Board of Directors
Executive Team
- Founder and Chairman of the Board
- Steve Anderson founded Acorn to assist turnarounds and buy-outs through a unique approach to activity-based costing that he had pioneered (now called time-driven ABC). After a successful start that over doubled the profits of the first 5 clients, he converted the methodology into a software solution for a broader audience. Today, Acorn has over 150 clients in the retail, financial service, consumer packaged goods, and distribution sectors. The company has added over $15 billion to the market capitalization of their clients. Mr. Anderson is currently involved with helping Acorn further penetrate the private equity space. He is a prolific writer with over 20 articles, white papers and case studies on M&A Strategies, Supply Chain Management, Customer Profitability, Product Management, Lean Solutions, and IT Value Management. Steve has co-authored the book, Time Driven ABC, with Dr. Robert Kaplan, Harvard Business School Professor and noted author. Steve is an alumnus of Harvard Business School (Baker Scholar) and McKinsey & Company. He holds an engineering degree from Princeton University (with honors) and an accounting post-baccalaureate from University of Houston (with honors).
- Professor of Leadership Development, Harvard Business School
- Robert S. Kaplan is Baker Foundation Professor at Harvard Business School, where he has taught since 1983. Formerly he was on the faculty of the business school at Carnegie-Mellon University, serving as Dean from 1977 to 1983. He has authored or coauthored thirteen books, sixteen Harvard Business Review articles, and more than 110 other papers. His research, teaching, consulting, and speaking focus on linking new performance and cost management systems, especially the Balanced Scorecard and Activity-Based Costing, to strategy. He has received numerous honors, including election in 2006 to the Accounting Hall of Fame, the Outstanding Educator Award from the American Accounting Association, Lifetime Contributions to Management Accounting from the AAA, and the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (UK) Award for "Outstanding Contributions to the Accountancy Profession." Dr. Kaplan serves on the board of Acorn Systems and Evergreen Energy.
- Managing Director, Insight Venture Partners
- Scott Maxwell is a Managing Director at Insight Venture Partners. He was formerly a Partner at Putnam Investments, where he was Managing Director, Corporate Development. While at Putnam, Scott had several assignments. He was Putnam's Managing Director and general manager responsible for building the strategic partnership between Putnam and the principals of Thomas H. Lee Company. Scott also led projects in e-commerce strategy, retail distribution strategy, product development and pricing. Prior to joining Putnam, Scott was a Senior Vice President at Lehman Brothers, where he was the Chief Financial Officer of the Global Equity Division and a member of the Global Equities Executive Committee. Prior to Lehman, Scott was a management consultant at McKinsey & Company. Scott began his career as a Research and Development Engineer at Adaptive Technologies and Athtec systems, two California-based technology start-ups focused on robot automation systems. He graduated from M.I.T. with a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering and an M.B.A. from the Sloan School of Management. Scott also holds a B.S. and M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of California, Davis. He serves on the boards of Acorn Systems Inc., Aelita Software Corp., eEye Digital Security, Finaccess International and ScriptLogic Corporation.
- Chief Executive Officer
- A seasoned and visionary leader, Leland sets the vision and strategy for Acorn and oversees its daily operations. He brings extensive experience in managing large organizations that deliver software solutions to corporate customers. Leland came to Acorn from BMC Software where he served as an Executive Officer and Vice President of Global Marketing. There, he was responsible for the worldwide marketing operations and grew the division to 275 employees, as it evolved from a mainframe product vendor to an enterprise software company. Prior to BMC, Leland worked for Oracle in various senior management positions, including Vice President of Product Marketing. He was also responsible for launching Oracle Energy, a multi-million dollar division focusing on the upstream sector of the energy industry. Leland sits on the board of Digital Consulting and Software Services and has served on several other software company boards. He received a B.A. in Economics from Princeton University.
Michael Rovner-
Michael Rovner joined Austin Ventures in September 2000. He is a stage agnostic investor with a broad range of experience in startup formation, corporate spinouts, and growth equity. In addition to helping lead the firm’s financial services initiative Michael focuses on financial technology, information and business services, and enterprise software. Michael has worked with companies such as: AlterPoint, BuildForge, Idera, Paymetric, Permeo Technologies and PreCash.
Prior to joining Austin Ventures, Michael led business development and mergers and acquisitions for Mission Critical Software, which went public in 1999 and later merged with NetIQ. Earlier in his career Michael served as a management consultant to FedEx Global Logistics and Electronic Commerce. Before this he held executive management positions with Stanford Technology Group (acquired by Informix) and Empart Technology (acquired by ARI Network Services), where he was a founder. Mr. Rovner received his BA from the University of California at Los Angeles.
- Chief Executive Officer
- A seasoned and visionary leader, Leland sets the vision and strategy for Acorn and oversees its daily operations. He brings extensive experience in managing large organizations that deliver software solutions to corporate customers. Leland came to Acorn from BMC Software where he served as an Executive Officer and Vice President of Global Marketing. There, he was responsible for the worldwide marketing operations and grew the division to 275 employees, as it evolved from a mainframe product vendor to an enterprise software company. Prior to BMC, Leland worked for Oracle in various senior management positions, including Vice President of Product Marketing. He was also responsible for launching Oracle Energy, a multi-million dollar division focusing on the upstream sector of the energy industry. Leland sits on the board of Digital Consulting and Software Services and has served on several other software company boards. He received a B.A. in Economics from Princeton University.
