About Us
Our Executive Team
Meet the leadership team at Total Expert. With a combination of deep industry experience in financial services and leading enterprise software companies, this team drives the strategic initiatives at Total Expert as we continue building a category leading software company 100% focused on lending and financial services.
Leadership
Joe Welu
Founder & CEO
Joe Welu is the founder and CEO of Total Expert, the fintech software leader that launched the first customer experience platform purpose-built for modern financial institutions. Since 2015, Joe has led Total Expert’s vision, culture, and growth to nearly 300 employees today. The company powers CRM, marketing, and customer engagement for more than 150 companies—from leading community banks and credit unions, to 3 of the nation’s top 10 banks, and 9 of the top 15 mortgage lenders. Total Expert’s growth has skyrocketed since its inception; in 2020 alone, it ranked No. 17 in the Inc. 5000 Most Successful Companies in the Midwest, No. 3 in the Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal’s 2020 Fast 50, and No. 82 in the Deloitte Tech Fast 500.
Sue Woodard
Chief Customer Officer
Sue Woodard brings nearly 30 years of financial services and mortgage industry experience, strategic vision and leadership to her role as Chief Customer Officer – where her focus is on helping customers achieve greater productivity and long-term success. Sue started her career at the ground level, became a top producer, then leveraged her knowledge to become a highly acclaimed industry speaker, subject matter expert and technology executive. In addition to having hosted a successful financial radio program and making guest appearances on CNBC, Sue has been awarded numerous industry honors, including the NMP Most Powerful Women in Mortgage Banking, the MPA HOT 100 list, the Housing Wire Vanguard Award, and the NMP Most Innovative Award. She also serves on the board of HOPE4Youth, a local non-profit working to end youth homelessness.
Charles Wyatt
Chief Financial Officer
Charles Wyatt joined in February 2018 and serves as the company’s Chief Financial Officer, bringing over 15 years of progressive Finance and Accounting experience. Directly prior to joining Total Expert, Charles served as the Chief Financial Officer of the nation’s largest third-party property manager of single family homes. Before that, he was the Vice President of Finance at Code42, a leading SaaS company focused on endpoint backup and security. Charles also held a senior finance position at ABILITY Network, one of the nation’s leading healthcare IT companies. Charles holds a BA from California State University, and an MBA from Loyola University Chicago.
Anna Klombies
Chief People Officer
Anna Klombies joined Total Expert in 2020 and serves as the Chief People Officer. She believes in fostering a mission-driven culture of collaboration and excellence to drive employee engagement, business strategy and stakeholder value. Leadership roles in previous companies (CBS MarketWatch, Dow Jones, Sports Engine) provided significant contributions in scalable high growth, multiple acquisitions, award winning culture and successful exits. She graduated summa cum laude from Concordia, a private Lutheran university in St. Paul, MN. She currently serves as the Board Chair at the University of Minnesota Masonic Children’s Hospital, Presidential Advisor at Concordia University and proudly serves on the board of several up and coming Twin Cities tech companies.
Matt Tippets
Chief Product Officer
Matt Tippets brings decades of director-level product leadership to the Total Expert team. As chief product officer, he leads product strategy, product management, design, product marketing, and program management. Prior to joining in 2020, Matt drove the development and launch of several products for leading enterprise cloud-based software companies (Salesforce, ExactTarget, Parature). He believes customer-driven strategies are key to the success of software-as-a-service companies and brings that focus on tangible value to Total Expert customers and their businesses.
Rebecca Martin
Chief Marketing Officer
As chief marketing officer at Total Expert, Rebecca is responsible for lead generation and pipeline marketing, content strategy, customer marketing, and corporate communications. An unflappable veteran of Minnesota’s emerging technology industry with 20 years of experience, Rebecca has been entrusted with millions in venture capital and the formidable task of building lead funnels, and differentiating and positioning entrepreneurial brands. Most recently, she was CMO at Calabrio, a leading customer experience intelligence company, where she fueled a content-driven lead-gen strategy, customer engagement/advocacy, and communications initiatives. Prior, Rebecca held marketing leadership roles at Code42, Trissential, Stellent, and Oracle. She serves on the board of directors for the Minnesota Technology Association and holds a B.A. degree from the University of Wisconsin.
Ilene Vogt
Chief Revenue Officer
Ilene comes to Total Expert with over three decades of marketing, sales, and customer-focused leadership experience. Ilene has been a force in fintech, driving customer digital transformation, aligning internal teams toward revenue goals, and optimizing business processes. Ilene brings to Total Expert a proven record of elevating customer relationship and engagement strategies to drive and grow revenue streams. Previously, she served as Chief Revenue Officer at Integrate.ai, an AI-powered consumer intelligence company, and held leadership roles at OneSpan, Accelrys, and Actuate.
Jeff Walton
President
Jeff Walton brings over 30 years experience in the banking and mortgage industries to Total Expert’s leadership team. Prior to Total Expert, Walton led several national platforms, most notably being president and CEO of Bear Stearns Residential Mortgage, and president and CEO of National Residential Mortgage. His initial interactions with Total Expert was as one of the first clients, where he used earlier versions of the product across his sales teams. Prior to the official launch of the enterprise offering, Walton announced his role as the president of Total Expert, where he focuses on growth initiatives across all solutions.
