Leadership
Good things happen when you have a leader. With our management team, you will find a broad range of experience and education, ranging from board members to book writers and bachelor’s degrees to PhD’s. Among all, Baynote’s leadership team is an extremely important asset and testimony to the company’s success.
Bill Hustad
CEO and President
Bill Hustad
CEO and President
Bill is the CEO & President of Baynote, where he is responsible for the strategic vision of Baynote and worldwide operations. Bill has been with Baynote since its launch and has been a driving force in hundreds of successful eCommerce implementations. He has been instrumental in Baynote’s success; from a handful of beta customers to hundreds of top tier Brands across the globe. Most recently Bill served as Chief Customer Officer focused on global customer operations.
Bill is enthusiastically customer focused, bringing over 15 years of experience of driving the full product lifecycle, both in the US and Europe. Prior to Baynote, Bill was VP of Sales and Marketing at Nahava Inc., enabling success for customers like FedEx, TD Bank and Kaiser Permanente. Bill held executive positions at Interwoven (now HP) in Product Management, Consulting Services and Customer Care. Bill is proud to be a military veteran who was one of four hand-selected US Marines to directly serve the President of the United States. Bill studied architecture at the University of Arkansas.
Scott Brave, Ph.D
Chief Technology Officer
Scott Brave, Ph.D
Chief Technology Officer
Scott is a founder and CTO of Baynote, Inc. Prior to Baynote, he was a postdoctoral scholar at Stanford University and served as lab manager for the CHIMe (Communication between Humans and Interactive Media) Lab. Scott is an inventor of six patents and co-author of over 25 publications in the areas of human-computer interaction and artificial intelligence. Scott is also an Editor of the “International Journal of Human-Computer Studies” (Amsterdam: Elsevier) and co-author of “Wired for speech: How voice activates and advances the human-computer relationship” (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press). Scott received his Ph.D. in Human-Computer Interaction, and B.S. in Computer Systems Engineering from Stanford University, and his Master’s from the MIT Media Lab.
Kendra Borrego
Chief Financial Officer
Kendra Borrego
Chief Financial Officer
Kendra Borrego brings nearly 20 years finance and operations experience in the software and high tech industry to Baynote. Previously, Kendra was CFO at VoiceObjects, Inc., a private software company delivering dynamic self-service phone portals, where she provided global financial and operations leadership. Prior to VoiceObjects, Kendra joined the founding team at IMPAC Medical Systems, Inc., a medical software company, where she was instrumental in the growth of an early stage software start-up into a successful publicly listed company. As IMPAC’s CFO, she led very successful initial and secondary public offerings, closed several mergers and acquisitions, and raised venture capital funds. In addition, she has spoken at various conferences on the topics of best practices on conducting due diligence, exit strategies of software and IT companies and other public CFO issues. Ms. Borrego holds a B.S. in business administration from the University of Nevada, Reno and an M.B.A. from San Jose State University.
Dan Darnell
VP of Marketing and Product
Dan Darnell
VP of Marketing and Product
Dan is an experienced software industry marketer with a strong background in marketing automation, online optimization, and analytics. Prior to Baynote, Dan was the Director of Marketing for both Adchemy, a digital advertising technology company, and Interwoven Optimost, a multivariable testing and targeting platform, where he focused on product and company messaging, public relations, analyst relations and marketing programs. Before that, Dan was a Director of Product and Solutions marketing at Oracle and Siebel where he drove innovative projects for the marketing automation and analytics products. Dan holds an MBA from the Carnegie Mellon University and Bachelor’s degree in architectural engineering from the University of Colorado at Boulder.
Mike Weiss
VP of Sales
Mike Weiss
VP of Sales
Mike Weiss has over 15 years of success in the CX software space at both small and large organizations including companies like RightNow Technologies and IBM. He has helped launch and grow several small companies, including but not limited to, building out sales teams, orchestrating training programs and driving internal process and procedure. Most of his experience is primarily in SaaS customer experience space (ecommerce, CRM , customer service). Mike holds a Bachelor’s degree from California State University San Bernardino and is fluent in Spanish.
