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Meet the FreshBooks Team


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Mike McDerment - President, CEO (Co-Founder)
Joe Sawada - CTO, Chief Architect (Co-Founder)
Levi Cooperman - VP of Operations
Mitch Solway - VP of Marketing
Corey Reid - Chief Cat Herder
Michal Berman - Strategic Initiatives
Jeff Sarmiento - Web Designer
Daniel Tsang - Product Manager
Ben Vinegar - Web Developer
Sunir Shah - Chief Handshaker
Justin Giancola - Web Developer
Myleen Bacarra - Program Manager
Saul Colt - Head of Magic
Rich Lafferty - Network Operations Manager
Taavi Burns - Web Developer
Jaco Joubert - Web Designer
Zoë Klimack - Resourceful and Humane
Gregg Tilston - Partnership Marketing Manager
Grace Antonio - Support Specialist
Mike Gauthier - Web Developer
Laleh Saleki - Support Specialist
Randy Pante - Support Specialist
 
Mike McDerment

Mike McDerment

CEO (Co-Founder)

An entrepreneur with two successful start-ups to his name, Mike talks faster than he writes and can deftly juggle and keep his eye on hundreds of balls at one time. Mike is a founder of the mesh conference, lecturer at Humber College and a frequent speaker at Internet conferences. See what Mike's up to by reading his blog or catching his latest Twitter updates. Mike loves his work, and would rather be outdoors than inside.

Joe Sawada

Joe Sawada

CTO, Chief Architect (Co-Founder)

In addition to being a co-founder of FreshBooks, Joe is also a tenured professor at an Ontario University. In 2000 Joe received his PhD in Computer Science from the University of Victoria, specializing in the development of efficient algorithms. Following his degree, he spent two years on a prestigious NSERC post-doc visiting Charles University (Czech Republic), the University of Sydney (Australia), and the University of Toronto (Canada). Joe's most important role at FB: making sure the beer fridge remains well stocked.

Levi Cooperman

Levi Cooperman

VP of Operations

Levi is a professional engineer with a BEng from the University of Victoria. Before joining FreshBooks, Levi managed projects at Apex Systems Integrators Inc., where his clients included Canadian Tire, Nestlé, and Parmalat. Levi is a systems integration specialist and has led multi-platform integrations with technologies such as: Oracle, SAP, .NET, Windows CE and Pocket PC. An ultimate frisbee, volleyball and basketball player, we suspect he may have stuffed toy dinosaurs hidden in his condo, such is the level of his support for the Toronto Raptors.

Mitch Solway

Mitch Solway

VP of Marketing

Mitch is a marketing guy that loves to grow companies, build killer teams and connect with customers. He started out at P&G before heading to Lavalife as their first marketing hire - he stayed for nine years, the last two as their VP Marketing. Mitch makes marketing and business sing. When he is not thinking about work Mitch spends time building his collection of magic books, playing Hold'em and thinking about work (he can't help it).

Corey Reid

Corey Reid

Chief Cat Herder

Cat Herding requires a wide range of skills -- Corey brings years of experience and a skillset that pretty much defines "wide-ranging": an instructor of Japanese swordsmanship who designs tabletop role-playing games and writes reasonably competent ottava rima, he remains bemused that an English degree has been useful in this industry. He writes about software development management, swordfighting and games on his website, and at FreshBooks, is expanding the hotshot development team to meet the challenges of the company's rapid growth. He has pretty crazy ideas on what makes a great software team, mostly involving "Making Sure Developers Are Insanely Happy".

Michal Berman

Michal Berman

Strategic Initiatives

Mic has over fifteen years broad-based experience in working with technology focused companies and has held senior marketing, business development, product or general management roles at Yahoo, Mozilla, CGI, itemus, in her own company - B-Innovative, Inc - and spent her earlier career at McKinsey & Company. Mic actively advises FreshBooks on its strategic, marketing and operations initiatives. When she's not doing that - or working with the handful of other start-ups in her roster - she's been known to sneak in games of backyard badminton whenever weather permits.

Jeff Sarmiento

Jeff Sarmiento

Web Designer

Jeff is a consummate perfectionist and ace designer. He was snapped up after finishing a Web Design and Internet Software Programming degree at Humber College. Jeff-fun includes creating awesome web sites, hockey and snowboarding, where he will not hesitate to take on any double black diamond he comes across. Jeff is also obsessed with washing his car (some say his left arm is twice the size of his right arm because of this). See what Jeff's up to by visiting his website or checking his twitter updates.

Daniel Tsang

Daniel Tsang

Product Manager

Daniel supports the FreshBooks team by coordinating customer feedback and marketing initiatives into each release. Daniel graduated from the U of T's Computer Science program and also worked for Biz-zone Internet Group Inc. before joining the FreshBooks team. In his spare time, Daniel likes to tweak his computer, work on his tennis game, and hit the local Cineplex for the latest blockbusters.

Ben Vinegar

Ben Vinegar

Web Developer

Ben is one of FreshBooks' full-time web developers. He is a graduate of U of T's Computer Science program, whose software development experience includes work for Epson Canada and Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts. Outside of work, Ben enjoys playing Floorball, writing to his personal blog, and rooting for the home team - whether it's the Raptors, Jays or Leafs, in that order.

