EverFi

People Matter


TomTom Davidson  - Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer
Tom Davidson picked the "CEO" slip out of the hat at a recent EverFi staff party and has yet to be fired by the Board of Directors. Davidson ran for the Maine State Legislature while a senior at Bowdoin College in 1994 and spent the better part of three terms working to bring education technology to students in the Pine Tree State. As Chairman of the Utilities and Energy Committee, Davidson led a successful effort with Governor Angus King to provide laptops to every Maine seventh grader as well as to create a major expansion of the wiring of schools and libraries across the State. After deciding that he needed to tell his children one day that he actually once earned a paycheck, Davidson left the Legislature in 2000 and began investing in early-stage technology companies in the education and social media spaces. He was a Venture Partner with Village Ventures, a network of venture capital firms across the U.S. Davidson graduated from Bowdoin College devoid of any academic honors of any consequence. FULL BIO

RayRay Martinez  - Co-Founder, Executive Vice President
To the delight of the EverFi team and the dismay of his lower back, Ray has traveled across the country to meet with superintendents, principals, financial institutions and Fortune 500 Company CEO’s, Governors, and other community leaders. These body sacrificing drives and flights have brought the EverFi - Financial Literacy program to thousands of communities throughout the country. Ray was one of the founding team members at EverFi and has been a featured speaker and guest at numerous banking and state-level teacher conferences. Before joining EverFi, Ray successfully managed cutting-edge supplemental education programs for Kaplan, Inc. in San Francisco, Sacramento, Dallas, Northern Virginia, Los Angeles, and San Diego. Ray is a graduate of Bowdoin College. When the stars align he can be found fly-fishing the pristine rivers out West. FULL BIO

JonJon Chapman  - Co-Founder & Chief Strategy Officer
Back in 1996, Jon moved to the San Francisco Bay Area to work for a hot young start-up. Dashing his hopes for early retirement, the name of that start up was not Yahoo, Google or eBay. However, prior to co-founding EverFi, Jon did work in a variety of operating, marketing and business development roles for Kaplan, Inc. A good deal of his work focused on how to harness learning technology as a key component of the curriculum within the K-12 space. His contributions included running four different markets across the country with operating responsibility of up to $15 million. In each of these posts he championed initiatives that produced substantial and consistent top and bottom line growth. Having now worked in the education space for over 15 years, Jon's role at EverFi touches every part of the business. He is responsible for all product development, design and strategy involving all of EverFi's platforms, especially new initiatives that shape company direction. He spends a great deal of time on airplanes and is one step away from being able to fly a Southwest jet since there are no longer any travel perks he hasn't earned with them. During that travel time, Jon can be found meeting with EverFi customers and speaking at national events focused on the application and research related to the skills EverFi's platforms teach. Jon earned his MBA from the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland and his undergraduate degree from Bowdoin College. 

GeneGene Riechers - Vice Chairman
Gene has been involved in building great technology companies in the DC area as both an operating executive and as a venture capitalist for longer than he’ll admit to. And, he’s been involved in helping young people in a variety of ways. As the Vice Chairman and an executive of EverFi, he gets to pursue both of these passions at the same time. Gene was a General Partner of Valhalla Partners, one of the leading venture capital firms in the mid-Atlantic region. Prior to co-founding Valhalla Partners in 2002, he was co-founder and Managing Director of FBR Technology Venture Partners. He was named to the first annual AlwaysOn "Venture Capital 100" list in 2010. Gene is also a co-founder of the MindShare program, the leading mentoring organization for technology entrepreneurs in the greater Washington area. Prior to his venture capital life, he joined four early-stage ventures, all of which went public. Gene has a B.S. degree from Penn State and an MBA from Loyola College. He has served as a guest lecturer at the Harvard Business School, University of Chicago, and Georgetown University. At Penn State, Gene was a leader in building THON, which is now the largest student-run philanthropic event in the world, raising over $10 million each year to fight childhood cancer. He also is on the board of the Tewaaraton Foundation, where he is chairman of the Native American committee, which provides college scholarships for young leaders in the Native American community. Gene coaches youth sports in Virginia, but none of the hundreds of kids he’s coached have ever pronounced his name correctly. Gene and his wife have 4 kids (and 1 grandson!) and live in McLean, VA.

