Richelle Burnett – Chief Executive Officer
Richelle Burnett has a B.S. in Systems Engineering from the University of Virginia, MBA from Northwestern/Kellogg Graduate School of Management and a lifelong entrepreneurial spirit. She started her first business at age 10 by door to door selling of vegetables out of the family garden.
Immediately out of college, Ms. Burnett specialized in Factory Automation for 8 years, working for a division of Rockwell International in Chicago and Milwaukee. She was an Application Engineer, responsible for the entire line of high tech products (vision systems, programmable controllers, bar code systems, RFID, etc) that allowed processes to be automated. Following business school, she pursued high finance by working on the Sales & Trading desk at C.S. First Boston. After entrepreneurial ventures into an online ‘soap opera’ and early travel show didn’t mature, she decided on one last adventure before going corporate. Ms. Burnett found work on an Expedition ship (wearing many hats) spending the austral summers in Antarctica, then a month on the Amazon before spending the North American summers in the Arctic.
Prior to founding Madison Assessment and RLB Technologies, Ms. Burnett served as Vice President of Sales for Marsh McLennan from Dec. 2005 to Aug. 2008 and was Director of Business Development at KPMG from May 2001 to Dec. 2005 catering to entrepreneurs and young companies. Ms. Burnett is civically and professional involved. She has spent many hours advising and coaching young companies via her affiliation with groups such as MAVA (Mid Atlantic Venture Association), NVTC (Northern Virginia Technology Council), George Mason Business Alliance (Grubstakes), and is a graduate of the 2009 NVTC Kauffman Foundation FastTrac® TechVenture™ program and the 2008 ACTiVATE program. Past contributions have been Co-chair of the Make A Wish Triathlon and board member of FEI (Financial Executives International).
Passionate about every aspect of life, Ms. Burnett has not only traveled, but visited all 7 continents (worked on 4); played in sanctioned Scrabble tournaments (winning record); completed Olympic distance triathlons (despite never being on a swim team or owning a racing bike, she finished in the top 25% of her first triathlon); and completed all 3 marathons she entered (Marine Corp, New York City, & Stockholm, Sweden). Quite the risk taker, she swam with piranhas in the Amazon; slept in a cave in the Kalahari Desert; heli-skied in Canadian Rockies; and hiked the Nepalese Himalayas alone.
Loren Burnett – Chairman of the Board and Founder
Loren Burnett is an entrepreneur and senior executive with over 30 years of management experience. Prior to founding Madison Assessment, RLB Technologies and US e-Chromic, he founded StackSafe, Inc., a software company focused on virtualization based testing for IT Operations teams. He served as President, Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer of StackSafe from 2005 to 2009. During his tenure at StackSafe, the company was awarded the 2008 ITIL Pink Elephant Conference Innovation of the Year Award; was ranked by Forrester Research in their top (“On fire!”) category; and was named by Gartner as one of six “Cool Vendors in IT Operations, 2008”.
Mr. Burnett was the Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer of Astral Brands, a consumer brand management company. During his tenure, he oversaw the growth of Astral’s revenue base in excess of 100% over a 15 month period. Prior to Astral, Mr. Burnett served as the President, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board of Celcorp, a provider of enterprise integration software and services. During his tenure at Celcorp, he led the migration of the company from being a Canadian based software development company to a U.S. based, internationally recognized enterprise software provider serving Fortune 1000 companies.
Mr. Burnett served as Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Riptech, Inc., a leading provider of managed security services. He was instrumental in the sale of the firm to Symantec, Inc. for $145 million cash in August 2002. Shareholder profits from this transaction exceeded $100 million. Mr. Burnett founded FutureNext Consulting in 1998, where he served as its Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer. FutureNext was a provider of e-supply-chain consulting and implementation services. During his tenure at FutureNext, the company raised over $110 million of equity and debt financing. FutureNext’s annualized revenues grew to over $72 million by early 2000. Mr. Burnett was responsible for services delivery from eleven practices and managed 450 of the company’s 500 employees. Under Mr. Burnett’s leadership, FutureNext acquired and integrated six companies over a nine-month period.
Mr. Burnett served as Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer of The Hunter Group. Hunter was an $80 million provider of system implementation, management consulting and educational services associated with enterprise resource planning (ERP) software. Mr. Burnett led Hunter’s $56 million Initial Public Offering initiative in 1997. Renaissance Worldwide, Inc. acquired Hunter resulting in profits to Hunter’s shareholders in excess of $150 million. Mr. Burnett served as Chief Financial Officer of Maxm Systems Corp., a provider of enterprise computer software to Fortune 1000 clients. Mr. Burnett led the acquisition of a multi-national competitor. He established and managed subsidiaries in the U.K., Canada, Germany and Italy. Mr. Burnett served as the “acting” Vice President of International Sales and Distribution, where he negotiated distribution agreements covering 43 countries from Asia-Pacific to Europe. He led the successful sale of the company in 1996 to Boole and Babbage, Inc. Mr. Burnett also held senior management positions with MCI, Coopers and Lybrand and National Telephone Services, Inc.
Mr. Burnett currently serves on the Executive Committee of the Board of Directors of the Northern Virginia Technology Council (NVTC). NVTC is the largest technology council in the United States. Mr. Burnett also serves as a venture advisor for Amplifier Ventures. Previously, he served on the Board of Directors and was the Treasurer of The Make-A-Wish Foundation of the Mid-Atlantic. He was a Certified Public Accountant in the State of Virginia and holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Accounting from the University of Delaware. Mr. Burnett is an instrument rated airplane pilot, scuba diver, golfer, snow skier and was a finisher in the 2002 New York City Marathon and the 2007 Stockholm Marathon. He also served as the Head United States Senate Page for Senator Howard Baker.
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