Sunir Shah

Sunir Shah

Chief Handshaker

Sunir has led many lives. He recently shed his software development background by attaining a Masters in Knowledge Media Design at the University of Toronto. He is most well-known for building up the wiki community through MeatballWiki, including his most recent project, BibWiki. He hails from Deep River, Ontario, and consequently he is an Ottawa Senators fan.

Justin Giancola

Justin Giancola

Web Developer

Justin is responsible for third-party integrations and a number of our backend systems. As our resident programmer-philosopher, Justin's hobbies include Ruby hacking, attending Lisp conferences, and wasting time.

Myleen Bacarra

Myleen Bacarra

Program Manager

Myleen has 7+ years experience in the internet and mobile industry and has held various roles in programming, product management and recruitment. She earned her Computer Science and Management Information Systems degree from Western Kentucky University. Myleen has deep appreciation for process design, customer-focused technology, anticipating and managing conflict and building momentum towards agreement. She is progressively getting into yoga and is also passionate about the Aikido way.

Saul Colt

Saul Colt

Head of Magic

Saul likes to build stuff, but since he isn't that handy he chooses to assist in growing great companies. As Zipcar Inc's first international employee, Saul launched the company's first foray into the Canadian market and was instrumental in getting the Toronto operation off the ground. Saul is an accomplished marketing professional, with more than a decade of diverse high-level experience and a respected publisher, having led his company SSS Comics to infamy, super-hero style. When Saul is not working he can be found watching TV or playing spin the bottle.

Rich Lafferty

Rich Lafferty

Network Operations Manager

Rich is our systems and network infrastructure guy, keeping the webservers and databases running smoothly. Rich has spent the past decade honing his skills with Web applications on open-source platforms, and recently moved with his wife from Ottawa to Toronto in order to get closer to the heart of Canada's Internet industry. In his free time, he blogs, plays the Irish flute, and throws rocks at houses.

Taavi Burns

Taavi Burns

Web Developer

Taavi is of two worlds: music and machine. So far, though, the machine has been winning the bread! After graduating in Computer Engineering from the UofA, he spent four years working as a systems C programmer. Needless to say, working at FreshBooks is a breath of Fresh Air! He hopes that it will give him an excuse to experiment with more new technologies than ever before. He also randomly bikes, cooks, does yoga...

Jaco Joubert

Jaco Joubert

Web Designer

Our own globe-trotter extraordinaire, Jaco's lived everywhere from the mean streets of Cape Town to the bustling markets of Kuala Lampur. Now in Toronto, he's part of the FreshBooks' award-winning design tandem, sketching up interfaces, marketing materials, and more. When he's not working, Jaco enjoys engaging in political and economic diatribes and meat-eating.

Zoe Klimack

Zoë Klimack

Resourceful and Humane

Resourceful, humane and armed with a degree in psychology, Zoë is in charge of keeping FreshBooks' unruly employees in check. She's also the first point of contact for potential new hires, so beware - she has the grammar police on speed dial. Off the clock, Zoë enjoys running in High Park with her fuzzy dog Hildegard, making noise (by playing piano, singing and strumming the guitar, in that order) and espousing the unbridled joys of vegetarianism.

Gregg Tilston

Gregg Tilston

Partnership Marketing Manager

Gregg brings all the essential elements of a recovering 1980’s hair-band keyboardist and 20+ years experience in technology sales and marketing to his role as Partner Marketing Manager at FreshBooks. The goal, as always, is to ensure that everyone is happy and everyone wins. When not kissing babies and shaking hands, Gregg can be found on the slopes, at the track, conquering the Grand Canyon (and fear of heights) or whipping up a burning pot of Vindaloo from scratch.

Grace Antonio

Grace Antonio

Support Specialist

Fresh out of the University of Waterloo, equipped with a math degree and boundless enthusiasm, Grace is our first FreshBooks employee dedicated entirely to helping our customers. I guess you could call her the 'invoice of reason'. When she isn’t answering your questions, you can usually find her playing outside, talking to strangers, playing for the Argonotes or making her co-workers groan with her witty one-liners. She’s game for anything and flies by the seat of her own pants because she knows life is short. After all, time flies like an arrow and fruit flies like a banana.

Mike Gauthier

Mike Gauthier

Web Developer

Mike has been a practicing geek all his life, but has only applied himself professionally for the past 10 years. He’s written applications for various environments including the desktop, the internet and mobile devices. Mike is a platform agnostic programmer: he’s worked in domains as diverse as banking and entertainment, and with a wide range of languages that includes C++ and PHP.

Laleh Saleki

Laleh Saleki

Support Specialist

Laleh is a recent U of T graduate who also spent a year in George Brown College. Her various degrees include Computer Science, Finance and Philosophy. Laleh is known for being able to make a great cup of coffee and is trying very hard to make sure her pet cat Jake, is well provided for. In addition to constantly singing, she enjoys playing the piano and reading.

Randy Pante

Randy Pante

Support Specialist

Randy is the freshest prince of the dedicated support team here at FreshBooks. He brings with him an interaction design degree and an eclectic mix of work experience from events coordination to quality assurance tester to first year university teacher. When his AirPort is not connected, Randy can usually be spotted at various live jazz clubs around town or flying during the weekends to dance congresses and exchanges. Randy loves hot jazz, performing air steps at breakneck speeds, and the art of improvisation.