Leadership Team
Edward V. Jennings, President and CEO
Ed Jennings leads the Copanion team as President and CEO. Ed has progressively emerged as a voice in the tax and accounting industry, specifically in the areas of tax document automation, scanning, and the paperless tax workflow. He has been featured as a content expert in The CPA Technology Advisor, Accounting Today, and USAToday. He was also awarded The CPA Technology Advisor's coveted 40 Under 40 award in 2009 and played an integral role in Copanion's back-to-back Technology Innovation Award wins in 2008 and 2009. He is also a featured speaker at events hosted by the AICPA.
Prior to his appointment as CEO, Ed served as Copanion's Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing. Before joining Copanion, Ed was Vice President of Marketing at PTC, where he was responsible for all communication vehicles and go-to-market programs in multiple vertical markets. He was previously General Manager at Into Networks, where he led the expansion of the company's technology into the financial services market. He has held senior positions at AT&T, Qwest Communications and Broderbund Software. A graduate of Boston College, Jennings holds an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.
Julie Pierce, Vice President of Engineering
As the Vice President of Engineering, Julie Pierce is responsible for the development and delivery of Copanion's innovative paperless workflow solutions and SaaS infrastructure. Prior to joining Copanion, Pierce served as Vice President of Product Development for Bottomline Technologies, a mid-sized public company that provides payment, invoice, and document automation solutions to corporations and financial institutions. She has also held executive and management level positions with other leading vendors including Polaroid Corporation, eVelocity, and Data Clearinghouse. Pierce holds a BS in Electrical Engineering from Merrimack College and a MS in Computer Engineering from the University of Massachusetts, Lowell.
Greg Ferguson, Director
Greg Ferguson is Executive Chairman of the Board of Directors of Empirix, Inc—the market leader in service quality assurance solutions for new IP communications. Most recently he served as CEO of Quallaby, a carrier-class network management software vendor that was acquired by Micromuse in 2005. Prior to Quallaby, Ferguson was CEO and co-founder of Cadia Networks, a networking hardware manufacturer that was acquired by Fore Corporation. He has also held senior management positions at Xyplex Corporation and Microcom, Inc. Ferguson holds a BS in Mechanical Engineering from Tufts University and an MBA from MIT's Sloan School of Management.
Bob Brennan, Director
Bob Brennan became president and chief executive officer of Iron Mountain in June 2008, after having been the company's president and chief operating officer since November 2005. Brennan joined Iron Mountain in 2004 through the acquisition of Connected Corporation, where he was CEO. Prior to Connected, Brennan was a general manager with Cisco; he also served as CEO of American Internet prior to its acquisition by Cisco. Earlier in his career, Brennan held a series of increasingly senior general management positions at MicroAmerica and Merisel, both leaders in the distribution of technology products. Brennan holds a bachelor's degree in psychology from Manhattan College.
Stephen Van Beaver, Director
Stephen Van Beaver is a general partner of Pilot House Ventures Group. Prior to joining Pilot House, Stephen was co-founder and Senior Vice President of Operations for Road Runner LLC. Stephen also held senior management roles with MediaOne, Continental Cablevision, AT&T and Shiva. He currently serves on numerous boards. He graduated from University of Hartford and holds an MBA from Southern New Hampshire University.
Jeffrey M. Hurst, Director
Jeffrey M. Hurst is a general partner and co-founder of Commonwealth Capital with over 20 years' venture capital and private equity experience. Companies for which he is a past or current director include American Internet Corp., NBX, Crossbeam Systems, Inc., Visible Assets Inc., Swissray, and Seahorse Inc. Before co-founding Commonwealth in 1995, Hurst was a senior vice president with GE Capital's Corporate Finance Group and a managing partner of Cox Partners, a private equity firm. He graduated from Duke University and holds an MBA from Tulane University.
Dr. Venu Govindaraju, Chief Technical Advisor
Copanion's technical direction is being set by Dr. Venu Govindaraju, Chief Technical Advisor. In a research career spanning over 20 years, he has made significant contributions to many areas of pattern recognition, such as document analysis and biometrics. Dr. Govindaraju's seminal work in handwriting recognition was at the core of the first handwritten address interpretation system used by the US Postal Service that now sorts over 18 billion envelopes every year. He is currently Professor of Computer Science and Engineering at the University at Buffalo. He graduated with high honors from the Indian Institute of Technology, and holds a PhD from the University at Buffalo.