CO-FOUNDER
Andrew has spent over 10 years on the front lines of IT procurement. After seeing first hand the ways that both purchasing organizations and vendors experience frustration with RFPs, he became convinced that a SaaS tool to transform the way organizations work with these documents was long overdue. Andrew’s root are in the higher education community, where he worked on technology strategy at UC Berkeley (his alma mater) and managed the cloud service program at Internet2. More recently he led go-to-market for Eduction and Healthcare at Box as well as serving as head of industry marketing at Splunk.
CO-FOUNDER
Mark’s interest in creating great software for higher education grows out of a decade of IT service development work at the University of Illinois. He got to know co-founder Andrew Keating through their shared work on collaborative purchasing for cloud services. One afternoon over coffee at Philz in San Francisco, Andrew said to Mark, “Isn’t it crazy that many organizations still use paper for enterprise purchasing? I bet we could create software that would make RFPs a LOT less painful!” Mark agreed, and Popcorn RFP was born.
If you’re interested in learning more about Mark’s professional background or technical skills, visit his consulting website at http://skylig.ht.
Co-Founder
Jim was, for 30+ years, the co-founder and Managing Partner of the Systems Consulting Consortium, Inc., one of Silicon Valley’s most highly regarded boutique technology management consulting firms. For over half of that period, he served concurrently as the Executive Director of the Fisher Center for the Management of Technology at the Haas School of Business at UC-Berkeley.
Marketing Lead
Sarah is an experienced writer, content developer, and consultant for a diverse group of academic, corporate, and legal clients. Prior to joining Popcorn RFP, she spent a decade in higher education, where she came to appreciate the need for smooth administrative processes and up-to-date technology. At Popcorn RFP she wears many hats, including product marketing, copywriting and documentation, and driving marketing and user engagement.
Founding Adviser
Shelton Waggener is president and founder of The CIO Perspective, Inc, a collaborative consulting firm based in the Silicon Valley specializing in supporting innovation and transformation for public and private organizations. He currently serves on the boards of several advanced technology startup companies and previously served as Senior Vice President of Internet2, the US national research and education network. A recognized national leader in Cloud Services, Identity, Access, Security and Trust frameworks, prior to joining Internet2 Shel served as Associate Vice Chancellor and Chief Information Officer at the University of California, Berkeley. Shel also works actively with not-for-profit organizations supporting the collaboration and advancement of technology in public and private sectors.
Adviser
As Principal at Yazdi and Associates, LLC. and founder of the Research and Education Cloud Consortium, Khalil bring over 25 years of experience in higher education as a faculty member, an academic administrator, chief information officer and technology business development to the providing of advice and consulting to institutions and companies providing technology services to the education vertical. A seasoned and entrepreneurial executive with a history of success at the campus, system, and national levels, Khalil is able to leverage a broad network of academic and industry professionals built over three decades to connect people and organizations to mutual advantage.
