The Software Report is pleased to announce The Top 25 Software Leaders of New York for 2022. This year’s awardees are some of the most experienced and effective software leaders in the state of New York. With their leadership and guidance, their companies are revolutionizing the software industry and pushing the envelope on what technology can do for their customers across a wide range of products and platforms.
Chairman and CEO Prashant Bhuyan’s Accrete AI has developed Minerva, a proprietary platform which it uses to build AI applications that perform real world tasks requiring human level understanding and explainability. CTO John Turek’s Aetion and its Aetion Evidence Platform® analyzes data from the real world to produce transparent, rapid, and scientifically validated answers on safety, effectiveness, and value. And CEO Shahar Chen’s Aquant AI platform uses machine learning to learn an enterprise's unique language and maximize equipment uptime, giving service leaders, techs, and teams the most vital information they need for every situation.
The companies that this year’s awardees lead operate across the software industry, specializing in everything from healthcare analytics to commercial real estate strategy, investment research, career development AI, and machine learning modeling. Through their innovations, they are providing their customers with invaluable tools to increase their productivity, efficiency, and profitability. Please join us in celebrating the Top 25 Software Leaders of New York for 2022.
1. Daniel Dines
Company: UiPath
Title: Founder and Chief Executive Officer
Daniel Dines is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of UiPath. UiPath offers an end-to-end platform for automation, combining the leading Robotic Process Automation (RPA) solution with a full suite of capabilities and technologies, like AI, Process Mining, and Cloud, to enable every organization to rapidly scale digital business operations. It is dedicated to delivering the Fully Automated Enterprise™, one in which companies use automation to unlock unlimited growth opportunities. In April 2020, UiPath was named the top tech company and #2 overall in the Financial Times FT1000 ranking of Americas' fastest growing companies of 2020.
Dines has more than 26 years of experience in the software development industry. Before founding UiPath, Dines co-founded Crew Capital and was a software development engineer at Microsoft. Earlier in his career he worked with Crinsoft as a developer lead. Dines graduated from the University of Bucharest with a Master of Science in mathematics and computer science.
2. Joseph Lubin
Company: ConsenSys
Title: Founder
Joseph Lubin is the Founder of ConsenSys, the leading Ethereum software company. ConsenSys enables developers, enterprises, and people worldwide to build next-generation applications, launch modern financial infrastructure, and access the decentralized web. Its product suite—composed of Infura, Quorum, Truffle, Codefi, MetaMask, and Diligence—serves millions of users, supports billions of blockchain-based queries for its clients, and has handled billions of dollars in digital assets. Ethereum is the largest programmable blockchain in the world, leading in business adoption, developer community, and DeFi activity.
Lubin first got his start in 1987 as a manager of the Robotics and Expert Systems Laboratory at Princeton University. From there, he went on to Vision Applications Inc., before eventually becoming chief executive officer at SyNerG Music, his most recent position prior to joining ConsenSys. Lubin graduated from Princeton University with an undergraduate degree in electrical engineering and computer science.
3. Ada Brooker
Company: Greenhouse Software
Title: Senior Software Engineer
Ada Brooker is Senior Software Engineer at Greenhouse Software. Greenhouse is the fastest-growing provider of enterprise talent acquisition software. Some of the smartest and most successful companies, like HubSpot, Buzzfeed, J.D. Power, Booking.com, Scout24, and The Knot Worldwide, use the Greenhouse hiring software platform to improve all aspects of hiring, helping them to attract top talent. The company has received numerous recognitions, including being named the #1 Best Place to Work by Glassdoor, a Talent Acquisition FrontRunner by Software Advice, and being named to the Forbes Cloud 100.
Brooker first got her start in 2014 as an engineering aide at Con Edison and later co-founded Acculis. She graduated from New York University with a master of science in computer science and an undergraduate degree in electrical engineering.