TammyTammy Wincup  - Chief Operating Officer
Throughout her career Tammy has done anything possible not to spend too much time in any one location. Tammy began her career working in South Africa and Egypt leading education development projects for Price Waterhouse Consulting. She then moved to the foreign land of San Francisco where she ran client services for an education and knowledge management technology start-up and for Diamond Technology Partners in Chicago. After September 11th, 2001, Tammy was appointed to the U.S. Department of State where she helped manage a $300 million fund of economic and education foreign assistance to the Middle East. In 2006, she came home to focus on education reform in her own backyard as the Managing Director of WDS Education where she worked with leading education and charter management organizations, and for-profit education companies focused on education investments. Tammy earned her Masters in Public Policy from the University of Maryland School of Public Policy and her undergraduate degree from the University of Virginia.

AdamAdam Wenchel  - Chief Technology Officer
After repeatedly promising his wife that he had reformed and kicked the startup habit, Adam suffered a momentary relapse and joined the EverFi team. He has been enjoying the adrenaline bender ever since. Prior to EverFi, Adam led the development of the first enterprise payments platform, used to power payments for the US Department of the Treasury and merchant payments for 3 of the top 5 US Banks. Adam started his career at Sun Microsystems, served a two year stint as a researcher for DARPA (AKA the people who invented the Internet and robotic spying house flies), and then built a proto-Myspace at a startup that spontaneously imploded. He is the creator of several social experiments masquerading as iPhone games. In his spare time Adam enjoys making bitters, humbling colleagues in table tennis, hosting blimp-raising parties, sporadically hauling his butt out of bed at 5am to run and most of all spending time with his two wonderful children.

Matt SysakMatt Sysak  - Chief Financial Officer
Matt joined EverFi in July 2012 as Chief Financial Officer. Prior to this Matt served as Vice President and Controller for Rosetta Stone Inc., where he directed all accounting, tax and internal audit functions since joining the company in 2007, including the successful completion of the Company’s Initial Public Offering in April 2009. Prior to joining Rosetta Stone, Matt was Vice President and Controller for Quadramed, Inc., a publicly held provider of healthcare IT software. Before Quadramed, he served as Chief Financial Officer at Professional Products, Inc. and Communications Engineering, Inc. both broadcast system integration firms. Matt holds a Bachelor of Science in Accounting from Indiana University of Pennsylvania, and is a Certified Public Accountant. When not running numbers, Matt can be found training to run 26.2 miles or out on the golf course.

BrianBrian Cooley - Chief Marketing Officer
Over his career, Brian has developed a passion for building powerful global brands, fostering loyal communities and justifying marketing spend to CFO’s. He had a promising early sports marketing career until he accidentally kicked a golfer’s ball out of bounds at a globally televised event. Since that career low, Brian moved onto yet greener pastures leading B2C and B2B marketing teams in the automotive industry with Land Rover and in the technology and educational sectors with IBM and Blackboard. Prior to joining EverFi, he spent six years expanding Blackboard’s global education impact while overseeing branding, communications and demand generation practices. Having lived in five countries and traveled to over fifty, Brian’s developed a love of cultural interaction and has consumed countless frightening meals in the name of international business. As Georgetown University undergrad and business school alum, Brian’s a passionate Hoya hoops fan – and correspondingly accustomed to frequent March heartbreak. He and his wife live in Washington DC and love traveling and being outdoors with their two boys.

BrettBrett Frazier - Executive Vice President of Sales
Brett joins EverFi with over 12 years of leadership experience in P-20 education, which doesn’t sound too bad for a guy who was born and raised in the small farming community of Pratt, Kansas (population 6,900 including tumbleweeds). Brett recently joined the Fi after serving more than four years as Senior Vice President of Global Sales for Blackboard Learn, the company’s largest division. He is excited to roll up his sleeves, make his own travel reservations, get his own coffee, and has gladly traded out trips to London and Amsterdam for visits to Columbus and Austin as he works to help EverFi reach more students. The first decade of Brett’s professional career was spent in consumer product sales and marketing at Hallmark Cards, Inc., until he woke up one day in 2000 and decided that this whole Internet thing might actually have some legs. From there began his odyssey through the world of education technology. During his stops at eCollege (now part of Pearson PLC), Knowledge Universe and Blackboard, Brett has had the fortune of getting to know so many great education leaders and innovators. Along the way, he has developed a true passion for how technology can help reach more students and transform our education system. As a graduate of the University of Kansas, Brett often reminds his Big East and ACC colleagues that great basketball exists west of the Mississippi. In between his rather active travel schedule, Brett enjoys spending time with his wife, Anne, on their boat in the Chesapeake, which they have aptly named “Sea Tractor” in honor of his humble upbringings on that farm in Kansas.

