Meet the 2025 Female Trailblazers of SaaS

Steering Growth Through Keen Financial Acumen

CFO Amanda Nevins joined ActiveProspect in early 2024, where she leads accounting, finance, legal, and human resources. She has more than two decades of executive financial and operating leadership, including CFO of All Web Leads, CFO of CSIdentity (CSID), and CAO at Zappos.com. She’s a strategic leader who excels at using data to drive decision-making. Amanda also served as an advisory board member of the CFO Leadership Council. She has received numerous awards such as Profile in Power, Best CFO-Middle Market, and an inclusion in the Treasury and Risks 100 Most Influential People in Finance.

What Her Peers Said: “Her action-oriented approach, combined with a calm and composed executive presence, enables organizations to optimize performance and accelerate growth. She has consistently demonstrated success in driving significant financial and operational improvements while building high-caliber, results-driven teams.”

About ActiveProspect: ActiveProspect is a consent-based marketing platform focused on lead optimization and compliance. The company’s comprehensive product suite helps businesses optimize their lead generation processes and verify leads in real time, ensuring TCPA compliance.

Delivering Better Patient Outcomes

Carol Valentic’s unique leadership approach blends a healthcare background with extensive business expertise. She is leading the charge for transformation, connection and empowerment in the health and insurance sectors.

Under Carol’s leadership, Atom Advantage has developed two solutions — Atom Connect and Record Ranger — that streamline communication, automate document processing, and ensure compliance in these highly regulated industries. These solutions work independently or together to reduce administrative burdens, lower costs, and deliver structured, real-time data to key stakeholders.

What Her Peers Said: “Carol’s leadership is reshaping how regulated industries access, process and act on essential data. By eliminating inefficiencies, ensuring compliance, and accelerating decision-making, Atom Advantage enables payers, providers, claims administrators and patients to navigate healthcare and insurance with greater clarity and confidence.”

About Atom Advantage: Atom Advantage uses AI to transform unstructured health and insurance data into actionable insights that eliminate bottlenecks, accelerate processing, ensure accurate information exchange, and improve patient care.

Reducing Risk from Cybersecurity Threats

As the second, full-time hire for Beauceron, Kathryn Cameron has helped build a $5 million+ ARR SaaS in a highly competitive global cybersecurity market. Kathryn developed and led go-to-market strategies that have seen the company grow from $100,000 in sales in 2017 to $5.4 million in 2024 while also navigating various challenges including the COVID-19 pandemic and the Silicon Valley Bank VC crisis in 2023.

Kathryn has also been vital to Beauceron’s fundraising, playing a crucial role in raising more than $4.5 million in VC funding since 2018. She’s also developed a diverse group of talented young leaders and managers.

About Beauceron Security: Beauceron focuses on the human aspects of cybersecurity, with solutions for anti-phishing, security awareness and email analysis. Beauceron has grown from five early-adopter customers in 2017 to more than 1,100 in 2025, including global Fortune 500 financial institutions, national telecommunications firms, and government organizations.

Going Against the Grain

Neha Sampat is a three-time tech founder and CEO who previously led Raw Engineering and Built.io. She has received numerous awards, such as Austin Business Journal’s 2023 Women in Business Awards and Best CEO, and Comparably’s Best CEO for Diversity, Women and Small and Mid-Size Companies 2022.  She’s dedicated to achieving equity in the workplace and is also a certified sommelier.

What Her Peers Said: “Neha is a relentless advocate for achieving equity in the workplace through initiatives like the ScaleUp Diversity Pledge and Pledge 1%, board participation, incubator programs, and mentorship.”

About Contentstack: Contentstack ranked on the Inc. 5000 List of America’s Fastest-Growing Private Companies in 2023. Contentstack aims to deliver the world’s best digital experiences using cutting-edge content management, customer data, personalization, and AI technology.

Streamlining AP Processes

With more than 20 years of leadership experience, degrees in both Accounting and Computer Science, and deep expertise in software development, Kathi Haller shapes Dataserv’s product vision to enable efficient and touchless AP automation. Before DataServ, Kathi spent 10 years in Deloitte’s audit practice, where she served several Fortune 500 clients as a CPA in the Manufacturing sector. This is where she gained an in-depth understanding of the AP transaction cycles. Kathi has been recognized on the list of Most Influential Businesswomen in St. Louis.