4. Nick Romito
Company: VTS
Title: Founder and Chief Executive Officer
Nick Romito is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of VTS, Inc. VTS is the commercial real estate industry’s leading technology platform that transforms how strategic decisions are made and executed across the asset lifecycle. It is the largest first-party data source in the industry, and delivers data insights and solutions for everyone in commercial real estate to fuel their investment and asset strategy, leasing and marketing automation, property operations, and tenant experience. With the VTS Platform – consisting of VTS Data, VTS Market, VTS Rise, and VTS Lease – every business stakeholder in commercial real estate is given the real-time market information and execution capabilities to do their job with unparalleled speed and intelligence.
Romito got his start in 2005 as a director at Murray Hill Properties. From there, he went on to serve as managing director and principal for Titan Global Advisors, his most recent position prior to joining VTS. Romito graduated from the University of California Berkeley, Haas School of Business with an undergraduate degree in marketing.
5. Scott Crouch
Company: Mark43
Title: Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer
Scott Crouch co-founded Mark43 in 2012 and is now the company’s Chief Executive Officer. Mark43 builds the world’s most powerful public safety CAD, RMS, analytics, and property and evidence platform. It provides a refreshing, battle-tested, enterprise implementation experience and product for any agency, with a special competency for major agencies. Its cloud-based products are built only with the most modern technologies and are constantly updated, guaranteeing that the platform always outpaces the rest of the market. In addition to offering the leading public safety technology platform, Mark43 offers industry-leading customer care. With comprehensive implementation, launch, and sustainment support, it ensures every customer is cared for no matter the circumstances.
Prior to co-founding Mark43, Crouch was a researcher in applied physics and electrical engineering at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. Crouch earned an undergraduate degree in electrical engineering from Harvard University.
6. Matt Britton
Company: Suzy
Title: Founder and Chief Executive Officer
Matt Britton founded Suzy in 2018 and now serves as the company’s Chief Executive Officer. Powered by over one million users, Suzy is a perfect blend of art and science; a mix of human and artificial intelligence. Suzy helps companies create products people need, campaigns people love, and offers people actually want. The platform gives companies an unprecedented direct line of communication to their customers instantly, on demand, and in real-time, combining advanced quantitative and qualitative research tools with the highest quality audience to deliver trusted insights in minutes. What makes the platform truly valuable to brands is the unparalleled speed by which they are able to collect real-time consumer intelligence through direct consumer interactions. User responses start to populate in as little as one minute or less and on average, Suzy can deliver 300 responses in less than 60 minutes.
Prior to founding Suzy, Britton co-founded and served as president of The Magma Group. Later, he founded and was CEO of MRY (formerly known as Mr. Youth). He is also currently Principal of Matt Britton Ventures. Britton earned an undergraduate degree in public relations from Boston University.
7. John Turek
Company: Aetion
Title: Chief Technology Officer
John Turek is the Chief Technology Officer for Aetion, Inc., a healthcare analytics company that delivers real-world evidence for the manufacturers, purchasers, and regulators of medical treatments and technologies. The Aetion Evidence Platform® analyzes data from the real world to produce transparent, rapid, and scientifically validated answers on safety, effectiveness, and value. Founded by Harvard Medical School faculty members with decades of experience in epidemiology and health outcomes research, Aetion informs healthcare’s most critical decisions—what works best, for whom, and when—to guide product development, commercialization, and payment innovation.
Turek has decades of experience leading technology teams, most recently as the first CTO of Oden Technologies, a New York-based manufacturing analytics company. Prior to Oden, he was the Senior Vice President of Engineering at Jet.com. He joined Jet prior to launch, and steered the team through its 2016 acquisition by Walmart for $3.3 billion. He began his career with IBM Research, where among other accomplishments, he managed the research team that helped create key Web Services standards including SOAP, WSDL, BPEL, WSRP, and XPath. John received his Bachelor of Science in computer engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and his PhD in computer science from NYU.
8. Danny Shteinberg
Company: Gloat
Title: Co-Founder and Chief Marketing Officer
Danny Shteinberg co-founded Gloat in 2015 and is now the company’s Chief Marketing Officer. Gloat is the first-ever Internal Talent Marketplace and is used by the world’s leading enterprises. Its platform helps enterprises democratize career development, unlock skills, and future-proof their workforces by utilizing a powerful AI engine and relying on years of experience and implementation. Employees are incentivized to share their skills and aspirations on their profiles so that Gloat’s talent marketplace platform can provide them with suggested matches of meaningful work, development opportunities, and career paths aligned to those skills and aspirations.
