Built To
Move Capital

Rodney is an experienced, results-driven leader of SaaS and enterprise software solutions with a successful history in the B2B and B2C industries. He has served in senior-level roles focusing on client delivery and operational strategies.

Before founding Verivend, Rodney was an early-stage employee at Liazon, where he built and scaled the company’s client onboarding and software implementation department and methodology, successfully utilized by over 1,000 customers. Rodney also served as the strategic business owner and client delivery leader for Liazon’s benefits technology platform, generating $10Mn+ in new annual revenue and $30Mn+ in annual recurring revenue.

Prior to Liazon, Rodney was responsible for the implementation of enterprise software and professional services delivery at LiquidMatrix in the higher education industry.

Rodney has deep expertise in architecting client service strategies from concept to completion, software platform and product development, operational process design, and building successful cross-functional teams.

Rodney received his MBA and undergraduate degree in Computer Science from Canisius University in Buffalo, NY.

Jon is a seasoned software architect and proven technology leader. He has played an integral role in bootstrapping, leading, and scaling software engineering teams and products for several hugely successful software companies.

Before founding Verivend, Jon was Chief Architect at ACV Auctions. There he led and grew the Software Engineering team and created ACV’s Product team, which was responsible for the company’s overall product priorities and roadmap. Jon also managed the re-architecting of ACV’s platform as a microservice architecture to support multiple, focused engineering teams, and a greater level of product expertise.

Prior to ACV, Jon served as Global Engineering Manager at Liazon. He led the re-architecting of the company's domestic product for a new global market, meeting the needs of customers on every continent.

Jon has expertise in both the initial creation of software products and processes, as well as long-term maintainability, extend-ability, and scalability of those products and processes.

Jon received his MBA in International Management from Canisius College in Buffalo, NY and his undergraduate degree in Computer Science and Engineering from the University of Buffalo.

Aaron is the President of The Santarosa Group, the parent company of Buffalo Fuel, SGS Recovery, Frontier Fibers, and JAGG Electrical & Control.

This portfolio of companies represents 160 employees. Aaron was responsible for overseeing the creation of three of the portfolio companies, as well as the growth and operations of each company.

Aaron has deep expertise in the commodities, transportation, and renewable energy industries, successfully leading a portfolio of profitable companies that deliver responsible solutions to a wide breadth of customers.

Aaron received his MBA from the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto and his undergraduate degree in finance from Bentley University in Boston, MA.

Auria Fuentes is a customer service and sales veteran from Buffalo, NY and owned her own successful retail store in Niagara Falls, NY.

Auria has also conducted certified customer service training programs throughout the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand while working for Delaware North Companies.

She brings a successful track record of building training programs and growing customer loyalty to Verivend.

Mike Zorn is one of the most well-known and frequently sought-after developers in Buffalo. Having helped to steer the technological path for everywhere from ACV Auctions to PogoProfiles, Mike’s fingerprints are on many of the brightest and most promising startup companies in Western New York and beyond.

At ACV Auctions, Mike served as a Senior Software Engineer and was responsible for implementing ACV’s initial mobile application prototype, which was successfully used to secure funding for the company. Mike also built ACV’s native iOS and web applications and was also responsible for evolving and maintaining the company’s back-end platform.

Mike has also developed flagship applications for The Lumber Exchange, AireXpert, BillZip, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Doolli, and Hire Empire, helping companies from inception to growing to over 300 employees.

Mike received his undergraduate degrees in Computer Science and Computer Science and Engineering from the University at Buffalo.

Matt is a software engineer and architect with over 13 years’ experience in the industry. He has focused much of his career on designing and implementing software automation solutions to ensure the highest quality applications.

Previously at Willis Towers Watson, Matt was working with several of their business segments as Test Automation Architect. He began as a leader in crafting quality engineering practices for Liazon as they grew from a small team to a global benefits management company, serving many roles along the way. He transitioned to Acclaris to help modernize their development and testing lifecycle while working with teams around the globe.

Beginning his career at Synacor, Matt gained experience in both quality and software engineering principles. Going on to implement a large-scale test automation solution that drastically cut the manual efforts required to deliver high quality features.

Matt's experience has given him insight for designing software for the global scale and preparing for that growth from both a people and a technology perspective.

Ryan is an experienced full stack software engineer. His 16-plus year career has been focused on building great software products, ensuring they are reliable, scalable, and secure.

Prior to joining Verivend, Ryan served as Principal Engineer and Team Lead at Liazon (acquired by Willis Towers Watson), where he built the company's client service platform and customer-facing global product used by several Fortune 500 companies. Before Liazon, he was a Lead Software Engineer at Palladian Health (acquired by EviCore), architecting and scaling their SaaS offering from the ground up.

Ryan received his undergraduate degree in Computer Science from Fredonia State University in Fredonia, NY.

Dan is an accomplished sales and business development leader within the private equity and B2B space. His experience spans private equity capital raising, relationship management, B2B sales, marketing, customer service and sales operations.

Prior to joining Verivend, Dan served as Vice President of Investor Relations at Broadstone Real Estate (and Broadstone Net Lease), where he helped grow the company from less than $1 billion in assets under management, to over $5 billion serving over 4,000 shareholders. Dan led an investor relations and investor services team through the initial public offering of the company’s largest fund during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Before Broadstone, Dan worked at Paychex in multiple sales roles focused on payroll, HR services and employee benefits, in the small to medium sized business segment.

Dan received his MBA from the Simon School of Business with concentrations in Finance and Entrepreneurship, and his undergraduate degree in Management/Marketing from St. John Fisher College in Rochester, NY.

Jesse brings a diverse background of business development and wealth industry expertise derived from a career of senior-level roles within the wealth management and technology industries.

Before joining Verivend, Jesse was Vice President of Savior Wealth, a $250M AUM Registered Investment Advisory firm which raised an additional $100M for venture capital investments through SPVs from HNW and UHNW investors. Jesse was Lead Analyst and led business development efforts while at Savior Wealth.

Prior to Savior Wealth, Jesse was Vice President of Envisage Inc., a software engineering projects and staffing company specializing in the embedded and financial industries. Jesse led the day-to-day operations of the Sales and Recruiting teams, helping grow the company from 20 employees to 60 employees.

Jesse received his Bachelor’s in Economics from Worcester State University (Worcester, MA).