What Her Peers Said: “Her passion, integrity, and fairness have led DataServ to solid profitability, excellent client relationships, and a strong team, which are our most valuable assets.”

About Dataserv: Since 1994, DataServ has delivered Accounts Payable invoice automation solutions that enable accounting teams to eliminate data entry, increase accuracy, and focus on higher-value tasks.

Helping Creative Professionals Grow

Before founding Dubsado, Becca Berg and her husband were creative professionals. Becca was a photographer, and he was a web designer. Becca quickly learned how hard it was to run a business as a creative and wanted to help others like herself succeed. Their goal was to simply empower their customers to make more money.

What Her Peers Said: “My journey in co-founding Dubsado started with how I grew up — in a family full of entrepreneurs. My mom and dad ran their own business, a modeling agency, and I carved out a path for myself in photography, a field that complemented their work. I learned just how tough it can be to run a business on your own. Your income isn’t necessarily guaranteed, and every dollar you earn maps directly back to the hours you’re able to work. So, every minute counts.”

About Dubsado: Dubsado offers software to creative service businesses. They equip creative professionals with tools to dial in their admin processes and grow their businesses.

Reimagining Operations in Housing and Healthcare

Minna Song is revolutionizing how we scale affordable housing and healthcare through AI-powered solutions. An MIT graduate and co-founder and CEO of EliseAI, Minna has shown an unwavering commitment to helping essential industries improve their operations, making them more sustainable and accessible to the people they serve. Recently, she and her team raised $75 million at a $1 billion valuation for the NYC-based startup.

About EliseAI: EliseAI is a software company that empowers housing and healthcare organizations with powerful automation and conversational AI to streamline communications and improve operational efficiency.

Building Personalized Connections in Store and Online

CEO and Co-Founder Leigh Sevin says the way to create a message that converts is to follow one strategy: Start with one customer that you have a real connection with; write that message like you’re writing to a friend.

Leigh is a Georgetown University graduate with extensive retail knowledge and business acumen focused on meeting the needs of mid-sized omnichannel retail brands through a data-driven CRM and client messaging platform.

What Her Peers Said: “Leigh (and her co-founder) Jinesh Shah have built a great team and have been focused on capital efficiency since inception (before it became en vogue recently). Prior to their Series A, ARR was greater than capital raised.”

About Endear: Founded in 2016, Endear is a CRM and Clienteling software development company built for omnichannel retail brands looking to nurture customers, increase foot traffic, and drive sales.

Transforming Text Data Analysis

Tovah Paglaro has played a key role in developing Fathom, a platform that enables researchers to analyze open-ended data at scale. Her innovative approach has transformed how businesses use text analytics to gain insights from customer and employee feedback. Tovah previously built and scaled Avalanche Insights, a public opinion firm in progressive politics, which was acquired in 2023. Beyond her technical contributions, Tovah is a recognized thought leader in survey design and text analytics.

Outside of her professional work, Tovah is committed to mentoring female founders and supporting initiatives like the Harvard Human Flourishing Project and the Stanford AI & Ethics Program. She is dedicated to ethical AI and leadership development.

What Her Peers Said: “At the heart of her work is a commitment to human empathy in research, ensuring that community voices are heard and considered in decision-making. This focus on the human side of technology and data sets her apart as a leader.”

About Fathom: Fathom is a SaaS platform that specializes in AI-powered text analysis of open-ended data, such as survey responses and customer feedback. By combining artificial intelligence with human oversight, Fathom enables organizations to efficiently process and interpret qualitative data, reducing analysis time by up to 75% while enhancing the depth and accuracy of insights.

Clarity in Crisis When Disaster Strikes

CEO Heidi Hessler took Futurity from a small startup that suffered its own tragedy when its founder Robert Richards died in a car accident to deployment in more than 32 states providing comprehensive emergency management solutions. Today, Futurity solutions help citizens and professionals streamline emergency preparedness, response, and recovery by quickly assessing damage and producing the paperwork needed to get FEMA funds.

