Board of Directors
Alan Peyser (Chairman)
Mr. Peyser brings over 40 years of senior management experience to Aptela's team. He has founded, led and grown several successful business ventures, generating billions of dollars in revenue and shareholder value. An engineer by training, Mr. Peyser's career spans several industries, including aerospace and telecommunications. For 20 years, he was President and CEO of Cable & Wireless, creating a worldwide leader in long distance telephone service. He currently serves on various non-profit and corporate boards, actively continuing to build growing organizations.
Mr. Peyser has a BA from Dartmouth, an MS in Electrical Engineering from the Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth, and an LLB from Georgetown University.
Larry Barker
Larry Barker draws upon more than 25 years of broad leadership experience, with proven expertise in Sales & Marketing.
Prior to joining Aptela as As Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Barker served as Chief Executive Officer of Argent Networks Ltd, where he led all aspects of the company’s growth. Previously, Mr. Barker served as Chairman & Chief Executive Officer of Visual Networks, President of the Software Division at ADC Telecommunications, and President of the Telecommunications Software Division at CSC.
Mr. Barker holds a BS degree in business administration and speech communications from Augustana College, Rock Island, Illinois, where he is a Trustee. Mr Barker also serves on the Board of Directors for Telular, Inc. and Interlink Electronics.
Howard Freidman
Mr. Freidman co-founded Aptela and served as CEO through 2007, guiding it to a leadership position in hosted next generation business communications. Aptela was founded based on innovative web-based voice application software developed by e-cerv, which provided hosted CRM and fulfillment services; Mr. Freidman was co-founder and President. Previously, he held several executive positions including Vice President of Sales for Proxicom where he played a key role in establishing it as a recognized top 5 Internet development firm. His prior experience includes managing Federal sales and operations for a major DBMS software vendor and running sales and marketing for a Federally focused system integrator.
Mr. Freidman has a BBA in Information Technology Management from George Washington University.
Harry Gruner
Mr. Gruner co-founded JMI in 1992 and is based in Baltimore, Maryland. Mr. Gruner is currently a Director of Appriss, Inc., Aptela, Inc., Autotask Corporation, Control Point Solutions, Inc., Courion Corporation, Intellitactics, Inc. and PROS Holdings, Inc. and oversees JMI's investment in CyberTech Systems and Software, Inc. His past JMI investment experience includes Corliant, Inc., Financial Alliance, Inc., Jackson Hewitt Tax Service, Inc., META Group, Inc., Optika Imaging Systems, Inc., Transaction Systems Architects, Inc. and Transcentive, Inc. Additionally, Mr. Gruner was a Director of Hyperion Software Corporation.
Prior to co-founding the Firm in 1992, Mr. Gruner was a Principal in the Technology Group at Alex. Brown. Prior to joining Alex. Brown, he worked in marketing at Sigma Design, Inc. and in investment banking in the Technology Group of Blyth Eastman PaineWebber, Inc.
Mr. Gruner graduated from Yale University and the Harvard Business School.
Eric Pulaski
Eric J. Pulaski is the founder and CEO of Lightbulb Technology Partners Inc. based in Houston, Texas. Before starting Lightbulb Technology Partners, Eric founded BindView Corporation in May of 1990 and served as the company’s Chairman and CEO through a successful IPO in 1998 and, ultimately, the sale of the company to Symantec Corporation in January of 2006. BindView was a world-wide leader in multiple segments of the systems management, security management, and compliance management markets – and also an innovator in offshore software product development. BindView was one of the first companies to bring award-winning, enterprise software products to market that were developed using a wholly-owned subsidiary in India to perform full-lifecycle product development in 2000.
Prior to forming BindView, Eric was employed as director of the Advanced Services Division of Network Resources, Inc., a Houston-based systems integration firm. Eric holds a Bachelors of Arts degree in Humanities from the University of Texas at Austin. He has over twenty years experience with custom software development and systems integration, over fifteen years experience in the development of systems management and security software for distributed networks, and over five years experience with full-lifecycle, offshore product development.
Brad Woloson
Mr. Woloson joined JMI in 1994 and is based in Baltimore, Maryland. Mr. Woloson is currently Director of Apparent Networks, Inc., Aptela, Inc., Axeda Corporation, Click Tactics, Inc., Eloqua Corporation, Empathica, Inc., Harmony Information Systems, Inc., Managed Objects Solutions, Inc., Panorama Software, Ltd. and Unica Corporation. Mr. Woloson's past JMI investment experience includes Astrum Software Corporation, NEON Systems, Inc., Network Intelligence Corporation, Primax Recoveries, Inc., Qiave Corporation and Transcentive, Inc.
Prior to joining the Firm in 1994, Mr. Woloson was a Financial Analyst in the Technology Group at Alex. Brown. Prior to Alex. Brown, Mr. Woloson was a Fixed Income Analyst at Kidder Peabody International, Inc. in London.
Mr. Woloson graduated from Harvard University.