Clio Announces Newly Expanded Leadership Team, Positioning for Next Growth Stage
Following substantial growth and record-breaking Series D and E funding rounds, Clio expands its C-suite portfolio by naming new COO, CPO, CTO, and CMO.
VANCOUVER, BC, Nov. 8, 2021 /CNW/ - Clio, the world's leading provider of cloud-based legal technology, announced a significant expansion to its executive leadership team, including a new Chief Operating Officer, Chief People Officer, Chief Technology Officer, and Chief Marketing Officer.
This new structure will see the C-suite double in size and bring on new leaders from high growth stage and public companies, while also further leveraging the tenure and deep experience of existing engineering and marketing leads. Clio's newly formed C-suite features combined expertise and experience from high growth companies like Uber, AirBnB, Lightspeed, PointClickCare, ACTIVE Network, Shopify, and Zynga, setting the tone for Clio's next stage of growth.
"These additions to Clio's leadership will extend our capabilities on all fronts, including our products, people, operations, in what's becoming an exciting and fast-paced market for cloud-based legal technology," said Jack Newton, CEO and Founder of Clio.
The decision to expand the company's leadership portfolio follows a period of rapid growth for Clio. Since January, the company has increased its distributed by design workforce by 40% to a total headcount of 750. In the last six months, the company acquired CalendarRules and Lawyaw, which followed Clio's first acquisition and successful launch of Clio Grow three years prior. The company also raised $110 million in series E funding in April, which valued the business at $1.6 billion, making it the first legal practice management unicorn globally.
"Clio's Series E funding was a milestone in Clio's growth trajectory. We have a world-class leadership and investment team that is positioning us to build a generational company that will transform the legal experience for all," said Jack Newton, CEO and Founder of Clio.
The newly appointed C-suite leaders include:
Ronnie Gurion, Chief Operating Officer
As the previous GM and Global Head of Uber for Business (U4B), Ronnie Gurion brings a wealth of market activation knowledge and global expansion experience to his new role as Chief Operating Officer at Clio. In his tenure overseeing U4B's P&L performance, Gurion rapidly grew the business to a multi-billion dollar gross booking platform available in over 30+ countries.
Gurion's past experience also includes roles as Chief Strategy Officer for Home Away and the Managing Director of Business Development for Airbnb, giving him a strong depth of experience in technology leadership, strategic partnerships, and revenue acceleration at high valued companies.
Gurion's reputation for leading marketplace, e-commerce and SaaS businesses to achieve rapid global expansion and growth paired with his record for recruiting and developing an impressive set of leaders will help shape Clio's next chapter for continued growth.
Gurion's 20 years of experience leading large-scale go-to-market teams that encompass sales, account management, sales ops, and marketing will play a pivotal role in forming new connective tissue between market development, product evolution, sales operations, and customer retention in Clio's ongoing plans for rapid expansion.
"I am thrilled to join Clio at this stage of growth," said Gurion. "Every interaction I've had with this team has been nothing but positive and inspiring, and I'm excited by the fact that Clio is positioned for a high degree of meaningful impact on a global scale. There's still so much to do, and I'm excited to continue driving greater outcomes for Clio's customers."
Gurion will take on the role of COO following the long tenure of George Psiharis, who also contributed previously as the VP of Business Operations at Clio. Having been with the company for 11 years, Psiharis will take his innovative approaches to company growth to a new and exciting opportunity in another field while remaining a prominent shareholder at Clio.
"The last 11 years have been the experience of a lifetime," said Psiharis. "I'm so grateful to Clio founders Jack Newton and Rian Gauvreau, along with the Clio Team and the legal profession as a whole. Clio is still in the early innings of fulfilling its mission and full potential and I am deeply excited for what lies ahead for this team. I have no doubt that I'm leaving the company in the hands of a world-class leadership team as it embarks on this next stage of the journey."
Sarah Bettencourt, Chief People Officer
Previously holding Chief People Officer positions at Lightspeed and PointClickCare, Sarah Bettencourt brings over 20 years of transformational, people-first experience, leading the integration of teams through mergers and acquisitions, scaling teams to the thousands at $400M revenue companies, and guiding organizations through similar stages of growth.
Sarah has been honored with numerous awards including Female Business Leader of the Year and Female Executive of the Year for her work in developing the highest standards for business and cultural environments in the technology industry today.
"I felt a deep connection to Clio's goals of breaking down barriers to legal services. The transformational work being done here is truly making a difference to society," said Bettencourt. "I am incredibly passionate about creating cultures focused on enabling employees to do their best work, and when you layer this mission on top of the impact Clio is having, the opportunities are endless."
As CPO, Bettencourt will lead the development and execution of talent strategy and acquisition, culture and DIBE initiatives, and talent management, development, and total compensation. As a rapid growth organization with a distributed workforce, Clio is focused on meaningfully investing in these areas. Under this vision, Bettencourt will be supported by a robust and growing senior people team, starting with Lyndsey Dyer, VP of Employee Enablement, and Natalie Archibald, VP of Employee Success.
"Sarah truly embodies leading with purpose, and it's contagious. The passion, thoughtfulness, and insight she brings to the leadership at Clio is something that has already had a great impact on our day to day," said Ashley Moore, Senior Manager of Employee Communications.
Jonathan Watson, Chief Technology Officer
Jonathan Watson is an expert in launching and maintaining large-scale SaaS and live game solutions. Since joining Clio in 2017 as the VP of Engineering, Watson's unique approach and passion for intertwining product development, design, user experience, and engineering has accelerated Clio's product growth while earning Clio best-in-class NPS and customer retention rates.
