Board & Advisors

John Leitner

Chief Executive Officer

Jon has worked for large companies as well as several startups where he helped grow and successfully sell some of those businesses. For most of his 28-year career he has managed and built sales and marketing organizations for companies including Interwoven, Fios and SpringCM. He has worked with boards of directors and early stage company CEOs to help them hone their go to market strategies. During his career, he has focused on accelerating revenue growth through efforts which included pioneering inside sales teams, partner relationships and thought leadership. He has led both direct and indirect sales channels. With a focus on creating customer intimacy while driving user adoption of those companies’ offerings. Jon holds a BS in Economics from the University of Rochester and lives in Massachusetts with his wife and four children.

Chuck Papageorgiou

Chuck Papageorgiou is a market-proven Executive Leader, Business Operator and Enterprise Technologist with over two decades of global business experience in leading organizational turnarounds, business transformation, M&A, and launching startups. Clients value Chuck for his vast experience, knowledge, and results-driven approach, as well as his ‘get it done’ mentality and passion for building strong teams, client relationships, and helping others succeed.

As an entrepreneur, Chuck has founded and launched multiple companies over the last twenty years, raising over $15M in startup capital. As a corporate executive and consultant, he has managed organizations ranging from five-person startups and spin-off divisions, to 10,000+ employee global operations. As a Sr. Advisor he has led or advised on global M&A and restructuring transactions worth over 9 billion dollars.

Chuck is a co-founder and the previous CEO of WorldWatch Plus–an AI-driven risk management company–and currently sits on the company’s Board of Directors. He is also a co-founder and current Managing Partner of Ideasphere Partners, LLC–an advisory firm that offers contract executive services and delivers expertise and hands-on leadership and execution support in: strategy development, operations streamlining, technology architecture and deployment, turnarounds, outsourcing, corporate alliances, and mergers and acquisitions. His clients include Private Equity and Venture Capital firms, and Corporations across the globe.

Waverly Deutsch

Clinical Professor of Entrepreneurship, Chicago Booth

Waverly Deutsch teaches Building the New Venture (a unique course on entrepreneurial execution), and is a full-time coach for the annual New Venture Challenge competition at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business since 2002. In 2015, Deutsch was honored with the Phoenix Faculty award for her contributions to the Booth student community beyond the classroom. Deutsch is an active angel investor and advisor to start ups including Stylisted, PrettyQuick (acquired by Groupon), InterApt, and SwingByte. She served on the board of directors for InContext Solutions, a leading 3D virtual store market research company from 2009 to 2011. She is an advisor to OCA Ventures, a leading technology VC in Chicago, and serves on the board of SmartBet Charities. In her year as managing director of NetFuel Ventures, an internet incubator, Deutsch helped raise seed capital and launch three technology companies before the firm merged with ARCH Development Partners. As executive vice president of marketing and strategy for internet exchange company fob.com, she increased their media visibility by 500 percent. She spent seven years with Forrester Research, helping to grow the company from a 20-person boutique market research firm to a publicly traded, global brand with a market cap of over $600 million and offices worldwide. Deutsch earned a bachelor’s degree in computer science from the University of Pittsburgh in 1985. She received a master’s degree in 1989 and a PhD in theater history in 1992 from Tufts University.