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).
Jeff Robinson, Chief Financial Officer
As the Chief Financial Officer, Jeff Robinson is responsible for the financial, legal and HR operations of PHD Virtual. Jeff is a senior financial and operations executive with over 25 years’ experience in public and private, international, technology, emerging growth and service businesses. He has spent the last 10 years in financial leadership roles for global technology companies.
Prior to joining PHD Virtual, Jeff was the vice president of finance and chief financial officer of LabVantage Solutions, an innovative provider of enterprise lab informatics systems, where he was responsible for the global finance, administration, legal and IT functions. During his tenure, Jeff negotiated a multimillion dollar acquisition that doubled the size of LabVantage Solutions in revenue and expanded its footprint throughout Europe and Asia-pacific.
Prior to LabVantage Solutions, Jeff has held various executive financial management positions at companies such as IBM, Princeton Softech, ServiceWare Technologies, The Icon Group and Aetna Health Plans. His experience includes IPOs, acquisitions and divestures. He also has extensive knowledge in improving profitability, strategic planning, M&A and due diligence, budgeting, management reporting, cash and asset management and risk management.
Jeff is a Certified Public Accountant and holds a B.S. in Accounting from King’s College. He serves on the board of various non-profit organizations. Additionally, he and his family are active participants in their church and in many community outreach programs such as Habitat for Humanity and the local area food bank.
Paul Throldahl, Senior Vice President of Global Sales
As the Senior Vice President of Global Sales, Paul Throldahl is responsible for generating and growing worldwide revenues as well as architecting future business development strategies and Partnerships at PHD Virtual. During the course of his career, Paul has accumulated over 15 years of direct sales and management experiences that include building inside and enterprise sales teams from the ground up.
Prior to joining PHD Virtual, Paul was Vice President of Global Sales with Argus Software where he was responsible for generating and growing worldwide revenues as well as architecting future business development strategies.
Prior to Argus, Paul was a principal at Insight Venture Partners where he worked closely with the firm’s portfolio companies to improve sales processes and results. Paul also spent time on the executive management team at VoiceGenie Technology Inc., where he lead the global professional services sales organization. In this capacity, VoiceGenie's revenues increased by over 100% which has since been acquired by Alcatel.
Before his tenure with VoiceGenie, Paul was the Vice President of Global Sales for TrailBlazer Systems, an e-business company. Under his leadership, TrailBlazer’s revenues increased 40% leading to the firm’s acquisition by NuBridges LLC. Earlier in his career, Paul served as Area Vice President of Sales at Tidal Software, a systems management vendor specializing in job scheduling as well as held senior sales positions at EMC and Platinum Technologies. Paul holds a BBA in Management from the University of Wisconsin
Donna Grare, Vice President of Engineering
As the Vice President of Engineering, Donna Grare is directly responsible for managing the development, testing, and support for all PHD Virtual software products. With over 25 years of technical and managerial experience, Donna brings a wealth and depth of expertise in the core areas of virtualization, product development and consulting. She specializes in operational delivery, project management, team building, architecture design, development, and implementation of high quality, commercial software.
Prior to joining PHD Virtual, Donna was the VP of Engineering for AppZero, responsible for product development, product management, QA and support of this award winning application virtualization product. While at AppZero, Donna successfully directed the development of a cross-platform software product that supported Microsoft Windows (server and desktop platforms), Solaris, and Linux.
Before AppZero, Donna was the Managing Director and Partner at several technology firms. At Gotham Technology Group, Donna initiated and constructed the applications group, executing $1MM+ software implementations. Prior to that, Donna created Stratis Group, an award winning consultancy, which was subsequently acquired by Internosis (subsequently acquired by EMC), where Donna served as partner, designing, building and deploying applications and products for starts ups and fortune 100 companies. Before Stratis Group, Donna was a Managing Director for Micro Modeling (which later became Dell Plural).
Earlier, Donna was a Manager at AT&T, where she managed several teams of developers who created and supported AT&T’s financial systems.
Donna is both ITIL and PMI certified, and holds a Bachelor of Science degree of Mathematics from Stockton College.