For managers, Gloat’s AI learns the unique associations between titles, roles, and skills that exist inside of a company so the company gets a deep understanding of the work itself and how job titles and roles can actually be broken down to the task and skill level. Gloat is the only talent marketplace with enterprise-wide global deployments across 120 countries, hundreds of thousands of productivity hours unlocked, millions of hours saved, and countless careers impacted.
9. Alina Vandenberghe
Company: Chili Piper
Title: Co-Founder and Co-Chief Executive Officer
Alina Vandenberghe is the Co-Founder and Co-Chief Executive Officer of Chili Piper. Founded in 2016, Chili Piper is the only complete Meeting Lifecycle Automation platform built for teams. It replaces the tedious process of emailing back and forth to schedule a meeting with 1-click scheduling. Unlike booking links, Chili Piper suggests times for you to meet, improving both the amount of leads you receive and the number of meetings held. Its mission is to reinvent the system of action of revenue teams to provide them with new levels of productivity and job satisfaction.
Vandenberghe has 17 years of experience in the software development industry. Before joining Chili Piper, Vandenberghe was a senior vice president of product at Sharecare, Inc., and before that, a head of global product management and engineering teams for mobile at Pearson plc. Earlier in her career she worked with Asesoft as a sales manager. Vandenberghe graduated from Politehnica University of Bucharest with a Master of Science in computer science and telecommunications, and from the National College of Informatics with an undergraduate degree in mathematics, informatics, technology, and physics.
10. Tamer Hassan
Company: HUMAN
Title: Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer
Tamer Hassan co-founded HUMAN in 2012 and is now the company’s Chief Executive Officer. Previously, he served HUMAN (formerly White Ops) as its chief technology officer. HUMAN is a cybersecurity company that protects enterprises from bot attacks in order to keep digital experiences human. It has the most advanced Human Verification Engine that protects applications, APIs, and digital media from bot attacks, preventing losses and improving the digital experience for real humans. Today, HUMAN verifies the humanity of more than 10 trillion interactions per week for some of the largest companies and internet platforms.
Previously, Hassan founded and was chief executive officer of Compel Data Technologies, Inc., and before that, he was a business intelligence analyst at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP and Affiliates. Earlier in his career he worked with the 101st Rescue Squadron as a chief of current operations. Hassan earned an undergraduate degree in engineering from the United States Air Force Academy.
11. Darren Bassman
Company: Microblink
Title: Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer
Darren Bassman is a Co-Founder and the Chief Executive Officer of Microblink. Microblink is an artificial intelligence platform focused on computer vision technology. With products in digital identity and commerce, Microblink reaches hundreds of millions of people every year – it processes more than 700 million identity documents and has had 3 billion in individual consumer purchases per year. Microblink has customers across more than 20 industries and 5 continents and offices in the U.S. and Europe, enabling it to be a global company with local insights.
Bassman has 12 years of experience in the software development industry. Before joining Microblink, he founded Windfall and JSwipe. Earlier in his career he worked with Janney Capital Markets as a senior equity research associate. Bassman graduated from Villanova University with an undergraduate degree in finance and economics.
12. Eugene Sayan
Company: Softheon
Title: Founder and Chief Executive Officer
Eugene Sayan founded Softheon in 2000 and now serves as the company’s Chief Executive Officer. Softheon’s Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and Business Process-as-a-Service (BPaaS) solutions solve complex operational and service challenges for health plans and government health agencies. By offering modular solutions designed to integrate with existing systems, Softheon reduces administrative burdens by streamlining critical processes in healthcare. Softheon’s rapidly adapting technology and agile approach to implementation enables clients to proactively respond to changing regulatory environments and consumer demand. Trusted by CMS and 8 state agencies, Softheon’s clients span multiple industries. In 2021, Softheon ranked on the Inc. 5000 regional list for fastest growing companies, and Best in Biz Awards named Softheon one of the top Companies of the Year in the Northeast Region.