MikeMichael Fee  - Executive Vice President, West Coast
Having given up on his dream of riding in the Tour de France, Mike Fee now uses his endurance working three time zones away from EverFi's DC headquarters. Mike's initiative to grow our western operations is the latest (and, he assures us, final) step in a career spent entirely in education: Mike moved from Stanford to the rural South, where he was part of Teach For America's pioneer corps in the Mississippi Delta. Since then he's held various roles in education, ranging from teaching to running a foreign-language instruction business, taking time out to earn his MBA from Stanford and to raise three kids in Oakland, California. All three have been certified in all of EverFi's programs; Declan, six years old, has shown particular proficiency in digital literacy.

MattSean Fitzgerald  - Executive Vice President, Midwest
Sean’s (aka financefitz’s) passion for financial literacy is driven by the future college tuition and wedding bills for his 4 daughters. Based in Chicago, Sean’s initiative is to lead the growth of Everfi in the Midwest. Prior to Everfi, Sean taught Personal Finance at UIC College Prep. He also launched Personal Finance Teacher, LLC to teach personal finance survival skills and to consult educators and businesses on implementing financial literacy programs. Before his teaching career, he worked on Wall Street as a Senior Vice President at Lehman Brothers (no, he did not cause the firm to go bankrupt!). Sean earned a MS in Education and Social Policy from Northwestern University, a MBA and a BS in Mechanical Engineering from Washington University, and the Chartered Financial Analyst designation. A former college soccer player and self-proclaimed versatile athlete, he now enjoys watching sports while asking himself, “Why can’t I do that anymore?”

KaraKara Hedges  - Vice President, Product Development
A self-proclaimed start-up junkie, Kara has spent the past 12 years working in a variety of marketing, sales, and business development roles for early-stage educational technology firms. Kara was one of the first hundred employees at Blackboard, Inc., a then unknown company looking to become a leader in e-Education. For the next 5 years at Blackboard, Kara served in a variety of marketing positions and played an entrepreneurial role in building strategic marketing initiatives internationally. Prior to coming to EverFi, Kara served as Director of Channel Development for 3 years at Rave Mobile Safety, a leading provider of mobile GPS technologies & mass notification solutions. There she was responsible for national channel strategies and the direct sales strategy for 13 states across multiple verticals in the Northeast. Kara has an MBA from R.H. Smith School of Business.


LauraLaura Neville  - Executive Vice President, Digital Services
Laura is a country music loving mom of two and marketing industry vet who is always on the look-out for what’s Pinteresting, places where she can enjoy great food and wine or her next pop-culture addiction. Laura joins the Everfi team excited to help build another company after 12 years of constructing and leading a team of 7 to a team of 97. Prior to joining Everfi, Laura was the Vice President and Group Head of New Media Strategies’ Engagement team. A veteran of social media, Laura provided her team and clients with a unique perspective and historical knowledge of the evolution of the industry from the early “word-of-mouth marketing” days to the current social ‘sphere. Laura is a graduate of Hollins College and currently resides in Bethesda, MD with her husband and two young boys.


EllenEllen Patterson  - Executive Vice President, Strategic Partnerships
With nearly two decades of experience in childhood education and all things digital, Ellen serves as a key liaison between Everfi and its strategic partners. A veteran of Silicon Valley and AOL, Ellen spent half her professional career collaborating with partners like Amazon, Google, HP, Zynga and Stitcher, incubating consumer products as they took their online form - photos, video, greeting cards, shopping, payment platforms, app stores - shaping how we use them today. Yet her proudest collaboration is with her husband, raising their three young daughters. Always navigating with a steady hand, Ellen was employee #30 at a Bay Area startup that grew to 850 and closed $200M in venture funding in less than 18 months. She survived the Time Warner / AOL merger as well as a tornado at headquarters (no relation). Ellen remains a fierce Georgetown Hoya and is rumored to bleed Hoya Blue. After graduation, she started her career as a second grade teacher near the Gulf Coast serving under-resourced communities as part of Notre Dame's ACE program. She went on to earn a Masters in Counseling Psychology from Boston College and counseled hundreds of elementary school children and tweens. In her seldom existent spare time, she's online sharing photos, creating nostalgic playlists, learning new dance moves from her kids, cooking, and traveling cross country with friends and family.