Board of Directors
Doug Merrit
Chairman of the Board of Directors, Baynote
Doug Merritt brings more than 25 years of software industry experience to his role as Chairman of the Board of Directors for Baynote. Previously, Doug was Chief Executive Officer at Baynote. He has worked with some of the most successful brands in the software industry and is uniquely positioned to combine his knowledge of what it takes to become a successful software service provider with his understanding of Baynote’s people, products and market sector. Doug has held multiple executive titles at SAP, most recently as EVP Global On Demand Applications. Previously, he lead PeopleSoft’s Human Capital Management (HCM) software division, reinvigorating it to a high growth entity within PeopleSoft. Prior to PeopleSoft, Doug was the founder and CEO of Icarian, an early pioneer in SaaS Human Capital Management. He held sales and marketing positions with Patrol Software, Powersoft and Oracle. Doug began his career as a systems consultant and developer at Accenture.
Dan Beldy
Managing Director, Steamboat (Disney) Ventures
Dan Beldy has spent the last 20 years in technology and finance as an entrepreneur and investor. Prior to Steamboat, Dan was a co-founder of Technorati, the world’s leading blog search service. He was also a co-founder of Plainview Capital, an innovative investment fund that leverages proprietary cash flow analytics. Earlier, Dan was a partner at Hummer Winblad Venture Partners. Dan was an officer and an F/A-18 jet instructor for the U.S. Navy. He received a BSCS with honors from the US Naval Academy, and an MBA in finance from The Wharton School.
John Hummer
Managing Partner, Hummer Winblad
John Hummer is a Managing Member of Hummer Winblad Venture Partners V. He has been a venture capitalist for over 20 years. After graduating from Princeton University, he was a first round draft pick in the NBA and played six years for the Buffalo Braves and Seattle Supersonics. After retiring from professional basketball, John completed an MBA from Stanford University and began his VC career. John’s prior investments include Octel, Wind River Systems, Powersoft, Extensity, and Global Center. He currently sits on the boards of Employease, Starmine, Baynote, and Success Metrics.
Jack Jia
Founder & Former CEO, Baynote
Jack Jia is a founder and former CEO of Baynote. He is currently a partner in GSR Ventures, a venture capital company investing in early to growth stage technology companies in China. Jack was formerly SVP & CTO of Interwoven Inc. with executive responsibilities in engineering, products, marketing, strategy and vision. Prior to Interwoven, he was a founder and CEO of V-max America. He led operating systems and applications development at SGI, Sun Microsystems, Stratus and NASA for over a decade. He is a frequent speaker at major conferences and has appeared on television programs in several countries. He is a contributing author in “XML Handbook, the 4th Edition”, “Online! The Book”, “Content Management Bible”, and writes regularly about key technology issues and trends. He is a board advisor for Santa Clara University, and the president of HYSTA, a premier non-profit organization for promoting entrepreneurship.
Tasha Seitz
General Partner, JK&B Capital
Tasha Seitz joined JK&B Capital in 1997 and has focused on the software sector, working with companies such as Interwoven, Andromedia and Synchrologic. Prior to joining JK&B, she was an IT industry analyst at Gartner Group advising Fortune 500 and Global 1000 clients. Tasha worked in the areas of Local Area Communications and Applications Development & Management before founding Gartner’s Multimedia service in 1993. While at Gartner, she advised on electronic publishing and led efforts to deliver research to Gartner’s clients in multimedia.
Scott Hilleboe
General Partner, Steamboat Ventures
Scott Hilleboe is a General Partner with Steamboat Ventures where he focuses on investments in digital media, consumer Internet, and enabling technologies. Prior to Steamboat, he was an investment professional with Hummer Winblad Venture Partners. He also worked at IBM, LaSalle Partners, Synopsys, and a number of early stage technology companies. Scott graduated Phi Beta Kappa and magna cum laude from the University of Washington, and has an MBA from Harvard Business School. His current investments include EdgeCast Networks, Elemental Technologies, FreeWheel, MediaOcean, Mobile Intelligence Solutions, and Photobucket. Scott's prior investments include Fastclick, Greystripe, Kyte, MerchantCircle, PopularMedia, and Quigo.