Company

 

Management Team

 

Mr. Norman Worthington - CEO

 

Mr. Norman Worthington is a serial entrepreneur/investor and founder or cofounder of over a dozen companies.

One of Mr. Worthington's earliest ventures was Software Toolworks, one of the first highly successful consumer software companies. Several of the original Software Toolworks titles are among the all-time best selling products in their categories, including Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing! and the Chessmaster series. These titles are still available today, and each has sold tens of millions of copies. Software Toolworks became a public company in the early 90's and was subsequently purchased and taken private. It was acquired by Mattel in 1999.

 

In 1993 Mr. Worthington entered a joint venture with Computer Associates. The joint venture developed and successfully launched the world's first Enterprise Application Integration system. This product, called Opal, integrated the back office systems of Fortune 1000 companies and made the information accessible over the Internet. It was used by Wal-Mart, among many others, as the backbone of their hugely successful supply-chain extension strategy in the late nineties. Opal was the featured product of Computer Associates' 1995 annual report and, in 1996, Computer Associates purchased Mr. Worthington's interest in the joint venture.

Mr. Worthington received his BA from New College of Florida and a J.D. from Northwestern School of Law. Since 1997, he has acted as investor, advisor and board member for many technology-based startup companies.

Mr. Joseph Rhem - President

 

Mr. Rhem is responsible for running sales at Star2Star Communications. Mr. Rhem has innovated several new technologies and founded many successful high tech firms in his career.

Most recently, Mr. Rhem held the position of Global Principal Architect for Wireless Technologies at Computer Associates (CA), the world's 4th largest software company. Mr. Rhem also ran the CA Worldwide Information Management Advanced Technology Group, reporting to CA cofounder and board member Russ Artzt. During this time Mr. Rhem re-engineered the B2B integration for the Wal-Mart supply chain to run over the Internet.

In 2003 Mr. Rhem cofounded Highwall Technologies and patented the long range wireless security sensor known as the Highwall Sentinel. In 2001 Mr. Rhem cofounded Voyage Data Corporation, a successful wireless platform application development firm. In 1996 Mr. Rhem founded Mindwave Technologies and sold within a year to a subsidiary of Computer Associates.

Mr. Rhem has a degree in information and computer science from the Georgia Institute of Technology. While attending college he founded Summit Software Corporation, which was one of the first document imaging and laser disk storage solutions on the market.

Mr. Randy Richardson - Chief Operating Officer

 

Mr. Richardson is responsible for running the day-to-day operations at Star2Star, including the development of all internal and customer facing technologies.

He previously held CIO positions at multi-channel retail chains Abercrombie & Fitch, Ann Taylor, Best Buy and Talbots.  He also served as Product Manager at Computer Associates, the world’s 4th largest software company.

Prior to joining Star2Star, Mr. Richardson was Founder and CEO of BridgeFive Solutions, a boutique software company that developed Customer Contact Management (CCM) systems, providing unique opportunities for the small to midsize business to take advantage of technologies traditionally available only to large businesses and call centers. Star2Star Communications acquired the company in 2010.

   

Mr. Gary Arnold - Chief Financial Officer

 

As Chief Financial Officer, Mr. Arnold is responsible for all of the financial operations of Star2Star.

Mr. Arnold is a CPA with over 30 years of experience in corporate finance, treasury, accounting, and tax, and has extensive experience with mergers, acquisitions, and divestiture transactions.

Mr. Arnold began his career with KPMG, a large international accounting firm, and later served as an executive officer of several well-known public companies, including Boston Scientific Corporation, Sunbeam Corporation, and Harcourt Brace & Company.

Mr. Arnold's career experience includes two successful IPOs, a management-led LBO, and over 60 mergers and acquisitions of both public and privately-held companies ranging in size from $2 million to $550 million in revenues. Mr. Arnold played a key strategic role in negotiating and closing a $3 billion leveraged recapitalization transaction, which at the time was the largest transaction of this nature in Wall Street history. Additionally, Mr. Arnold was directly responsible for negotiating, structuring, and closing the sale of a major division of a public company to another public company for a sales price of $1.1 billion.

In addition to his role at Star2Star, Mr. Arnold serves as Managing Director of a Florida-based venture capital firm and has served on the board of Directors and Audit Committee of a public company, and as a Director of three privately-held companies.