- President
- Alex has more than 20 years experience in information technology sales and marketing. At Acorn Systems, he is responsible for leading the sales, development, implementation services and marketing functions. He has overseen the company's largest clients including Charles Schwab, Deutsche Bank, Thermo Fischer, Lowe’s, Sysco Foods, Supervalu, First Data Resources, and Citigroup. Prior to joining Acorn, he served in several senior management positions with Scalable Software, BMC Software and Cybernetics Systems. While at BMC, he was responsible for leading four of the largest transactions in BMC's history, totaling $320M. He also held various sales and senior field management positions during a fourteen-year career with IBM, where he became one of IBM's first Professional Services Branch Managers. Alex received his B.B.A. in Management Information Systems from the University of New Mexico.
- Chief Strategy Officer
- With over 18 years of sales, business development, marketing, and management experience in F1000 and early stage companies, Chris is responsible for global marketing, alliances and corporate development. Previously, Chris served as Acorn’s Executive Vice President of Global Alliances and Business Development, where his team established and managed results with over 90 worldwide alliance partners including geographic reseller-distributors, consulting firms, and technology partners. Prior to joining Acorn, Chris was Vice President of Business Development for docHarbor, where he was one of the founders. Chris also served as Sr. Client Executive at Anacomp, Inc. where he was consistently recognized as a top sales performer with Fortune 500 clients, achieving sales of over $19M in a five-year period. Chris serves on the Board of the Southeastern Pennsylvania Chapter of The Make-A-Wish Foundation, and serves on the Advisory Board of Mesa LLC, a fast-casual Mexican restaurant group. Chris received a B.S.B.A. in marketing with a minor in finance from the University of Delaware.
- Executive Vice President Product Development
- Torsten brings over 13 years of commercial software product development experience to Acorn. He joined Acorn from BMC Software, where he was the Product Development Manager and architect for BMC's PATROL for Diagnostic Management suite. Other roles at BMC included serving as a member of an elite group that created new products incorporating advanced technologies. These advanced technologies included automated network configuration management, statistical analysis and data mining. Torsten was also a lead developer for BMC's PATROL DB database management products. Prior to BMC, he managed graphical database tools development at UniSQL . Torsten also has experience with compiler technology (at Ryan McFarland) and a reverse-engineering CASE tool while at Ten X Technology.
- Vice President of Marketing
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Kimberly Box, Vice President of Marketing, has held senior positions in software technology and other industries including telecommunications, healthcare, and architectural construction/design. With over 10 years of marketing experience in strategic planning, direction and execution, Kim is responsible for U.S. marketing management, which includes field marketing strategy and all facets of marketing communications. Kim received a Bachelor of Science degree with honors from the University of Texas and completed post-graduate work at the University of Houston. Kim currently serves on the Board of Directors of the Houston Children’s Chorus.
- Vice President Field Services
- With over 20 years of consulting and management experience, Jim has successfully demonstrated the ability to build and lead large technology teams for some of the world's leading software vendors. Jim is responsible formanaging all aspects of Acorn Systems' field services, including Professional Services, Pre-Sales Consulting, and Education. Before joining Acorn Systems, Jim served in a similar capacity with MicroStrategy, Inc. as the Central Region Vice President of Services. While with MicroStrategy, he was instrumental in the building of a standardized implementation methodology, the development of operational control systems, and best practices in the delivery of Professional Services. Prior to MicroStrategy, Jim spent a combined 15 years employed at Oracle Corporation and Information Builders, Inc. (IBI) in a variety of Senior Consulting Management positions. Jim received his B.S. from the University of Cincinnati in Industrial Management with a concentration in Operations Research.
- Vice President of Finance and Administration
- Lien T. Kingston, CPA, is responsible for the overall financial management of Acorn Systems, Inc. She has over 20 years of financial experience. Prior to joining Acorn Systems, Lien was VP, Finance/Co-Founder for a software service provider, where she managed the finance and administration departments from start-up to a company with 160+ employees. She was instrumental in raising over $40 million. Lien also served as Corporate Controller for a major physician practice management company. Earlier in her career she served as an Auditor with Price Waterhouse LLP and as the Director of SEC Reporting and Benefits for two publicly held hospital chains, helping to guide one of those companies through an IPO and continuing growth to a $1 billion firm.
- Vice President of Business Development
- Jerome Patterson has over 14 years of high-tech experience delivering strategic solutions to enterprise clients. His role at Acorn Systems involves oversight of strategic alliances and managing director of the Market Solutions Office, dedicated to maximizing the value of solutions to Acorn clients. Jerome has held senior management roles spanning sales, business development, solutions engineering, and delivery with organizations as varied as Andersen Consulting to small, privately held firms. Prior to Acorn, Jerome led sales, marketing, alliances, services, and support at Paymetric, Inc., during a period when the company was consistently at the top of the Fast Tech 50 for revenue growth, secured nearly 100 Fortune 1000 clients, and was an inaugural winner of the SAP Pinnacle Award. Jerome earned a Bachelor of Arts from Dartmouth College.
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- Acorn showed us that we were losing money on close to 70% of our orders... By incorporating
their quoting system, we now are profitable
- for the first time in 5 years.
- Dennis Floro, CEO
Wilson Mohr
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