Sample Blocks

Michael Boese Chief Executive Officer

Michael Boese is CEO of Hearsay Systems. He has 25 years of software leadership experience with high performing software companies. Most recently, he was co-founder and CEO of Plantt, a SaaS enabled garden goods marketplace that was purchased by Monrovia. Prior to Plantt, Boese was the CEO of Certent, a fintech SaaS company where he oversaw 5x revenue growth, significant margin expansion and the implementation of multiple process improvement initiatives over a six-year period. Boese has also held various senior leadership roles at Taleo, SAP, PeopleSoft, and Oracle. He has also been a board advisor and consultant to several software companies.

Boese holds a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from The University of Washington and an MBA from Duke University, where he was a Fuqua Scholar.

Cerys Davies Vice President of People

Cerys heads up our People team and is responsible for Hearsay’s employee and candidate experience, which includes company culture, people operations, recruiting, and global office operations. Having spent over 15 years within People functions at various global SaaS businesses, Cerys is passionate about all things People.

Cerys holds a BA in American Studies from the University of Wales, Swansea, loves travel and exploration.

Michael Depold Vice President of Finance

In his role as Vice President of Finance, Michael is responsible for Hearsay’s finance, accounting and legal functions. He is a key contributor to the strategic direction of the company and making sure Hearsay is resourced to deliver on that strategy, while maintaining the appropriate financial rigor and risk profile. Previously, Michael was Director of FP&A at Hearsay.

Prior to Hearsay, Michael held senior financial roles at ON24 and Intel. He earned a Bachelor’s degree in Finance from Santa Clara University and an MBA from the University of California, Berkeley.

Adam Dyer Vice President of Engineering

Adam leads Hearsay’s engineering team, overseeing all aspects of development and technology. He has nearly 20 years of industry experience from both larger and smaller companies. Prior to Hearsay, he was VP of Genesys Cloud’s Digital & Outbound offerings where he helped build and grow the platform from the very early days into a 9-figure business. He also spent time leading the software group for FLIR Mass Spectrometry, as well as working on in-vehicle software at Ford Motor Company.

Adam has a Bachelor’s from Purdue University in Computer Technology, and Master’s in Software Engineering from the University of Michigan.

Alex Falls Vice President of Product

Alex Falls is responsible for leading Hearsay’s product vision, direction, and development. He has over two decades of experience delivering product vision, strategy, and execution transforming the insurance and financial services industry.

Prior to Hearsay, Falls worked at Guidewire Software for 14 years where he held a number of management roles. Most recently, he spent five years as Vice President of Product Management and was recognized for building and evangelizing Guidewire’s cloud transformation strategy to reinvent non-SaaS products as cloud-native products and solutions.

Falls has also served in management roles at Epiphany and Clarify, leading the early wave of customer relationship management (CRM) software development. He holds a B.S. in political science from Washington University in St. Louis.

Leslie Leach Vice President of Marketing

Leslie Leach leads Hearsay’s marketing strategy and execution. She has more than two decades of experience in consumer and B2B marketing, starting her marketing career as a Brand Manager at The Clorox Company. More recently, she served as Vice President of Marketing for ZapLabs, the innovation lab for Realogy RLGY (NYSE) and Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer at Certent, a fintech SaaS company, where she grew the business from $11 million to $40 million in revenue over four years.

Leach holds a B.A. in Economics from The University of Pennsylvania and an MBA from the UCLA Anderson School of Management, where she was named an Edward W. Carter Fellow. In her spare time, she enjoys cheering on her two teenage boys, travelling, and the outdoors.

Pradeep Ananth Vice President of Client Services

Pradeep is responsible for leading Hearsay’s Professional Services, Training & Education and Technical Support organizations . He has over two decades of experience working with large, global enterprise clients helping design, deploy and maximize the value of their customer experience related investments through a variety of services.

Prior to Hearsay, Pradeep has worked at some of the world’s leading agencies and consultancies including Deloitte Consulting and Razorfish where he has built and managed practices around digital transformation and customer experience management for customers such as Wells Fargo, Ally Bank, Cigna Health, Salesforce, Intel etc. while partnering with leading platforms like Adobe, Salesforce and Amazon Web Services.

He holds a Masters in Information Systems Management from Carnegie Mellon and a Bachelors in Electrical and Computer Engineering from PSG College of Technology, India. Pradeep lives in San Francisco with his wife and two kinder-age boys…Any spare time outside of heavy-duty parenting is usually consumed by books, movies, music that help make sense of the human condition.

Clara Shih Co-founder and Executive Chairperson

Clara Shih is co-founder and executive chairperson of Hearsay Systems, the leading Client Engagement Platform used by more than 200,000 financial advisors and insurance agents to authentically and intelligently grow business relationships. Marketing and Distribution leaders at the world’s leading financial services companies including Morgan Stanley, New York Life, Allstate, American Family Insurance, JPMorgan Chase, Prudential and Allianz partner with Hearsay to proactively guide and capture the last mile of digital communications to deliver the human client experience at scale.

A digital pioneer, Clara developed the first social business application in 2007 and subsequently authored the New York Times-featured best-seller, The Facebook Era, and sequel, The Social Business Imperative. Clara has been named one of Fortune’s “Most Powerful Women Entrepreneurs,” Fast Company’s “Most Influential People in Technology,” and a “Young Global Leader” by the World Economic Forum. She also has been listed in both Fortune’s and Ad Age’s “40 Under 40,” as well as InvestmentNews’ “40 Under 40” and ThinkAdvisor‘s 25 Industry Influencers.

Clara is a member of the Starbucks board of directors and previously served in a variety of technical, product and marketing roles at Google, Microsoft and Salesforce.com. She graduated #1 in computer science at Stanford University, where she also received an M.S. in computer science. She also holds an M.S. in internet studies from Oxford University, where she studied as a U.S. Marshall Scholar.