Mr. Kristian Kielhofner - Chief Technology Officer

 

Mr. Kielhofner is responsible for the design and implementation of Star2Star's VoIP services. Mr. Kielhofner is very active in the Asterisk community and is the creator, maintainer, and lead developer of AstLinux, a very compact Linux distribution designed for embedded devices. With over 85,000 users worldwide, AstLinux has quickly grown in popularity since its creation in 2004.

Mr. Kielhofner has contributed to several books published by O'Reilly media. He is also a frequent speaker at VoIP and Open Source related events. Before joining Star2Star, Mr. Kielhofner was President of KrisCompanies, a consulting company serving clients on six continents.

Mr. Graham D. Potter - Chief Product Officer

 

Mr. Potter’s responsibilities cut across virtually all of Star2Star’s business operations.

He is responsible for the product release management process within the company, including competitive analysis, product planning, positioning, branding, and product launches.  He is the creator of Star2Star's acclaimed training program as well as the majority of the company's user guides, how-to guides, and video tutorials.

Mr. Potter brings extensive traditional telecom expertise and understanding to Star2Star. A native of the UK, Mr. Potter has more than 40 years of experience delivering exemplary service and support to customers and technology partners around the globe. 

He has led highly effective service organizations for such companies as British Telecom, Aspect Telecommunications, SDX Business Systems (acquired by Lucent/Avaya), and Rockwell FirstPoint Contact. During his tenure leading the customer service organization at Rockwell, his team won awards from Pelorus Research and Contact Center World as a global winner of Best After Sales Service.

Mr. Colin Johnston - Executive Vice President of Sales

 

Mr. Johnston oversees Star2Star's nationwide sales organization. Mr. Johnston brings an impressive array of sales and technical experience with him to Star2Star. He has had both sales and technical training on a large number of conventional and IP PBX systems.

Prior to joining Star2Star, Mr Johnston was a sales representative at voicemail pioneer Octel Communications and VP of Sales at Reston, VA-based CTI Telecom. In 2002, he founded High Tech Telecom, which he sold in 2006 in order to move back to his home town of Sarasota, Florida.

Ms. Jaclyn Toale - Executive Vice President of Strategy

 

Ms. Toale manages Star2Star's business development initiatives, financial forecasting, capital planning, and contract management.

Before joining Star2Star, Ms. Toale managed financial, HR, accounting, and IT at HybridNRG, an innovative renewable energy startup. Prior to that, she held senior financial management positions at Global Signal, one of the largest wireless tower operators in the US, and at FIMC, a private insurance company.

Ms. Toale graduated cum laude from the University of South Florida, and holds a B.A. in Accounting. She is also a Certified Public Accountant and was named as one of 2009's 'Top 40 Under 40' by Gulf Coast Business Review.

 

Mr. Jamaal Savwoir - Vice President of Practice Management

 

As the Vice President of Practice Management, Mr. Savwoir is responsible for the Star2Star System from end-to-end. His focus on intelligent response ensures the highest quality voice over internet service for our customers. Prior to joining Star2Star, Mr. Savwoir crafted infrastructure monitoring and IT service management solutions for Fortune 1000 corporations as a senior consultant for Computer Associates (CA), the world's 4th largest software company.

Mr. Raymond Ipjian - Vice President of Finance

 

Mr. Ipjian is responsible for all day-to-day financial operations at Star2Star.

His previous experience includes positions at Ameritech, MetLife, and Arthur Andersen.  Most recently, he was Corporate Controller and Director of Finance at Continental Promotion Group, where he managed all finance and accounting operations for the multinational company.

Mr. Ipjian holds a Bachelor’s degree in Accounting from the University of Illinois, and he is a Certified Public Accountant.

Mr. Les Freed - Director of Communications

 

Mr. Freed manages Star2Star's marketing communications and media relations. In this role, he is responsible for creating and distributing Star2Star's media materials, including advertising, promotional materials, white papers, press releases, and case studies.

Prior to joining Star2Star, Mr. Freed was a contributing editor at PC Magazine, where he covered networking, data communications, telecommunications, and digital imaging. During his 14-year tenure at PC, Mr. Freed supervised the testing of thousands of products and wrote hundreds of articles and reviews. He is also the author or co-author of 15 books on networking and data communications.

Before that, Mr. Freed was president and CEO of Crosstalk Communications, one of the pioneering PC software companies. He also spent 6 years in technical and editorial positions at CBS News, where he worked on The CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite.