions by large organizations. These include IMNET Systems, Dynamic Healthcare, VideoTek, AutoVista, ADP CSG, and more. Nick is a proven executive with more than twenty years of experience developing technical solutions for increased growth and profitability in dynamic and competitive markets. He has equally extensive experience in software development and IT management with experience working with everything from startup companies to an $8B multinational, including four successful IPOs/acquisitions. Additionally, Nick has been the principal architect for several major medical applications, including medical imaging solutions, medical records management, insurance claims processing, laboratory and pathology information systems, healthcare claims settlement and payment processing. Nick has a master’s degree in Computer Science and Business Management.
Sherry Willhoite
VP of Product Management
Sherry joined Granicus in November of 2010. She brings with her over 12 years of experience in industry leading consumer Internet companies including Yahoo!, Friendster and Spark Networks. Sherry has a track record for building highly trafficked online communities, monetizing businesses through advertising and direct subscription memberships and optimizing user experience for key business metrics. She brings a unique combination of in-the-trenches product management, high-level product strategy and analytical business optimization.
Thao Hill
VP of Sales
Thao started at Granicus in 2005. He has over 11 years of experience in legislative information technology and used this knowledge to achieve success in many different roles at Granicus including sales, partnerships, product development, and customer service. Today, Thao heads-up Granicus’ Sales team which delivers technology to meet the unique needs of local, state, and federal governments organizations. He is an expert in Granicus technology and helping government agencies advance cost-efficiency, collaboration, and transparency. Previously, Thao worked at Exxon-Chemical as an Advanced Control Systems Engineer and was the Chief Technology Officer for a legislative technology firm in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. During his tenure there, he worked with many state and local legislative clerks to create software and technology to automate legislative processes.
Benjamin Lucchesi
Chief Software Architect
As Chief Software Architect, Ben directs the strategic vision of application development in the Granicus' legislative management platforms. His mission is to continually advance and improve Granicus’ software technology, and to make it easier, more cost-effective and more enjoyable for clients to use. Ben has several years of experience in building robust, interactive web and client-server applications. Prior to joining Granicus, Ben was the e-Design Manager at IQ Systems, where he designed and developed custom business solutions for electronic commerce and inventory management applications for major industries. Ben holds a Masters of Science degree in Computer Science from the University of Reno.