What Her Peers Said: “The original founder and CEO was tragically killed in a car wreck, and Heidi, who was relatively new to the company and employed as VP of Sales/Marketing, stepped up to become CEO and saved the company. The company has been nearly entirely bootstrapped and its technologies have been used to respond to many of the major disaster events anyone has heard about in the last several years.”

About Futurity IT: Futurity’s comprehensive platform features mobile-enabled disaster management software with intuitive technological tools alleviating time-consuming, manual reporting processes and data silos.

Strategic Thinker Who Delivers Success

Heather Preu is a distinguished senior executive with more than 25 years of experience in global enterprise software, hardware, automation, and technology solutions. She’s known for being a high-energy business strategist who nurtures winning cultures and leads transformative teams to deliver world-class solutions to customers. She was recognized as a 2024 Women in Tech Global Awards finalist.

What Her Peers Said: “Heather’s impressive career includes executive roles at prominent companies like Kerridge Commercial Systems, IBM, Infor, and GE Digital, where she consistently delivered multimillion-dollar revenue growth and led teams through business transformation.”

About Intellect: Intellect’s adaptable QMS AI platform was built for mid-market and enterprise businesses in the life sciences and discrete manufacturing industries. The AI-driven quality management software features a no-code drag-and-drop interface with intelligent automation to enable quality and compliance teams to boost productivity and profitability and meet evolving industry regulations.

Modernizing Building Maintenance Operations

Charlotte Gummesson’s goal at iRestify is to modernize the property maintenance industry by providing property management companies with the technology and services to improve their operations. She has more than 20 years of experience in sales and operations, including launching and scaling Teleperformance Canada from concept to $89 million in ARR.

About iRestify: iRestify is a property manager’s all-in-one digitized solution for property maintenance and facility management.

Visionary Leadership Through a Transparent Approach and Culture of Accountability

Under CEO Mary Delaney’s leadership, Karbon has expanded its platform’s AI, automation and client experience capabilities for accounting practices. She has driven exceptional growth and customer retention by fostering an inclusive, customer-focused culture, and showing an unmatched ability to attract top talent. With a 243% growth rate, Karbon was recognized on the 2024 Deloitte Technology Fast 500™.

What Her Peers Said: “Her presence as an engaged leader across Karbon’s global offices and her expertise in AI have helped shape the company’s innovative direction while maintaining its status as a Great Place to Work in the U.S., Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom.”

About Karbon: Karbon is a cloud-based practice management platform designed for accounting firms. The software combines work management, client collaboration, and internal communication tools, helping accounting practices streamline their workflow, improve team collaboration, and deliver better client outcomes.

Driving Success for Real Estate Leaders

COO and board member Suellen McFarling has spent two decades helping entrepreneurs in the real-estate technology industry build and grow profitable businesses. Before Leonardo247, Suellen introduced new technology solutions to multifamily owners, operators and investors, including automated credit and criminal background checks, and lead management and social media technology.

What Her Peers Said: “Throughout her career, Suellen has been at the forefront of driving technological transformation in the real estate industry. She continues to push the boundaries of what’s possible in PropTech. As a female leader in a traditionally male-dominated industry, she is passionate about empowering the next generation of women in tech. Suellen’s career is a testament to her resilience, vision, and dedication to building lasting impact in the PropTech space, making her a respected figure among both her peers, her staff, her customers, and the next wave of innovators in the industry.”

About Leonardo247: Leonardo247’s performance management software for property operations and maintenance delivers daily guidance to on-site teams and offers leadership real-time visibility into what’s happening at every property to streamline operations and improve efficiency, performance and accountability.

Simplifying Property Management

Resha Shroff co-founded Lynx Automation after seeing a gap in the rental management market. Lynx provides a one-stop shop for property automation. Resha is committed to improving guest experience, boosting operational efficiency for owners, and helping rental managers maximize revenue through upsells, energy savings, and direct bookings.

About Lynx Automation: Lynx works closely with property management companies, owner-operators, service apartments, corporate housing, and bed & breakfasts to improve both the guest and owner’s experience. Lynx offers end-to-end property automation software, including TV, pre-programmed hardware, a dashboard for smart devices, and a guest portal with the owners’ brand.

