Meet Our Team

Jonathan has been working in, and around, enterprise software start-ups his entire career. Prior to joining Riverside in 2016, Jonathan was a Principal with Comcast Ventures, the venture-capital affiliate of Comcast NBCUniversal. At Comcast Ventures, Jonathan invested behind a range of companies that leveraged data to drive efficiency and revenue within the enterprise. Prior to joining Comcast Ventures, he held roles in product management, sales and operations across two different New York venture-backed startups, Yext and Brightwire. Jonathan started his career with Sonenshine Partners, a New York investment bank, and spent several years in the Bay Area investing in growth-stage technology companies with Investor Growth Capital.

Jonathan holds a B.S.E. in Biomedical Engineering from Duke University and is a CFA charterholder. As one might imagine, he's an avid fan of Duke Basketball and of spending as much time as possible outdoors.

Zak joined the RAC team as a Partner in 2022. He spent 8 years at Spring Lake Equity Partners investing in growth stage B2B software companies. Prior to that, he spent 4 years at Tudor Growth Equity (the private equity arm of Tudor Investment Corporation), with a focus on technology and software. Zak began his career as a Financial Institutions Group investment banking analyst at RBC Capital Markets, assisting banks and specialty finance companies through capital offerings and M&A transactions.

Zak holds a B.A. in Economics from Bates College. He is a basketball junkie and chess enthusiast.

Sarah joined the RAC team in 2020, although she has been has been a Riversider for more than 15 years. Her other responsibilities have included serving on Riverside’s strategy team responsible for supporting new product launches (in fact, Sarah wrote Riverside’s business plan for RAC in 2015!), acting as the Riverside Co-CEO’s liaison for its Board of Advisors, global portfolio tracking and analysis, and managing several pooled purchasing programs for Riverside portfolio companies. Prior to Riverside, Sarah began her career at Lehman Brothers.

Sarah holds a B.S. in Finance with a minor in Applied Mathematics from Lehigh University. When she’s not in the office, Sarah keeps (plenty!) busy with her two elementary school-aged daughters – who are getting old enough to start taking fun vacations!

Christian has been investing in software and technology companies since 2007 when he joined a venture capital fund to work his way up and become partner. In 2015, he started and then built a €275 million software and technology investment fund which he co-led as managing director until joining Riverside in 2020. In the beginning of his career, he also worked for large corporations such as IBM and EY and in management consulting at The Boston Consulting Group. In addition, he gained entrepreneurial experience as co-founder during the dot-com bubble and as CFO of a travel software start-up.

Christian holds a BSc in Information Systems from the Cooperative State University in Mannheim (Germany) and an MBA from the University of Chicago, Booth School of Business. He is an avowed nerd with all natural sciences, and since he can‘t follow his original passion, martial arts, any longer, he now relaxes with yoga and running.

Jonathan leads the operating team at Riverside Acceleration Capital having previously been with the Riverside Micro-Cap fund as an Operating Partner for over 3 years. Jonathan has been in enterprise software for more than 30 years as a three-time CEO, operating executive, and board member and has a demonstrated track record in developing high growth PE, venture and publicly traded software businesses.

Jonathan holds a B.S. from Manchester Metropolitan University in the U.K. On the rare occasions when he is not partnering with our portfolio companies, Jonathan will be found racing downhill on snow in the winter and getting frustrated in the summer months trying to improve his golf game.

Jim has been investing in growth-stage enterprise software businesses for more than 10 years. Prior to joining Riverside in 2015, he founded a fund called Cirrus Ventures that invested in B2B software companies, under a similar philosophy to Riverside Acceleration Capital. From 2006 to 2014, he invested over $170 million in B2B software at Investor Growth Capital, a venture capital fund that has invested over $3 billion in more than 250 companies globally. He also has experience both in investment banking and in software design at Morgan Stanley.

Jim holds a B.A. from Oberlin College. His many passions include tennis, the violin, all things Warren Buffett, and his work with arts non-profits like The Talea Ensemble and The Perlman Music Program.

Richard has a diverse professional background, primarily focused around strategy and growth. Prior to joining RAC he was a Senior Management Consultant at Capco where he specialized in growth and operational transformation. Richard was also Employee #1 at Landis, a hyper-growth property technology firm that has raised rounds led by Sequoia and Google Ventures.

Richard earned his BBA from Loyola University Maryland. If he isn't rooting for his favorite F1 driver or football team in his free time, you can find him cycling Central Park or discovering new spots in the West Village.

