Vehrity Inc.’s founding team incorporates deep executive, sales, engineering and industry experience in the creation and successful adoption of IT platforms, IP communications, collaboration and transaction technologies. The founders have early and growth stage startup experience as well as critical domain knowledge in the automotive aftermarket.
Christo Darsch, Founder and President
Most interesting vehicle ever owned: 1967 Pontiac Firebird 400 Convertible
Christo is a technologist, auto enthusiast and business development executive who assembled the Vehrity Inc. team, drawing upon long-term professional relationships with each of his co-founders. He most recently directed Pactolus Communication Software’s (now RadiSys’) worldwide reseller sales efforts, expanding the company’s addressable market across Asia, the Middle East and Europe. At Brooktrout Technology (now Dialogic), Christo’s customer development efforts for the company’s Voice over IP initiative resulted in early adoption by Lucent Technologies and Nortel. Previously, as Founder and President of Atlantis Design Group he advanced the state of the art in PC-based unified communications and successfully negotiated OEM licensing agreements for the company’s intellectual property. Christo holds an M.B.A. from Babson College and studied Electrical Engineering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute.
John Adams, Co-Founder and Executive Vice President (Sales)
Most interesting vehicle ever owned: Massey Ferguson GC2300 Tractor
John is an accomplished sales executive adept at guiding customers and channel partners in ‘leaping the chasm’ to leading-edge technologies and process innovations. An engineer by training, he intuitively grasps the technologies he represents and consistently grows revenues at or above goal while building high performance sales organizations. At IBM, John led a team selling ERP systems to distributors, affording him direct experience with many of the challenges now faced by Vehrity Inc.’s target customers. John has led sales teams and customers through early-adopter phases of technology innovation, including migration from legacy architectures to intelligent telephony platforms and Voice over IP. At Priority Call Management he was part of the management team that grew the company from $5 million to $48 million in sales, leading to acquisition by LHS for $162 million. John received a B.S.C.E from Tufts and an M.B.A. from Boston College.
William Biedron, Co-Founder (Operations)
Most interesting vehicle ever owned: 470 Olympic Class high performance sailboat
Will has demonstrated operational expertise in startups and entrepreneurial ventures for his entire career, from formative days in a family retail business to early-stage leadership roles in organizations such as Akamai and MediaOne. In these companies he built broadband network engineering and operations teams and substantially contributed to the development of content delivery services. At Stargus, Inc. (now Arris), his work in acquiring and expanding Tier 1 service provider accounts directly contributed to the company’s acquisition. Will holds an M.B.A. Magna Cum Laude from Babson College and a B.S. from Siena College.
John Taylor, Co-Founder (Industry)
Most interesting vehicle ever owned: 1959 Jaguar XK150
JT has been a service facility owner, service technician and innovator for over thirty years. His business was originally bootstrapped as a mobile repair service after he returned from military combat duty as a helicopter pilot. JT and his business partner have since built T&S Auto Repair into a thriving operation that is a fixture of the community. He understands the impact of parts order errors firsthand and brings unparalleled insight into market needs, barriers and opportunities.
Board of Directors/Advisory Board
Ralph I. Hirsch, Esq., Board of Directors
Most interesting vehicle ever owned: Kirkham 427 Cobra
Ralph Hirsch is an attorney with over 30 years experience representing, as both inside and outside counsel, companies ranging from early-stage startups to Fortune 100 firms doing business in a broad range of technology markets including computing, telecom, internet services and software development.
Rob Friedman, Advisory Board (Engineering/Entrepreneurship)
Most interesting vehicle ever owned: 1997 BMW 540i, 6-speed manual transmission
Rob is a software development leader who has been delivering SaaS mobile apps to market for more than a dozen years. He has led development efforts at several Boston-based startups including Apperian, Vlingo, Groove Mobile and NowSpeed, and he co-founded Technically Speaking, growing the company to its successful acquisition by Brooktrout Technology (now Dialogic). Equally at home with architecture and management, Rob brings a wealth of experience that enables startups to deliver great products.
Mitchell Mackoff, Advisory Board (CPA/Finance)
Mitch has more than 25 years’ experience working with emerging technology companies in areas including software, systems, networks and services. He has held senior executive positions in finance and operations and has a proven track record in VC and private placement financing, public offerings and M&A. Mitch is a “Big-8” trained CPA and holds an MBA with concentrations in accounting, finance and information systems from Babson College.