IMPROVING - Key Persons

Amber Robinson serves as Corporate Counsel to Improving. She provides a broad range of legal advice and business counsel to all Improving enterprises as well as ensures regulatory compliance. In her role, she is responsible for overseeing any outside legal teams, and provides strategic insight to senior leadership. Additionally, Amber works closely with the transaction team at Improving to continue to facilitate Improving's approach to rapid growth. Previously, Amber began her career in corporate and civil litigation, with a focus on breach of contract disputes. She found that her true passion was not with litigation, but rather to proactively guide her clients toward more efficient solutions. She graduated with a B.A. from the University of Texas ("Hook ‘Em"!) and went on to obtain her J.D. from Southern Methodist University. It is her priority to utilize her creativity, former courtroom experience and judgment to consciously provide counsel to all Improvers while maintaining a focus on our guiding principles. Amber is active in community outreach and has a passion for charitable causes. She has served on many local non-profit boards and enjoys donating her time. When "off the clock" she is an avid traveler sometimes visiting her native country of Puerto Rico with family and friends.

Amy Widicus

Job Titles:

Member of the Chicago Executive Team
Vice President of Consulting

Andrew Rauch - VP of Sales

Job Titles:

Vice President of Sales

Andy Haynssen - CTO

Job Titles:

Member of the Minneapolis Executive Team
Technical Director

Anurag Kumar

Job Titles:

Managing Director and President of the Improving Nearshore
Managing Director, Nearshore, President, Improving Austin

Anurag Kumar presides as the Managing Director and President of the Improving Nearshore offices. His primary focus areas are to ensure delivery excellence within the Guadalajara, Aguascalientes and Austin offices, drive and nurture strategic growth, and attract and engage recruits and employees for a top company culture. Anurag is passionate about providing leading edge software development services to companies looking to digitally transform their businesses, using a unique hybrid of onshore and nearshore delivery model. Prior to Improving, Anurag was the Co-Founder and CEO of iTexico, established in 2010, which was acquired by Improving in 2020. He has been a Founder, President and CEO of several other US and international firms over the years as well as holding a variety of leadership development/coaching CEO roles for the Austin Business Board and Vistage, a global business coaching and advising firm. Anurag holds an MBA from Michigan State University, an M.S. Computer Engineering from Wayne State University, and a B. Tech Electrical Engineering from IIT Delhi. He is a Charter Member, Founder and former President of TIE Austin and an active executive mentor and angel investor. He currently is a board member of the Austin Chapter of Conscious Capitalism. Anurag has been married to Vandana, a former IBM executive and fellow distinguished alum of Wayne State, for over 34 years. They have two adult children

Arseny Kostenko

Job Titles:

Member of the Vancouver Executive Team
Software Development Manager

Asrai Porter

Job Titles:

Member of the Vancouver Executive Team
Vice President of People

Ben Kennedy

Job Titles:

Member of the Dallas Executive Team
Director of Consulting

Bill Curry

Job Titles:

Member of the Cleveland Executive Team
Vice President of Consulting

Blake McMillan

Job Titles:

Director

Blake McMillan is a Trainer, Scrum Master, Agile Coach, and Consultant. With nearly 25 years of experience in the tech industry, Blake believes that we can make a positive impact on people's lives and the organizations they work in when they experience the benefits of working on a self-organized, cross-functional team that delivers value frequently and learns to strive for continuous improvement.

Brian Dixon

Job Titles:

Member of the Dallas Executive Team
Vice President of Sales Support and Operations

Brian Rue

Job Titles:

Member of the Minneapolis Executive Team
General Manager, Improving Minneapolis

Brian van der Voort

Job Titles:

Member of the Calgary Executive Team
Vice President of Consulting

Bryan Crawford

Job Titles:

Member of the Dallas Executive Team
Vice President of Consulting

Cait Magee

Job Titles:

Member of the Minneapolis Executive Team
Director of Recruiting

Carlos Cevallos

Job Titles:

Global Delivery

Chris Glass - VP

Job Titles:

Vice President

Chris Lee - CTO

Job Titles:

Member of the Cleveland Executive Team
Technical Director

Chris Spurgat - CIO

Job Titles:

Chief Information Officer

Chris Steele

Job Titles:

Member of the Columbus Executive Team
Director of Consulting

Clara Sponitz

Job Titles:

Vice President, Centralized Recruiting

Claudio Lassala - CTO

Job Titles:

Technical Director

Craig Stuntz

Job Titles:

Director
Member of the Columbus Executive Team

Curtis Hite - CEO

Job Titles:

Chief Executive Officer

Danny Testa - CTO

Job Titles:

Member of the Minneapolis Executive Team
Technical Director

Dave Kichler - CTO

Job Titles:

Member of the Ottawa Executive Team
Technical Director

Dave Reines

Job Titles:

Member of the Minneapolis Executive Team
Vice President of Technology

David Belcher

Job Titles:

Member of the Dallas Executive Team
Vice President of Consulting

David O'Hara

Job Titles:

President of Improving Dallas

David Schwartz

Job Titles:

Member of the Dallas Executive Team
Director of Consulting

David Sidwell

Job Titles:

President, Improving Chicago

We have a great team that has fun together while solving challenging problems with our clients.