In his tenure, Watson led the ground-up reinvention of Clio's practice management software in 2017, launched Clio's integrated client intake and CRM platform and the first end-to-end legal software solution on the market in 2019. As of this year, he's launched a groundbreaking legal-specific mobile and desktop client communication app and took Clio to new heights as a vertically integrated SaaS company with the launch of Clio's own online payment processing software. Over the course of the last 3 years, Watson has built out and staffed the Security arm of Clio, including compliance, defensive, and offensive security functions responsible for vulnerability management, secure coding practices, developer & organizational training, security incidents, and forensics & remediation.
Watson's approach saw Clio increase average product deployments by 10x, improving the velocity of infrastructure improvements from weeks or months to hours and meaningfully improving site reliability.
Since joining Clio, he has grown the engineering department to over 200 individuals. Watson doubled the representation of women during early stages of growth while also maintaining that level of diversity and inclusion year-over-year. This is a testament to Watson's high focus on the culture within engineering and his persistence and belief that strong teams are diverse ones.
"It's an exciting time to envision what's possible for lawyers, their firms, and their clients," said Watson. "The impact we get to have on the delivery of legal services is an everyday inspiration, and I can't wait to enroll more innovative leaders in our vision."
In his role as CTO, Watson will have a direct impact on scaling Clio's product offerings to existing customers and the wider market, while also tailoring new developments to the unique needs of legal professionals.
"Jonathan leads with personal vulnerability and openness and models healthy work-life integration," said Ainsley Robertson, Manager of Clio's App Ecosystem. "His approach to ensuring his team thrives professionally and personally is a refreshingly different perspective than many other leaders in the software engineering space."
Watson's over 20 years of leadership experience in software architecture, design, and implementation includes senior engineering leadership roles at Shopify and Zynga.
Reagan Attle, Chief Marketing Officer
Known for building and leading high-performing and award-winning teams in high growth technology companies, Reagan Attle has over 20 years of experience and a strong balance of B2B and B2C marketing expertise.
Over her tenure as Clio's VP of Marketing, Attle has played a tremendous role in Clio's success in the last five years, which has seen her grow the marketing team to 70 staff with industry highs in retention and engagement. She led the announcements of and go-to-market strategies for Clio's Series D and E funding rounds, acquisitions of Lexicata, CalendarRules, and Lawyaw, and the launch of Clio Payments and Clio's new mission and brand.
Attle's most notable achievements have been her ability to grow Clio's customer base and market position through the development of competitive moats, building authentic brand trust, and evolving the company's thought leadership in client-centered approaches to legal services. In 2020, Attle launched Clio's COVID-19 Relief Fund, which saw the organization donate $1.1M in direct financial aid and Clio software to those in the legal industry who needed it most. In addition to Clio's core marketing functions, her portfolio includes the company's expansive partner relationships with over 70 bar associations and law societies, the world-renowned Clio Cloud Conference, and the development of key industry insights through the Legal Trends Report.
"I continue to be inspired by the passion and culture of this organization, and I believe we still have a lot of work to do in winning over legal professionals who have yet to adopt Clio into their firms," said Attle. "We truly have an opportunity to reshape how lawyers manage and grow their firms."
As CMO, Attle will focus on driving growth across Clio's revenue lines, leading demand generation, product marketing, partner marketing, digital strategy, brand development, and corporate communications.
"Reagan encourages us to not only think of the impact our work has on metrics, but to also consider the company-wide and industry-wide impacts as well. She gives the right amount of guidance, and balances that with the autonomy needed to bring the best parts of ourselves to what we do at Clio," said Nefra-Ann MacDonald, Senior Manager of Strategic Engagement.
Prior to joining Clio, Attle led the global marketing team and strategy at ACTIVE Network, successfully helping lead through multiple acquisitions and the company's IPO.
Clio's future plans
In light of the major uptake in cloud technology in legal in the past year, the company sees massive opportunities to grow the market for legal technology in its verticals. According to the 2020 Legal Trends Report, 79% of law firms were storing data in the cloud. This year's report indicates that consumer-driven demand will further pull legal services toward more cloud-based technologies, as 79% of consumers want the option to work with a lawyer remotely.
To help law firms meet the evolving needs of today's legal clients, Clio plans to continue expanding the range of products for its customers. Having previously offered solutions for practice management, client intake, and client relationship solutions, the company now offers a newly released online payments platform and electronic document filing and management capabilities. The company also sees significant opportunities to increase its reach globally. Since 2013, Clio has operated an office in Dublin, which has grown by 40% in the last year, to service clients overseas.
"This expanded leadership team is aligned in a vision to build Clio into an enduring, 100-year company that values market and employee success, and we can't wait to show more of what we have planned for our next stage of growth," said Newton.
About Clio
Clio is transforming the legal experience for all through cloud-based and client-centred legal technology. Clio has become a company to watch on a global scale after securing a CA$6M Series B investment in 2012 by German-based Acton Capital, a CA$20M Series C investment in 2014 by Bessemer Venture Partners and one of the largest investments in legaltech and Canadian history in 2019 with a US$250M Series D funding round led by TCV and JMI Equity. In 2021, Clio made history again by becoming the first legal practice management unicorn globally with a US$110M Series E investment led by T. Rowe Price Associates, Inc. and OMERS Growth Equity. Learn more at clio.com.
SOURCE Clio
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