Previously, Sayan was chief executive officer at Quantum Research & Development. He serves on the Board of Advisors for Stony Brook University, The Center of Excellence in Wireless and Information Technology, and the Center for Dynamic Data Analytics. Sayan earned a Master of Science in computer science from the New York Institute of Technology and an undergraduate degree in electrical engineering and telecommunication from Istanbul Technical University.
13. Thomas Li
Company: Daloopa
Title: Co-Founder
Thomas Li is a Co-Founder of Daloopa. Headquartered in New York, Daloopa is the only AI solution for investment research data that is driven by 100+ AI algorithms and backed by financial experts. It extracts any data type and services financial institutions including asset managers, investment banks, and governments. Accuracy in financial data collection is mission critical, but AI models aren’t often able to get to 99% accuracy, whereas Daloopa is able to surpass that. Its intelligent automation approach eliminates the cost bloat and makes data extraction scalable, accurate, and referenceable.
Li first got his start in 2015 as an analyst at Point72 Asset Management. From there, he went on to KCL Capital, L.P., before eventually rising to associate at Angelo, Gordon and Co., his most recent position prior to joining Daloopa. Li graduated from New York University with an undergraduate degree in finance and economics.
14. Paul Vivant
Company: Digimind
Title: Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer
Paul Vivant co-founded Digimind in 1998 and is now its Chief Executive Officer. Digimind is the global leader in AI-Powered social listening platforms and market intelligence software, designed for brands and agencies who want to accelerate digital transformation through an insights-driven approach. Recognized by Forrester and Gartner, Digimind’s best-in-class technology transforms social and online data into actionable business insights, enabling marketers to effectively plan, execute, and analyze their marketing strategy.
With a 20-year history of software creation and innovation, Digimind is an experienced company with unrivaled technology, delivering data insights and analysis to the best companies in the world. Its mission is to build innovative technologies that help its clients turn scattered pieces of data into insights. As of 2019, the company has more than 200 employees across offices in North America, Europe, Asia, and Africa, and was named a leader in Market and Competitive Intelligence Platforms by Forrester Research.
15. Salim Elkhou
Company: Onna
Title: Founder and Chief Executive Officer
Salim Elkhou founded Onna in 2015 and is now the company’s Chief Executive Officer. Onna is a data integration platform that enables companies to integrate their workplace knowledge-based apps into one system, allowing anyone to – for the first time – unify, protect, search, automate, and build on top of an organization’s proprietary knowledge. Whether companies are integrating knowledge from 20 applications or 200, they can also build on top of Onna through integrations to cloud tools or the addition of machine learning (ML) models. Onna uses ML to help companies power data-led automation on issues from compliance to HR. The company’s goal is to help business and IT leaders make sense of the vast amounts of information in their organizations and turn that information into knowledge.
Elkhou has 20 years of experience in the technology space. At age 23 he created eStet, a successful eDiscovery business and consulting company later acquired by Ernst & Young (EY). Elkhou holds an undergraduate degree in computer science.
16. Steven Mandel
Company: Litify
Title: Co-Founder
Steven Mandel is a Co-Founder of Litify, the all-in-one technology platform that revolutionizes the way legal services are delivered. The Litify platform streamlines and automates task management, document generation, intake management, and client communications, while providing data-driven insights that help law firms scale – it is the most flexible and integrated platform for lawyers. Litify empowers its users to manage every aspect of their businesses in one central place, and encourages them to reimagine what’s possible for their organizations when they have the ability to implement best practices at scale, no matter how large their team.
Mandel first got his start in 2012 as an analyst at Vanbridge LLC before taking charge of product and operations at Morgan & Morgan, P.A., his most recent position prior to joining Litify. Mandel graduated from Queens College with an undergraduate degree in business administration.
17. Brett Boskoff
Company: Splash
Title: Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer
Brett Boskoff is a Co-Founder and the Chief Technology Officer of Splash. Splash is a platform championing the next era of event marketing by helping businesses market, measure, and scale their event marketing programs. From beautiful event pages and customized registration forms, to email follow-up programs and easy integrations with other business systems, Splash empowers teams across an organization to design on-brand, measurable, and compliant event marketing programs that deliver exceptional experiences and inspire quick action on attendee data. With smart guest lists, targeting, email communications, and registration forms under one roof, you can optimize every touch point.