A Commitment to Supporting Customers Starts at the Top

MHC CEO and Board Member Gina Armada is a results-driven executive and change agent with over 27 years of business and software experience. She is passionate about helping organizations leverage technology solutions to streamline operations, optimize throughput and accelerate growth. Featured as one of the Hot CCM/CXM Companies of 2024-25, MHC enables intelligent document automation for exceptional stakeholder experiences.

What her peers said: “Gina drives tangible business results and enhances the experience for key stakeholders—customers, vendors and employees.”

About MHC: MHC is a software development firm that enables intelligent document automation through AI-powered automation solutions. Its platform, MHC NorthStar, offers AI-powered, SaaS automation solutions to generate critical business documents, customer communications, and payments at scale.

Building a Sustainable Company Culture

During Lena Requist’s tenure at Ontraport, the company has grown 5,000%, made the Inc. 500 list, and been named one of Forbes’ Most Promising Companies in America. Lena sees each employee as a customer, always thinking about how she can keep them happy and engaged, challenged but not overlooked, and equipped with what they need to succeed. Lena is also committed to supporting fellow women in business. At Ontraport, she also created the Women in Business Group, empowering a community of over 300 female entrepreneurs and businesswomen.

What Her Peers Said: “She’s created a company culture with insane employee retention, with the average tenure at seven years and many team members clocking in well over a decade. Not only that, she’s done it while raising two kids and wrangling a seriously PITA CEO.”

About Ontraport: Ontraport is an all-in-one business automation platform designed to empower small and mid-sized businesses by integrating marketing, sales, and support operations into a unified system.

A Core Driver of Innovation and Growth

Holly Fulp leads corporate strategy and development, including business development, financial planning and analysis, and investor relations. Holly joined Paylocity in 2018 when the company had $300 million in revenue and has been a key contributor to growing it to greater than $1.2 billion over the past six years. She came to Paylocity with significant experience in strategy in the software sector, as well as corporate finance and investment banking, including M&A, public offerings, and debt financing.

What Her Peers Said: “Very few female executives have been so central to the magnitude of growth and value creation as Holly has been at Paylocity.”

About Paylocity: Paylocity is a SaaS payroll, HCM, and finance application provider to more than 40,000 SMB, Mid-Market, and Enterprise clients with 6,500+ employees and a $12 billion market cap with rule of 50+ performance.

Delivering a Unified Experience for Customers

With over 20 years of experience in banking and payments, Ranjana Ram leads strategy implementation for Priority. Ranjana has led the company’s M&A execution team on over 20 transactions, was the lead on Priority’s debt capital markets activity through 2019, structuring over $1 billion in cumulative financing. She was also instrumental in structuring its public offering via SPAC in 2018.

Before Priority, Ranjana held key roles at Institutional Credit Partners and Credit Suisse, focusing on financial analysis, investment banking, and structured credit securitizations.

What Her Peers Said: “Ranjana has been helping to guide Priority’s growth since its inception from its time as an up-and-coming startup to a scale operator. … In 2022, she took the reins as Priority’s COO, helping drive its market-leading performance and driving the consolidation of its payments and banking infrastructure to a single unified experience for customers and internal operating teams.”

About Priority Technology Holdings: Priority has grown from a founder-funded startup in 2005 to a leading payments and banking fintech and the sixth largest non-bank payments business in the U.S. Priority’s innovative tech platform is built to collect, store, lend, and send money and provides merchant acquiring, banking, and payables solutions to over 1 million customers directing in 125+ billion in annual commerce volume.

Empowering Maritime Professionals

CEO Heather Combs is a growth-oriented leader whose superpower lies in crafting and communicating vision, strategy and culture. A Texas A&M alumnus, Heather leads Ripple Operations with a strong focus on workforce readiness and online education to transform crew success in the maritime industry. She applies her rich expertise in B2B professional services, SaaS and technology to grow the business.

About Ripple Operations: Ripple Operations is an integrated technology services provider helping maritime organizations improve crew performance, enhance safety, and achieve sustainable growth though a comprehensive suite of software solutions, including AdonisHR, Shipadmin, and Marine Learning Systems.

Strengthening Vendor-Biopharma Relationships

Before joining RockStep, Julie Morrison worked at IDEXX labs developing assays for detecting contamination in public water supplies; she also worked at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory developing assays for detecting biological surface contamination for deep space missions.