Kyle brings a diversified set of operational, logistical support and client relations experience to his role. He has been with Riverside since 2017 and began his current role with Riverside Acceleration Capital in 2020. He previously worked with Riverside’s Fundraising & Investor Relations team, where he worked with teams across the firm as they developed strategies during both the capital raising and capital deployment phases of their respective lifecycles. Kyle began his career in the corporate hospitality and event space.

Kyle holds a B.A. in Communications and Media Studies with a minor in Spanish Language & Literature from Fordham University. When he’s not in the office, you’ll find him on the beach during the summer months – or planning travel to one in the winter months!

Thomas brings a diversified set of experiences in financial analysis, investment management, and data analytics. Prior to joining Riverside Acceleration Capital, Thomas worked as a Performance Analyst focusing on performance evaluation of private equity, venture capital, and real estate funds at Makena Capital, an endowment fund with $20 Billion of assets under management. While at Makena Capital, he became an integral part of Makena’s vision on augmenting the decision making and reporting process with data analytics. Prior to joining Makena Capital, Thomas started his career as an Advisory Associate at Frank, Rimerman + Co., contributing primarily to financial analysis and advisory for leading Silicon Valley venture capital firms and startup stage businesses.

Thomas holds a B.A. from the University of California, Santa Barbara in Economics & Accounting and a M.S. from Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business in Quantitative Management with an emphasis in Finance. On the weekends, you can find him exploring new food spots and museums in the city.

Chanler joined Riverside in 2023. She works with RAC’s portfolio companies to help recruit professionals for their go-to-market functions. Prior to officially joining the RAC team, she had already placed over 40 GTM positions within RAC’s portfolio companies.

Chanler’s career in talent acquisition includes more than six years of experience specifically with GTM and executive search for early-stage VC-backed tech companies. Chanler holds a B.A. from Florida Atlantic University. As a South Florida native, she enjoys boating, fishing and going to the beach with family.

Aakash has a wide range of experience across start-ups, technology, and academics. Prior to joining Riverside in 2016, he worked as a summer analyst at the private equity firm Littlejohn & Co. where he helped build out a performing credit group. Before Littlejohn, he held a variety of roles in technology, entrepreneurship, and academia. As a junior product manager at Hostway, Aakash was involved in the development of a new product line focused around an e-commerce SaaS platform. As a founder of BlurPort LLC, he led the development of an innovative data security device. Aakash has multiple publications from research assistant positions held in the computational sciences at the University of Michigan, University of Notre Dame, Oberlin College, and Northwest Missouri State University.

Aakash holds a B.A. in Neuroscience and Computer Science from Oberlin College. On the weekends, you’ll find him a train ride away in Connecticut enjoying the serenity of suburban life.

Felix brings an array of investment and finance experience to the RAC team. Prior to joining Riverside in 2022, he was a Senior Investment Associate at Coparion, where he served on the boards of two portfolio companies. Felix also founded EK2 Publishing, a company that licenses and translates German novels for the U.S. market.

Felix has a B.A. in International Business from Rhine-Waal University of Applied Sciences and a Master’s degree in Finance from Nova School of Business and Economics. When he’s not working, Felix enjoys cooking Italian and Indian cuisine, politics, hip hop and techno music, sports and traveling.

Sunny has extensive experience in tech investing. Prior to joining RAC, he was focused on sourcing and diligence in high-growth, capital-efficient B2B software businesses at Wavecrest Growth Partners. He began his career as part of the Technology M&A team at Piper Sandler, working on capital raises and sell-side engagements for enterprise software businesses.

Sunny has a BBA in Finance from Babson College. If he’s not cheering for his hometown Philly sports teams, you might find him trying a new restaurant or recipe.

Charlie joined the RAC team as an Analyst in 2023. Prior to joining Riverside, he worked as a Summer Analyst and intern at SaaSWorks, a Boston-based startup serving recurring revenue businesses, where he helped build their go-to-market strategy and natural language processing integrations. In 2021, he was a Summer Analyst at Kinderhook, a New York-based middle market private equity firm. At Kinderhook, he wrote confidential information memoranda, researched acquisition targets and managed customer relationship management systems.

Charlie graduated magna cum laude from Brown University with a B.A. in Business Economics and earned a master’s degree from the Brown University School of Engineering, where he studied innovation, management and entrepreneurship. On the weekends, you'll find him running around Central Park or trying out a new restaurant in the West Village.

Paul Canetti is an entrepreneur, educator, and futurist. He is an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Business at Columbia Business School where he lectures on product management and strategy, user experience, and emerging technologies. He is the host of the podcast Tech News for MBAs and writes about technology at his website, Hypothetically Great. Canetti was named one of Inc.’s “30 Under 30 World’s Coolest Young Entrepreneurs” and has founded multiple software businesses including MAZ and ClickEasy (formerly Bounce House), both of which were acquired in 2021. He previously worked at Apple and has consulted for TikTok, L’Oréal, Verizon, Walmart, and other Fortune 500 companies.

