SynerG Team



Michael Norring, Co-founder & CEO

Michael Norring has over 9 years of experience in managing, evaluating and implementing enterprise applications. Prior to being a co-founder of SynerG Software, Mr. Norring was the Vice President of SOA Services at Attachmate Corporation where he was responsible for all emerging products, as well as defining the Attachmate vision and strategy around Service-Oriented Architecture and the User-Organized Enterprise. Prior to Attachmate, Mr. Norring was a consultant for BearingPoint (KPMG Consulting), delivering customer-focused solutions to enterprises in various industries. At BearingPoint Mr. Norring was responsible for delivering CRM solutions and has extensive experience implementing enterprise applications such as Siebel, Oracle, Clarify, e.piphany, and Pivotal. In 2001, Mr. Norring successfully participated in starting up CornerDrugstore.com where he played a major role in defining the future vision and strategy for the startup. Mr. Norring holds a Masters degree in Economics from San Jose State University.


James Hayden, VP Sales

Jim brings 20 + years of successful, senior sales management experience to SynerG Software. Most recently, he served as Vice President of Sales for a technology startup Second Space –building the company’s sales and sales team to exceed first year objectives. Prior, Jim was VP Major Accounts and Divisional VP for TravelCLICK, a leading provider of online reservation solutions for the hotel industry. Jim has also held senior sales and operating roles at MSN, Aris/CIBER, Cambridge Technology Partners, Cendant and the Carlson Companies. He holds an MBA in Finance and Marketing from Washington State University and a BA in Business Administration and Economics from Western Washington University. Jim is on the board of the Western Washington University College of Business and Simple Web Applications. He has also been involved in the successful summit bids of Mt. Rainier and Mt. Kilimanjaro.




Kalpana Narayanaswamy, Co-founder & VP Products

Kalpana Narayanaswamy has over 10 years experience in designing, implementing, positioning and delivering enterprise software applications. Prior to SynerG she was the director of product development at Attachmate Corporation where she led of the development efforts surrounding the SOA and User-Organized Enterprise initiatives. Ms. Narayanaswamy has held various technical and management positions and has been instrumental in starting, leading and delivering two brand new enterprise product initiatives from initial inception through release. Ms. Narayanaswamy holds a Masters of Science degree in Computer Science from the University of Texas at Arlington.



Mike Sutton, Former COO, AutoDesk

Mike Sutton has worked in the high-tech industry for over 40 years and held various executive positions in Fortune 1000 companies. He recently retired as the executive vice president for World Wide Business Operations, for Autodesk and is now actively involved in several start-up software companies. Mike Sutton From 1966 to 1982 Mike held a variety of IT management positions in the UK finishing as European MIS manager for AArque systems. In 1982 he started a national chain of PC dealers specializing in Desktop Computer Aided Design systems. After building it into the premier dealer in the UK for CAD in 1986, Mike joined Autodesk Inc. as Sales and marketing Director for the UK and Benelux. He later became UK Managing Director, and then Senior Director for Northern Europe and in 1993 became Executive Vice President for Europe, Middle East, and Africa, based in Geneva Switzerland. In 1998 Mike moved to the US to assume corporate executive roles with worldwide field operations, responsible for World Wide: Sales, Marketing, Manufacturing, Distribution, IT and Training and Support.



Tom Norring, Former VP of Asia/Pacific, AutoDesk

Tom Norring has over 35 years of sales and leadership experience. Mr. Norring retired from Autodesk in August 2005 where he was the Vice President of Asia/Pacific. Prior to Autodesk, Mr. Norring served multiple positions at Hitachi Data Systems including VP WW Sales Open Storage Systems, VP and General Manager Asia/Pacific and Latin America. Mr. Norring was serving as the WW Product Line Director for National Advanced Systems, a National Semiconductor subsidiary, when it was acquired by Hitachi Data Systems. Prior to coming to the United States in 1987, Mr. Norring was the CEO of Itel Danmark A/S and served in multiple sales and marketing roles at IBM Denmark.