David Vibbert - CTO

Job Titles:

Member of the Dallas Executive Team
Technical Director

Devlin Liles - President

Job Titles:

President
Chief Consulting Officer, President, Improving Houston

Devlin Liles, Chief Consulting Officer and President of Improving - Houston is a business leader with a deep technical background. His passion and expertise are around leveraging technology to solve the problems facing business. Devlin has an entrepreneurial mindset and has been a core contributor to growth and success of Improving for the past 12 years. Since 2007, he has been presenting and teaching classes on business practices, building company culture, software development, and deep technical topics for large and small audiences around the world, including user groups, conferences, and community events. Devlin's technical career gained him recognition from some of the top technology companies in the world and was awarded the prestigious Microsoft MVP Award for 6 consecutive years. The MVP award is only awarded to 3,000 technologists' annually. In addition, he is the co-author, along with his good friend and fellow Improver Tim Rayburn of Entity Framework 4.1 Experts Cookbook. After shifting to a business-centric focus, Devlin has been awarded multiple awards, including the Vistage Leadership Award, finalist for the CEO Impact award, and one of the Most Admired CEOs in Houston in 2019. His organization has won over 100 best places to work awards across North America and been #1 in Houston 4 years consecutively. When he is not in front of a crowd, at his company, or behind a computer Devlin is an avid soccer player and hobbyist gamer.

Diana Stevens - VP of Sales

Job Titles:

Member of the Dallas Executive Team
Vice President of Sales

Don McGreal

Job Titles:

Vice President of Learning Solutions

Don McGreal is Vice President of Learning Solutions at Improving, and has been with Improving since 2007. He is a passionate hands-on agile consultant, coach and instructor, and is a Scrum.org Professional Scrum Trainer who has authored and taught classes for thousands of professionals around the globe. Don is a co-author of the best-selling book : 'The Professional Product Owner: Leveraging Scrum as a Competitive Advantage', and is a co-founder of TastyCupcakes.org, along with fellow Improver, Michael McCullough. Their educational site is a comprehensive collection of games and exercises for accelerating the adoption of agile principles.

Donald Sawyer - CTO

Job Titles:

Member of the Minneapolis Executive Team
Technical Director

Ehren Seim

Job Titles:

President of Improving Minnesota

Elen Ghulam

Job Titles:

Member of the Vancouver Executive Team
Software Development Manager

Ellen Lapinski - CMO

Job Titles:

Director of Marketing
Member of the Minneapolis Executive Team

Emily Stinger - CTO

Job Titles:

Member of the Omaha Executive Team
Technical Director

Eric Siebeneich

Job Titles:

Member of the Houston Executive Team

Eric Sowell

Job Titles:

Member of the Dallas Executive Team
Director of Consulting

Erik Boemanns

Job Titles:

Member of the Atlanta Executive Team

Esteban Cortes

Job Titles:

Talent Management

Gabriela Garza-Ramos

Job Titles:

Member of the Dallas Executive Team
Vice President of Recruiting

Gary Bergmann

Job Titles:

Member of the Calgary Executive Team
Director of Consulting

Guillermo Ortega

Job Titles:

President of Mexico Operations

Jack Gulas

Job Titles:

Managing Director, Canada, President, Improving Ottawa

Jack Gulas has more than 20 years of high-tech experience which started at Sun Microsystems. Before Improving, Jack founded and built several startups including YoppWorks which was acquired by Improving, BoldRadius an open source application development firm which was acquired by Lightbend, billie a workplace solution SaaS company which was acquired by Tango Analytics, and Eclipsys Solutions, an Oracle professional services partner. Jack's recipe for success is a strong understanding of the market, knowing when to make a bet and to build an amazing team to execute on the plan. Jack graduated from Franciscan University with a BS in Chemistry and Marketing and holds an MBA from the University of Ottawa.

Jacquie Bickel - VP

Job Titles:

Member of the Columbus Executive Team
Vice President

Jake Stevenson - VP

Job Titles:

Member of the Houston Executive Team
Vice President

James Hopkins

Job Titles:

Member of the Cleveland Executive Team
Vice President of Consulting

James Lovell

Job Titles:

Member of the Ottawa Executive Team
Business Architecture Director

Jared LaRue

Job Titles:

Member of the Vancouver Executive Team
Software Development Manager

Jared Sims

Job Titles:

Director

Jason Russell - CTO

Job Titles:

Technical Director

Jason W. Taylor

Job Titles:

President, CodeLaunch

Jay Alexander

Job Titles:

Member of the Atlanta Executive Team
EVP of Sales and Operations

Jay Bailey

Job Titles:

President of Improving Atlanta
President of the Atlanta

Jay Bailey serves as President of the Atlanta enterprise. His primary focus is general management in the areas of Sales, Culture, Recruiting, and Delivery. As a transformative leader, Jay excels at helping those around him achieve their goals and motivates them to perform at the peak of their abilities. Jay previously served as Vice President of Consulting and Director of Sales and Delivery with Improving. He has over 12 years of consulting experience and over 20 years in the IT industry. Jay is an active member of his community, serving in a variety of roles mentoring and empowering youth. He often coaches competitive youth athletics. Jay is a graduate of Wofford College with a B.S. in Math and Physics and an M.S. in Information Systems from Kennesaw State University. His free time is spent enjoying the company of his wife and three children.