Leadership

Get to know the leaders driving our success and inspiring us to redefine what’s possible

Leadership

Meet our executive team

Financial services in our DNA. We’re led by a team of experts equipped with decades of industry experience combined with long-term strategic vision.

Joe Welu

Founder & CEO

Chad Gaydos

President

John Emerick

Chief Financial Officer

Tony Barbone

Chief Revenue Officer

Josh Jabs

Chief Technology Officer

Ilene Vogt

Chief Sales Officer

Dan Catinella

Chief Lending Officer

Heide Antholz

SVP, Professional Services

“Delivering an industry-leading platform doesn’t happen without an army of people behind the scenes. I couldn’t be prouder of the team we’ve built at Total Expert as we empower modern financial instructions to form deeper customer relationships.”

Joe Welu
Founder & CEO, Total Expert

Board of directors

Total Expert is backed by a panel of experts empowering us to achieve our mission and ensuring we’re on the most efficient path to success.

Joe Floyd

General Partner
Emergence

Jeff Hinck

General Partner
Rally Ventures

Justin Kaufenberg

Partner
Rally Ventures

Patrick Meenan

Partner
Arthur Ventures

Simon Chong

Co-Founder and Managing Partner, Georgian Partners

Joe Welu

Founder & CEO
Total Expert

Interested in working at a fast and growing innovative company?

Joe Welu

Founder & CEO

Joe Welu

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 2012, Joe has led Total Expert’s vision, culture, and growth to more than 300 employees today. The company powers CRM, marketing, and customer engagement for more than 170 financial institutions—from leading community banks and credit unions to 15 of the top 25 U.S. banks and lenders. Total Expert’s growth has skyrocketed since its inception, being named the #1 CRM platform by STRATMOR Group and earning top spots on the Inc. 5000 and HousingWire Tech100.

President

Chad Gaydos

As President of Total Expert, Chad is responsible for leading the strategy and execution for the day-to-day operations of the company. Most recently, Chad was COO at Talkdesk, a privately held $10b global SaaS provider in the contact center industry, where he was instrumental in building out the executive team, and key to the company’s amazing disruptive growth. Chad has more than two decades of executive leadership in other global SaaS companies like Skillsoft, the world’s largest corporate learning software provider, and SAP, the largest global enterprise application software company. At Skillsoft, he served as CRO and COO, leading all aspects of go-to-market in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA), and Asia-Pacific (APAC). In his role as COO for SAP’s Regulated Industries business, Chad was responsible for leading the strategy, operations, revenue performance, customer relationships and total customer satisfaction in federal, state and local government, utilities, and healthcare markets throughout the United States.

Chief Financial Officer

John Emerick

John Emerick is a veteran technology CFO focused on growth, operating efficiencies, and profitability at high-performing software companies. John joined Total Expert in 2022, bringing over 30 years of experience to his role as Chief Financial Officer. He leans on extensive leadership experience in financial operations and risk management to achieve business objectives and drive financial success. Prior to Total Expert, John served as the CFO for two leading SaaS companies: Code42 and CyberGrants. He also held the CFO role at International Decision Systems and NorthStar Capital Markets. John specializes in strategic analysis while maintaining a focus on sustainable growth.
Ilene Vogt

Chief Sales Officer

Ilene Vogt

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.
Tony Barbone

Chief Revenue Officer

Tony Barbone

Tony Barbone brings over 25 years of enterprise software experience to his role as Chief Revenue Officer (CRO) with a proven track record of leading high-performing sales teams and designing winning go-to-market strategies. As CRO, Tony leads Total Expert’s strategy and execution across sales, services, and support while building on the company’s growth in financial services and expanding into new markets. Tony previously served as the first CRO at Talkdesk and Senior VP of Talkdesk Global Sales, generating record results and increasing their global footprint. Prior to Talkdesk, Tony spent several decades in go-to-market leadership roles with SAP.

Chief Marketing Officer

Rebecca Martin

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.
Josh Jabs

Chief Technology Officer

Josh Jabs

As CTO of Total Expert, Josh has more than 25 years of global experience in enterprise software, cybersecurity, and financial technologies. He was most recently at Calabrio, where he served as CTO during a time of significant transformation and growth. His leadership enabled a complete shift to SaaS and 500% cloud customer growth while achieving industry-leading product and team performance. Josh has extensive expertise driving results through customer-focused innovation, leveraging market disruptions, and building high-performing teams. Previously, he led multiple business units at Entrust, including Product Management, Marketing Strategy, and Vertical Marketing. Additionally, he has directed investor engagements in the technology sector and worked for the U.S. Government in emerging technology. Josh holds an undergraduate degree from the U.S. Air Force Academy, a master’s degree in electrical engineering from Tufts University, and an MBA from the University of Maryland.

Chief Lending Officer

Dan Catinella

With 20 years of experience in mortgage technology, Dan Catinella is a seasoned technology executive focused on driving digital transformation through all channels of lending. In an ever-changing digital landscape, Dan keeps a constant pulse on the next innovation that could change the way business is conducted. As Chief Lending Officer for Total Expert, Catinella identifies and develops high-impact innovation strategies that align with the company’s business goals and growth priorities. He works with Total Expert’s customers to dig into the problems they’re looking to solve and aligns Total Expert’s innovation strategy with their business goals.

VP, Corporate Strategy & Chief of Staff

Steve Rice

Steve joined the Total Expert team as the VP, Corporate Strategy & Chief of Staff. As VP of Corporate Development, he works to advance company strategy by assessing both organic and inorganic growth opportunities. As Chief of Staff, he supports operationalization of go-to-market strategy by engaging across business units to support process implementation and project management. Steve joins Total Expert from EY-Parthenon where he led consulting teams and advised clients on various strategic and operational initiatives. As part of their Private Equity and Technology strategy practices, much of his experience has been focused on strategic and market assessment of growth stage firms across the B2B software and fintech segments. Steve is a graduate of Elon University and holds an MBA from Johns Hopkins University Carey Business School.

Senior Vice President Professional Services

Heide Antholz

Heide Antholz is the Senior Vice President Professional Services where she leads Total Expert’s Professional Services organization, which includes Professional Services, Education Services, Content Marketing Services and Customer Support. In this role she leads the teams responsible for empowering all customers to achieve success with Total Expert through unparalleled customer experience ensuring they realize the full value of their Total Expert solution. Heide brings 20 years of software and services experience. She joined the Total Expert team in 2017 building the professional services organization that led some of the first implementations. Prior to joining Total Expert, Heide spent over 15 years in various leadership roles in high growth organizations providing software services, technology solutions and helping companies transform their operational processes.