Heide Antholz
SVP of Professional Services
Heide Antholz brings 15+ years of innovative process, program management and professional services leadership to the Total Expert team. Prior to joining Total Expert, Heide was a key member of the leadership team with Maximum Solutions, a software start-up, building the business and providing support through a successful exit event. Before that Heide was the Vice President of Delivery Services at AMT Consumer Services, Inc.
Board of Directors
Joe Floyd
General Partner, Emergence
A General Partner at Emergence and a Kauffman Fellow, Joe’s expertise in building cloud startups has evolved from over fifteen years of advising and investing in rocketship startups like SalesLoft, project44, Mya, and more. “We strive to be a founder’s most important partner every day.” Before joining Emergence, Joe was a Senior Associate in American Capital’s technology group where he focused on investing in fast-growing internet and software companies. While at American Capital, he was involved with the team’s investments in HomeAway (Nasdaq: AWAY) and PeopleMedia (acquired by IAC). Joe was also an Associate at McKinsey & Co. in their corporate finance practice and a technology investment banker before that. Joe earned an MBA from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. While at Wharton, Joe won first place at the International Venture Capital Investment Competition. He is also a proud Cal Bear with a BA in Economics and BS in Business Administration from the University of California, Berkeley.
Jeff Hinck
General Partner, Rally Ventures
Jeff has been a venture capitalist since 1997 and has focused on early-stage business technology companies throughout his career. In 2012 Jeff co-founded Rally Ventures in partnership with Charles Beeler. As General Partners, Jeff and Charles are responsible for the firm’s overall direction in all investment and operational activities. Prior to co-founding Rally, Jeff was a General Partner with El Dorado Ventures since 2008. He co-founded Vesbridge Partners with Rally Venture Partner Zenas Hutcheson in 2004 and he started his venture career at Crescendo Ventures in 1997. Jeff began his professional career as an Engagement Manager and Consultant at McKinsey & Company. Jeff was the CEO of Sistina Software and has served as a Director on a number of company boards over his career. He has twice been the President of the Minnesota Venture Capital Association (MVCA).
Patrick Meenan
Partner, Arthur Ventures
Patrick has been a Partner at Arthur Ventures since 2014 having joined the firm as a Director in 2012. Patrick joined Arthur Ventures from Microsoft where he spent time on both the Corporate Development team executing acquisitions and investments as well as the Operations team for the Online Services Division executing business development transactions and strategic partnerships. Prior to Microsoft Patrick was on the Technology Investment Banking team at Piper Jaffray with a focus on software and services. Patrick graduated Magna Cum Laude from Miami University with a degree in Finance.
Justin Kaufenberg
Partner, Rally Ventures
Justin Kaufenberg has more than 18 years of strategic operating experience in high-technology, including deep expertise in Saas, payments, and network effect businesses. He was a Rally Technology Partner since 2015 and in October 2019 he joined the firm as Partner. Justin is responsible for sourcing and executing new investments as well as working with existing Rally Ventures’ portfolio companies to drive growth. Prior to joining Rally, Justin was CEO and co-founders of SportsEngine, one of Rally Ventures early portfolio companies. SportsEngine defined the SRM (Sport Relationship Management) market and under Justin’s lead, grew to provide its CRM and Payments platform to more than 36,000 paying customers and more than 35 million monthly unique platform users, while growing to more than 500 full time employees before it was sold to Comcast/NBCUniversal in 2016. Prior to SportsEngine, Justin was the co-founder of Third North Creative which developed CMS and E-Commerce technologies.
Joe Welu
Founder & CEO
Joe Welu is the founder and CEO of Total Expert, the fintech software leader that launched the first customer experience platform purpose-built for modern financial institutions. Since 2015, Joe has led Total Expert’s vision, culture, and growth to nearly 300 employees today. The company powers CRM, marketing, and customer engagement for more than 150 companies—from leading community banks and credit unions, to 3 of the nation’s top 10 banks, and 9 of the top 15 mortgage lenders. Total Expert’s growth has skyrocketed since its inception; in 2020 alone, it ranked No. 17 in the Inc. 5000 Most Successful Companies in the Midwest, No. 3 in the Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal’s 2020 Fast 50, and No. 82 in the Deloitte Tech Fast 500.
Simon Chong
Co-founder and Managing Partner, Georgian Partners
Simon Chong is the co-founder and Managing Partner at Georgian Partners, a growth equity firm that invests in SaaS companies leveraging applied artificial intelligence, conversational AI, and privacy, security, and trust. Prior to Georgian Partners, Simon was Global Director of Sales, Information Solutions within the IBM Software Group, via the acquisition of DWL, where he ran multiple acquired and organic global software businesses. At DWL he was responsible for global field operations and achieving revenue leadership in the master data management (MDM) space. Simon serves on the board and as an observer on a number of enterprise SaaS companies including Total Expert, Xanadu, Fiix, Bidgely, Glooko, Vision Critical, ScribbleLive, Freshbooks, Influitive and eSentire. He holds an MBA from Henley Business School (University of Reading) in the United Kingdom.