Buoyed by her scientific work, Julie works closely with researchers in industry and academia to understand their needs. She uses this knowledge to manage RockStep’s product roadmap and position their solutions within drug discovery research. As President, Julie also works closely with the CEO to develop the company’s strategy, financial models, and investment portfolio. Julie has published articles on information systems for research and lectured at industry conferences. “I’m passionate about user-centered design practices and continue to lead efforts to improve vendor-biopharma relationships to build better software,” she said.

About RockStep: Originally funded by the NIH, RockStep works with industry leaders to design and develop Climb – a cloud software solution that streamlines in vivo workflows and ensures robust, high-integrity preclinical study data to accelerate time to clinical trial.

Building a Better Employee Experience

Julie Rieken’s mission is clear: To provide employers with the tools to unlock each employee’s potential. Her robust experience in SaaS has been a driving force in helping her drive growth, profitability and performance with teams nationwide. Her continued connection with the HR community as Director of Strategy with the Mile High SHRM Board of Directors solidifies that mission. Before her role at Strive, she served as CEO of Trakstar and was on the team at Apple. She stays close to the HR community, serving as the Director of Strategy on the Mile High SHRM Board of Directors.

What Her Peers Said: “Julie already had a successful exit in the HRIS space and is now ready to take Strive to the next level with a complete product and corporate revamp while staying at the forefront of AI.”

About Strive: Strive is a software provider of mobile and web-based employee experience solutions and benefits optimization tools for mid-sized enterprises.

Turning Roadblocks Into Efficiencies in Multifamily

Georgianna W. Oliver is a serial entrepreneur and executive who has built several businesses in the PropTech space. She has also spent her career supporting women in the markets she serves. “I have always been aware of the gender disparity in this industry, and I have spent my career trying to empower women to thrive in multifamily,” she said.

After serving as a legislative assistant in the U.S. House of Representatives, Georgiana pivoted into the multifamily space as a government relations specialist for the National Affordable Housing Management Association. She then spent five years as president of Kansas City-based Metro Commercial Real Estate, where she developed deep expertise in technology after experiencing firsthand many of the inefficiencies that plague the property industry.

Georgianna’s passion for turning roadblocks into efficiencies resulted in a 20-year track record of building and launching successful businesses fueled by innovation. That includes EverGreen Solutions and AptBudget, both sold to RealPage, and Package Concierge, which sold in 2017 to Gibraltar Industries.

What Her Peers Said: “Georgianna W. Oliver has spent her entire career shattering the glass ceiling in both industries as a successful entrepreneur who builds technology companies that solve significant problems for the multifamily industry.”

About Tour24: Tour24 offers self-guided touring technology, transforming the way multifamily properties engage with prospects. With seamless audio-visual tours and utilizing AI, Tour24 empowers prospects to explore communities at their own pace while enhancing the leasing experience.

Empowering Entrepreneurs

Shanaz Hemmati oversees the day-to-day operations of ZenBusiness, which is dedicated to helping aspiring entrepreneurs start, grow, and manage their businesses. The business has become one of Austin’s most successful entrepreneurial ventures, recently raising $205 million in a series C round at a $1.7 billion valuation. Other accomplishments include helping ZenBusiness achieve a 4.7-star rating; architecting the company’s data warehouse and KPI dashboards; and scaling the team from 0 to 400+ with an inclusive and high-performing workplace culture.

Her commitment to the entrepreneur community goes beyond ZenBusiness. Shanaz has been a mentor at Capital Factory, advising emerging entrepreneurs, and a board member for multiple organizations, championing diversity and economic empowerment. Her extensive experience includes scaling HomeAway to its $3.9 billion Expedia acquisition. Shanaz has been recognized with several awards for her leadership and contributions to the SaaS and entrepreneur communities.

What Her Peers Said: “Shanaz has been instrumental in driving the company’s growth and operational success. Her leadership extends across finance, technology, legal, HR, and customer experience, ensuring seamless scaling and exceptional service delivery.”

About ZenBusiness: ZenBusiness is a SaaS platform dedicated to empowering entrepreneurs by simplifying business formation, compliance, and operational needs. By providing an all-in-one digital platform, ZenBusiness helps small business owners start, run, and grow their ventures with tools for LLC formation, tax filing, and ongoing business management.