Boskoff has more than 14 years of experience in the software development industry. Before joining Splash, he was a lead software engineer at FanRates.com. Earlier in his career he worked with Rootzoo Inc. as a software engineer. Boskoff graduated from Vanderbilt University with an undergraduate degree in biomedical engineering.
18. Ian White
Company: ChartHop
Title: Founder
Ian White founded ChartHop in 2018. ChartHop is transforming the way companies manage and support their people. By seamlessly consolidating and visualizing disparate sources of people data in one powerful people analytics platform, ChartHop creates more informed, empowered, and connected organizations. From executives to individual contributors to every employee in between, ChartHop is designed for everyone in the organization. It plays well with dozens of platforms through robust integrations across the HR tech stack, and serves companies like 1Password, BetterCloud, Starburst, and InVision.
Previously, White co-founded and was chief technology officer for Sailthru, and before that, a technical advisor at Business Insider. Earlier in his career he worked with Money-Media as a developer. White earned a Master of Fine Arts in theater and an undergraduate degree in computer science and theater from Brown University.
19. Alex Dizengof
Company: Carbyne
Title: Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer
Alex Dizengof is a Co-Founder and the Chief Technology Officer of Carbyne. Carbyne is the global leader in, and the largest rich-data provider for, mission-critical contact center technologies, delivering more than 250 million data points per year all in a unified platform. Its contact center technologies enable emergency contact centers and selected enterprises to connect with callers or any connected devices via highly secure communication channels without downloading a consumer app. With a mission to redefine emergency collaboration and connect the dots between people, enterprises, and governments, Carbyne provides a unified cloud native solution which delivers live actionable data that leads to more efficient and transparent operations and ultimately saves lives.
Dizengof first got his start in 2011 in software R&D at PMO before eventually rising to big data engineer and algorithms developer at Fingenom Ltd., his most recent position prior to joining Carbyne. Dizengof graduated from Bar-Ilan University in Tel Aviv, Israel with a Master of Science in computer science and an undergraduate degree in computer science.
20. Bill Hoffman
Company: Kitware
Title: Owner and Vice President
Bill Hoffman is the Owner and Vice President of Kitware Inc. Kitware is a global leader in artificial intelligence and scientific research and development solutions. It advances science and technology to empower global innovation, and solves the world’s challenges by developing innovative open source software platforms and integrating them into research, processes, and products.
Hoffman first got his start in 1990 as a computer scientist at General Electric. He also served on the Industrial Advisory Board for the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Center for Automation Technologies and Systems. Hoffman graduated from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute with a Master of Science in computer science and from the University of Central Florida with an undergraduate degree in computer science.
21. Fabrice Haiat
Company: YOOBIC
Title: Founder and Chief Executive Officer
Fabrice Haiat founded YOOBIC in 2013 and is the company’s Chief Executive Officer. YOOBIC enables companies with a deskless workforce in retail, hospitality, manufacturing, warehousing, construction, and more to empower their employees through digitally optimized communication, training, and process management. The YOOBIC platform gives the deskless workforce all the tools they need to be happy and productive in the palm of their hands. Based in six countries with more than 200 employees, YOOBIC is used by 150+ brands and retailers across the world, including Kate Spade, Puma, Clarins, BurgerFi, Yankee Candle, Adore Me, Pixi Beauty, Lacoste, Peugeot, and Kenzo.
Previously, Haiat was a director of energy management services, France for Schneider Electric, and before that, he was chief executive officer for Vizelia. Earlier in his career he worked as a consultant for McKinsey & Co. Haiat holds an engineer's degree in information technology from CentraleSupélec—École Centrale Paris.
22. Yaniv Sarig
Company: Aterian
Title: Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer
Yaniv Sarig is a Co-Founder and the Chief Executive Officer of Aterian. Founded in 2014, Aterian is the world’s most efficient consumer product platform. It is home to 14 owned and operated brands that span categories from home appliances and kitchenware to essential oils. Its roster of more than 2,000 products is growing all the time, supported by AIMEE™ (Aterian’s Commerce Operating System powered by proprietary technology and machine learning) and more than 220 employees across the globe. Aterian builds, acquires, and partners with brands, harnessing proprietary software and an agile supply chain to create top-selling consumer products.