Mr. Cappuccio has spent the last 45+ years involved in all facets of the IT industry, from data center design and management, networking, applications, virtualization, cloud and edge strategies and beyond. He held many roles at Gartner over a 30 year career, including managing teams in AppDev, Networking, Knowledge Management; Infrastructures, Data Centers, and IT Services. David was the creator and chairman of Gartner’s Infrastructure, Operations and Cloud Strategies conferences, working with hundreds of I&O vendors on how to communicate with and influence attendees. He has significant experience with technology research, public speaking; product development and delivery; market dynamics and industry analysts, and has managed organizations from 2 to 2000 with P&L responsibility up to 600M.

Alison Holmund is a customer success executive with over 20 years of experience in B2B tech, and currently serves as the Chief Customer Officer for Filevine where she leads the “Customers For Life” program, which encompasses training, customer success, implementations, support and strategic partnerships. In so doing Alison is responsible for scaling the program, bringing world-class support and proven partners to more than 25,000 customers that count on Filevine to be their legal operating system.

Holmlund has received numerous accolades including being named a Woman of Influence by the Silicon Valley Business Journal and being awarded Customer Service Executive of the Year by the American Business Awards. Prior to joining Filevine, Holmlund served as Chief Operating Officer of Lookback, a customer research platform trusted by Fortune 500 tech companies. Earlier in her career, she served on the executive teams of Mixpanel, a product analytics platform, Planful (formerly Host Analytics), a corporate finance platform and Proofpoint, an enterprise security platform, where she helped lead the company from pre-revenue to IPO.

Kathi Kaplan is an experienced transformational leader in developing and executing GTM and marketing strategies that drive high growth in public, private and pre-IPO companies. Kathi currently serves as the SVP of Global Demand Generation at UiPath where she brings a wealth of expertise in creating demand generation strategies through modern digital marketing to drive pipeline and accelerate customer acquisition. Prior to UiPath, Kathi held executive leadership positions with other notable enterprise software companies such as Qlik, Box, VMware, Coremetrics, Business Objects (now SAP) and Apple.

Richard Rivera is the Head of GTM Performance and Productivity at Lacework where he oversees the performance training, enablement and productivity development of the Lacework go-to-market team across marketing, sales, customer success and partnerships. Prior to joining Lacework in 2022, Richard served as Chief Revenue Officer of three different growth-stage SaaS companies, martech leaders Vibes and Monetate (sold to Kibo/Vista Equity) and unified communications provider Dialpad. He has also held leadership positions at Fuze (acquired by 8x8), Medallia ($4B IPO), BMC Software (44% YoY growth) and BladeLogic ($900M IPO, and acquired by BMC). Richard also currently serves as the founder of GENNOW Sales Advisory and has authored several books and programs on sales excellence and sales leadership.

Adriana Roche is the Chief People Officer at MURAL, a digital workspace for guided visual collaboration employing a global team of 700+ working remotely across 27 countries. She leads a team responsible for recruiting, growth, and team member development as the company continues its strategic expansion plans. She most recently served as Vice President of People and Places at Segment in San Francisco where she led a team who, over the course of nearly five years, grew the company’s headcount by 10x and earned multiple awards for best companies to work. Previously, Roche held recruiting positions at Google, Salesforce.com and Dropbox demonstrating her extensive experience in managing distributed SaaS teams undergoing a steep growth curve. She is fluent in English, Spanish and French and holds a Master’s Degree in Organizational Psychology from NYU.

Tony Russo is an operationally oriented CFO with 20 years of experience in scaling B2B SaaS and enterprise software companies from $10m to over $100m and has deep domain knowledge across finance, accounting, legal, HR, facilities, revenue operations, and corporate development. Tony currently serves as the CFO of Imply who, via their unique database, enables developers to create the next generation of analytics applications. Prior to Imply Tony served as CFO for numerous technology companies including Demandbase, Moovweb, Efficient Frontier, Solidcore Systems, Tablus, MailFrontier and Bravanta. Tony obtained his BA from John Hopkins University and an MBA from Stanford.

Udo Waibel is currently CTO at Oomnitza where he owns the overall product strategy and execution. Prior to Oomnitza, Udo held various leadership positions as CTO and CPO, including at SAP, Heat Software and Sitecore. Udo learned engineering from the ground up at SAP in Germany, moved to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1998 and was inducted into the 2015 class of Computerworld’s Premier 100 IT Leaders.