Martin Wegenstien, Former CIO, AutoDesk

Martin Wegenstein is a senior executive with extensive experience in operations and information technology leadership at companies ranging from small start-ups to Fortune 500 corporations. He is focusing his experiences and skills on bringing new technologies to market. Wegenstein serves on the Board of Advisors for Coghead, Voxify and SynerG. He also serves on the Board of Advisors of the Center for Electronic Business, San Francisco State University. Wegenstein retired from Autodesk as VP and CIO in where he was responsible for the world wide information technology infrastructure and IT based systems solutions. At Autodesk he completely overhauled the global Information Technology organization and system infrastructure to enable new business initiatives and drive margin improvements for this leading design software and digital content company. In 2004 he was recognized as a Computerworld Premier 100 IT Leader. Prior to Autodesk Martin was VP of Operations at Slam Dunk Networks, a managed network services provider for secure, guaranteed delivery of applications to applications transaction messages. At Slam Dunk he established complete operational and customer support capabilities for a global 7x24 network service and achieved consistent performance with 100% network uptime for over 15 month running. Before Slam Dunk Wegenstein was Senior VP of Operations and Customer Service at Pilot Network Services, a provider of highly secure Internet access and web hosting services, where he established a scalable infrastructure and customer focused operations and client support capabilities. Prior to Pilot, Wegenstein served as CIO at Applied Materials and Raychem, following a long career at Emerson Electric Co. He was recognized with the CIO-100 Award for Best Practices in Human Resources for his work at Raychem. Wegenstein brings broad knowledge and considerable experience in IT, the software, as well as the managed services industry. He has a degree in Mathematics from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology and a M.S. degree in Computer Science from Union College.



Bill Price , CEO, Driva Solutions

Bill Price started Driva Solutions in September 2001 to help companies achieve the delicate balance between cost containment and greater customer loyalty via their contact centers and other customer-facing operations. He also co-founded the 10-country LimeBridge Global Alliance and the 24-company Global Operations Council (GOC). Driva Solutions has built three principal programs: Contact Optimization, Performance Optimization, and Sourcing Optimization. Among Driva Solutions’ customers are Apple, CheckFree, Google, Microsoft, TiVo, Upromise, and WildCard Systems. Prior to forming Driva Solutions, Bill was Amazon.com’s first Vice President of Global Customer Service, responsible for all customer service activities including managing the company’s contact centers in the US, Europe, Japan, and India. During these years, Amazon reduced its contacts-per-order by over 70% and also scored the second highest-ever customer satisfaction rating for any American company.Before Amazon.com, Bill spent 20 years in customer care and services management starting at McKinsey & Company in San Francisco and Stockholm, as COO and CFO with Automated Call Processing Corporation, and later creating the MCI Enhanced Call Router (ECR) and MCI Call Center Services (CCS) divisions. Bill is a frequent industry speaker and writer, teaches CRM at the graduate school level, and is on the Technical Advisory Board of several leading contact center vendors. In 1997 Call Center Magazine named Bill a “Call Center Pioneer”, and in fall 2004 he was asked to be one of the 18 global "CRM Gurus". Bill received his BA from Dartmouth College and his MBA from Stanford University.



Beth McRae , Global Director, Cisco Systems

Beth McRae has over 25 years of business development and leadership experience. As Global Director leading a multi-billion dollar IBM - Cisco strategic Unified Communications (UC) engagement, she is leading a complex global program integrating UC into IBM GTS service product lines accelerating strategic value for joint customers. Ms. McRae has led companies to award-winning levels of recognition, market share, and revenue growth. As Vice President, Strategic Alliances & Marketing for Vista Information Technology, a privately-held call center & managed services firm, Ms. McRae was instrumental in establishing the brand, market strategy and sales alliances leading to an acquisition by Avaya. As a senior member of the Avaya start-up team for Global Business Communications Solutions and Managed Services, Ms. McRae directed the build strategy of a national business development organization to penetrate new markets for Remote Managed Services, On-Demand Hosted Solutions, and VoIP Migration Outsourcing. Prior roles include serving as Senior VP Business Strategy for docHarbor, VP and General Manager Cirrus Technology Inc. and several marketing and product development roles at Arbitron. Additionally, Ms. McRae founded C.G. Paris Inc. a business development & management consulting company where she advised multiple start-up companies. Beth received her BA in Radio, Television & Film and her Masters in General Administration for Management Information Systems from the University of Maryland system. She served on the Board of Directors – University of Maryland, UC Alumni Association for four years and was also a key member, University of Maryland President’s Club Steering Committee. Currently, Beth serves as a hospice volunteer for Providence Hospice of Seattle.