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Meet the Searchspring Leadership Team

It takes a village, and at Searchspring, that village is made up of teams who work together to help provide the ultimate shopper experience.

Meet the people who lead Searchspring teams (and clients) to success.

 

 

Board of Directors

Kurien Jacob Headshot
Kurien Jacob
Executive Chairman

Kurien’s career has spanned over 40 years across a variety of executive roles including CEO, CFO, and COO. Most recently Kurien partnered with PSG to start Anju Software Inc., focused on the life science segment. He has served on Boards of several other companies including Conner Industries, a/d/s technologies, and Argentum Capital Partners.

Fun Fact: Kurien loves to read. His most recent favorite was The Honorable Company by John Keay, a historical account of the first venture capital company, the East India Trading Company.

Chris Andres Headshot
Chris Andrews
Principal, PSG

Chris is a principal in the PSG Boston office. Previously, he was on Providence Equity Partners’ valuation and strategic analysis team. Chris started his career in GE Capital’s financial management program. Chris received a Master of Business Administration from Columbia University and a Bachelor of Science from Fairfield University.

Fun Fact: Chris is terrified of heights and tried to conquer his fear by skydiving and bungee jumping while studying abroad in Australia. He’s still scared of heights.

Evan Ocko Headshot
Evan Ocko
Vice President, PSG

Evan is a Vice President in the PSG Boston office. In his previous role, he was an Investment Banking Analyst in the technology group at Barclays in New York.

Evan received a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from Northwestern University.

 

Fun Fact: Evan has gone dogsledding with Huskies.

Senior Leadership Team

Alex Kombos _ CEO _ Searchspring _ Headshot
Alex Kombos
Chief Executive Officer (CEO)

Alex brings several years of experience as a C-level executive to Searchspring. As a 4X founder with an entrepreneurial DNA, he has a tremendous track record of unlocking growth, profitability, and value.

Alex’s passion and expertise in the ecommerce and SaaS industries help drive results to investors, customers, partners, and employees.

Fun Fact: Alex loves to make his own wine! Having picked up the trait as a young boy at his Dad’s vineyard in Greece, he continued the tradition after moving to Long Island, NY in his 30s.

Chantele Gibson's headshoot
Chantele Gibson
Sr VP of Global Partnerships

Chantele has been with Searchspring since its early days, working in various sales roles as the company grew.

Her incredible ability to build relationships led her to develop the Searchspring Partner Program, where she continues to build strategic alliances with tech, agency, and platform partners across the globe.

Fun Fact: When she’s not at home in Colorado Springs, you’ll find Chantele in Cabo. She considers it her unofficial second home and visits every chance she gets.

Suhas Gudihal Headshot
Suhas Gudihal
Chief Technology Officer (CTO)

Suhas has over 30 years of experience as a business and technology executive. He was the co-founder of Anju Life Sciences Software and served as the Chief Technology and Product Officer. Prior to that, he held senior positions at AFS and CGI Consulting.

Suhas has extensive experience scaling businesses through organic growth and acquisition strategies.

Fun Fact: In his free time, Suhas is fanatically following Grand Slam and ATP tennis matches.

Mark Heinkel headshot
Mark Heinkel
Chief Financial Officer (CFO)

Mark brings over 15 years of financial experience with 10 years in the San Antonio technology space. Having worked in fast-paced, dynamic organizations, he has a measured approach to achieving business goals.

Mark enjoys the challenge of translating the complex into the relatable and focusing on growing strengths of the team.

Fun Fact: Mark enjoys distance running, traveling, and practicing the outdoor skills he used to possess back when he became an Eagle Scout.

Doug Hooton Headshot
Doug Hooton
Chief Customer Officer (CCO)

Doug comes to Searchspring with more than 30 years of technology experience, including sales, programming, consulting, and customer success.

He has spent the last decade contributing to the maturation of SaaS and Customer Success across industries such as marketing automation, hyper-converged infrastructure, and customer relationship management.

Fun Fact: Doug spends as much time as he can on the water with his family and friends.

Justin Jeske Headshot
Justin Jeske
Sr VP of Global Sales

Justin has been helping SaaS and consulting businesses solve complex challenges for over 20 years working in the USA, Canada, Japan, London, Singapore, Taiwan, and Australia.

His main motivators are helping customers run their businesses more efficiently & profitably and developing the next generation of sales professionals and leaders.

Fun Fact: After spending his late teens and early 20’s touring with his bands, Justin got serious about his career when his dad asked “what’s cool about a 30+ old punkrocker?”

Management Team

James Bathgate Headshot
James Bathgate
Vice President of Sales Engineering

James brings strategic development and efficiency to the client experience at Searchspring.

More than anything, James is a problem solver. Whether it’s figuring out the best way to attack a problem with code, creating a new process, or sitting down with a customer and talking through an issue with them, he loves solving problems.

 

Fun Fact: James was a cast member on the popular React channel on YouTube.

Michael Longauer
Director of Engineering

Michael has spent his career building ecommerce software teams and services.

His mission is to foster a culture and community where members are nurtured and thrive. Whether building complex systems or diverse teams, Michael emphasizes the harmonized integration of their unique parts, and that each requires support, autonomy, and room to fail.

Fun Fact: Michael’s first job was dancing in a rat costume at children’s birthday parties. Naturally, this segued into a career in software management.

Kate Massey headshoot
Kate Massey
Head of APAC

With over 13 years of APAC SaaS experience, Kate is committed to empowering ecommerce sites to build high-converting shopping experiences with Searchspring.

Her successful track record has earned multiple accolades, including CEO Magazine Young Executive of the Year (2018) and CMO Magazine’s Top CMO50 (2018 & 2019).

Fun fact: Kate has raised $100k for Cure Cancer Australia. Fundraising challenges include running the New York Marathon and climbing Mount Kilimanjaro.

Tina Towers Headshot
Tina Towers
Director of Customer Support

Tina brings two decades of experience working in point-of-sale software and ecommerce SaaS.

Her client-centric attitude combined with the ability to ask the right questions and listen to clients to get to the heart of the matter is what she shares with her team to garner results and a high level of customer satisfaction.

Fun Fact: As a self-proclaimed dog nerd, Tina loves taking her beloved Akita, Rogue, on urban hikes. She also loves watching college sports.

Jiajian Yang JJ Headshot
Jiajian Yang (JJ)
Director of Engineering

JJ comes to Searchspring with over a decade of experience working in software engineering.

Having worked in the internet infrastructure space, he is skilled at fostering a holistic approach and developing best practices that create efficiencies for his team. JJ believes in focusing on quality, automation, and innovation to be successful.

Fun Fact: When he’s not traveling and taking pictures, JJ is on the badminton court, soccer field, or tinkering in his home lab.

Want to Join Our Team?