Thomas Charlton, Chairman & CEO
As Chairman and CEO, Thomas Charlton is responsible for the strategic direction and global expansion of PHD Virtual.
Prior to PHD, Mr. Charlton was CEO of Shunra Software in Tel Aviv, Israel and Philadelphia, PA. During his tenure, the organization returned to a posture of growth and profitability through a combination of restructuring and new product development. Venture backed by Insight Venture Partners, NY and Carmel Ventures, IL.
Prior to Shunra, Mr. Charlton was the CEO of VoiceGenie Technologies in Toronto, Canada, which developed a Voice XML Speech Platform. Revenues were flat and the company was suffering year over year operating losses. Mr. Charlton's team increased revenues sharply and returned the company to profitability. Under his leadership, VoiceGenie was recognized in Canada's "Hot Profit 100," ranked #1 by IDC and received multiple technical awards. VoiceGenie was acquired by Alcatel in 2006. Venture backed by Insight Venture Partners, NY.
Before VoiceGenie, Mr. Charlton was CEO of Trailblazer Systems. The company, based in Atlanta, designed and marketed Ecommerce EDI software. TBSI grew profitably under his leadership. Trailblazer Systems was acquired by Nu Bridges in 2004.
Prior to Trailblazer Systems, Mr. Charlton was with Tidal Software in Palo Alto, California. He joined the provider of enterprise job scheduling solutions initially as VP of Sales and, 18th months later, the Board appointed him leader of the organization. As CEO he assembled a team that returned the company to profitability and continued strong revenue growth. The company was recognized as: Visionary by Gartner, Upside Magazines "Hot 100," Silicon Valley Business Journals "100 Fastest Growing Companies," and Ranked #4 by IDC. Tidal was acquired by Cisco. Venture backed by Vantage Point Ventures and JP Morgan.
Mr. Charlton began his management career at US Surgical, the pioneer in Laparoscopic Surgery and Surgical Stapling. He held various sales management positions ultimately responsible for the Western Area Business Unit with revenues of $220M. Public company.
Since 2004, Mr. Charlton has been a Venture Partner with Insight Venture Partners, NYC. In this capacity, he participates on due diligence teams prior to investment and engages with portfolio companies to execute operational initiatives including recruitment of executive teams, organizational restructuring and growth planning.
He has been featured in Inc. Magazine, CEO Magazine, New York Times, Business Week, Philadelphia Inquirer, Philadelphia Business Journal, Silicon Valley Business News, San Jose Mercury News and The Marker (Israel).
Mr. Mike Triplett
Mr. Triplett is a Managing Director at Insight Venture Partners. For the past 14 years he has invested in Infrastructure Software companies, among which his successes include Quest Software (Nasdaq: QSFT), Authorize.net, Solarwinds (NYSE: SWI), Acronis, Parallels and Scriptlogic. He joined Insight in 1998 from Summit Partners, where he focused on investments in infrastructure and enterprise application software companies. Prior to joining Summit, Mr. Triplett worked as a financial analyst at Morgan Stanley & Co. and at Midland Data Systems. Mr. Triplett graduated from Dartmouth College with a BA in Economics, cum laude.
Mr. Richard Wells
Mr. Wells is a Principal at Insight Venture Partners. He joined Insight in 2005 after serving as an investment team member at Technology Crossover Ventures (TCV), where his interests included software and online media and commerce. Mr. Wells also spent several years working with technology companies as a manager and strategy consultant. He worked in product management for enterprise data protection products at Veritas Software (now part of Symantec), and in field sales for Paciolan Systems (now part of Ticketmaster). Mr. Wells also worked as a management consultant with Mercer Management Consulting. He received a BS from the University of Pennsylvania (Phi Beta Kappa, summa cum laude) and a MBA from the Harvard Business School.