Sarig first got his start in 2003 as a software engineer at PSik Solutions. From there, he went on to Epiq Systems, before eventually rising to lead engineer in financial services at Coverity, his most recent position prior to joining Aterian. Sarig graduated from Touro University with an undergraduate degree in computer science.
23. Alice Default
Company: Double
Title: Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer
Alice Default is a Co-Founder and the Chief Executive Officer of Double. Double is a community of entrepreneurial, best-in-class executive assistants who are productivity experts. It partners with leaders from a spectrum of industries, using cutting-edge technology developed with their direct input. The app connects busy executives with experienced part-time assistants and delegation tools—so they can save time and stay focused. Double’s assistants are highly skilled, local to a user’s area, and vetted by Double’s team. They can help executives with everything from email and calendar organization to expense reporting and database management.
Default has more than nine years of experience in the software development industry. Before joining Double, Default was a product manager and design producer of Outlook for iOS and Android at Microsoft. Earlier in her career she worked with HelloFresh in marketing and business development. Default graduated from HEC Paris with a Master of Science in entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial studies.
24. Shahar Chen
Company: Aquant
Title: Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer
Shahar Chen is a Co-Founder and the Chief Executive Officer of Aquant. Aquant is an enterprise AI platform that uses machine learning to learn the enterprise's unique language and maximize equipment uptime. It gives service leaders, techs, and teams the most vital information they need for every situation. Aquant understands service data in context – automatically transforming unstructured data into structured data and pulling the most vital information for every situation – so that service goes from simply solving problems to creating entirely new business opportunities, and from putting out fires to lighting up customers’ smiles and igniting lasting loyalty. Chen has more than 21 years of experience in the software development industry. He began his career in 2001.
Before joining Aquant, Chen was an account executive at ClickSoftware. Earlier in his career he worked with Mekorot as a software engineer. Chen graduated from Bar-Ilan University with an undergraduate degree in computer science.
25. Brian Litvack (tie)
Company: LeagueApps
Title: Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer
Brian Litvack co-founded LeagueApps in 2010 and is now the company’s Chief Executive Officer. LeagueApps is an operating system and community for youth and local sports leaders—providing them with the technology and professional network they need to succeed. It is building a movement behind its mission to create amazing sports experiences for all. Through its FundPlay program, LeagueApps donates a percentage of every dollar spent on its platform back to the communities and families that need it. Its goal is to impact 500,000 underserved kids by 2022. LeagueApps employees love being part of a team, are eager to learn and master new skills, and are inspired by the opportunity to combine passion and purpose to shape the future of sports. They empower smart, ambitious, talented, and determined individuals to be difference makers at their companies, for their partners, and for the communities that they serve.
Previously, Litvack was a general manager and founding team member at Sportsvite.com. Earlier in his career he worked with College Sports Television as a web editor. Litvack earned an undergraduate degree in business administration from the University of Michigan—Stephen M. Ross School of Business.
25. Tom Jaklitsch (tie)
Company: Order
Title: Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer
Tom Jaklitsch is a Co-Founder and the Chief Technology Officer of Order, a guided business-to-business marketplace with a mission to simplify buying for businesses. Order makes it easy for businesses to place and track purchases across all their vendors, control spend, and make payments in a single, consolidated bill. Tailored insights and purchasing recommendations fuel smarter spending decisions so businesses can easily save time and money on what they need to grow. Order has been proudly named a “50 to Watch” company by Spend Matters and a Best Place to Work by BuiltIn.
Jaklitsch has nine years of experience in the software development industry. Before co-founding Order, Jaklitsch co-founded and was technical manager of Blue Jay Boxes, and before that, he was a founding member and web developer at Barebands. Earlier in his career he worked with Grand Central Tech (formerly Regis Technology Accelerator) as a strategic outreach manager and software engineer. Jaklitsch graduated from Johns Hopkins University with undergraduate degrees in computer science and computer engineering.
