Leadership

Phil Saunders

CEO

Phil Saunders is CEO of Saba and serves on the Board of Directors. A passionate people and customer-focused leader, Phil is responsible for guiding Saba's vision and strategy across all product and go to market functions, business operations, and talent and culture initiatives.

Phil joined Saba in 2015, after a 20-year tenure at Gemalto (previously SafeNet), where he served in key sales and marketing leadership roles before rising to Chief Revenue Officer and board member. He has been instrumental in Saba's growth and position as a talent management leader. Phil served as president and key member of the Saba executive team and board of directors, prior to being appointed to succeed Pervez Qureshi as CEO, following his retirement.

Phil holds a Bachelor of Science in Business from the State University of New York at Albany and a Master of Business Administration from the Seton Hall University W. Paul Stillman School of Business.

Pete Low

Chief Financial Officer

As Saba's CFO, Pete oversees finance, legal, facilities and administration, information technology services, security and compliance, revenue operations, and strategic alliances. Prior to his appointment at Saba, Pete served as the CFO of Halogen Software for over a decade.

With more than 25 years of financial management experience, Pete was instrumental in guiding Halogen through its Initial Public Offering on the TSX in May 2013, the acquisition of Halogen by Saba in May 2017, and the acquisition of Lumesse in November 2018.

Prior to Halogen, Pete was a co-founder and managing partner at Axis Capital Corporation, investing in early stage technology companies. He was actively involved in the strategic direction of many of the firm's portfolio companies, serving as either Chief Financial Officer or Director for many of them. Prior to co-founding Axis, Pete was a Senior Tax Manager at Deloitte LLP, servicing its high technology clients.

Pete has served on a number of boards and committees of for-profit and non-profit organisations, and was the recipient of Ottawa’s Forty under 40 award in 2001. Pete is a Chartered Professional Accountant and also holds the ICD.D designation from the Institute of Corporate Directors.

Debbie Shotwell

Chief People Officer

As the Chief People Officer of Saba Software, Debbie Shotwell is responsible for human resources, learning and development, employee communications and community relations.

Debbie brings over 25 years of passion and experience building high performance teams and cultures that deliver results. Before joining Saba, Debbie was the Senior Vice President of People and Culture at BigCommerce, where she owned employee communications, facilities, payroll and stock administration. At BigCommerce she built an innovative learning and development function that supported employee, leadership and strategic partner training. Her success in this capacity led to BigCommerce being recognised as one of San Francisco Bay Area’s Best and Brightest Companies to Work For, one of Austin’s Top Workplaces, and one of the Best Places to Work in Australia.

Prior to her work at BigCommerce, Debbie was Chief People Officer at Good Technology where she implemented talent programs that increased employee engagement and reduced turnover. She was also instrumental in the successful integration of five companies during her tenure. Additionally, Debbie has held executive HR leadership positions at Pacific Pulmonary Services, Taleo, PeopleSoft, and AvalonBay.

Karen Williams

EVP, Products & Customer Success

Karen oversees the product lifecycle from idea generation through to implementation and ongoing support. She leads the company's commitment to customer advocacy and satisfaction for Saba's more than 4,000 global customers. A tenured executive with leadership expertise spanning customer success, software development, and product management, Karen joined Saba following the company's acquisition of Halogen Software.

At Halogen, Karen served as Chief Product Officer, overseeing all facets of how Halogen's products were developed, delivered and supported. A customer-focused product leader, she brings more than two decades of experience in the high tech industry to Saba. Prior to Halogen, Karen served as Vice President of the global Business Intelligence & Predictive Analytics Development team and Vice President of Business Analytics Customer Success and Support both part of IBM Software Group. Karen was responsible for facilitating customer success with Business Intelligence, Predictive Analytics and Planning software.

Karen holds a Bachelor of Science Degree from the University of Toronto and has had extensive leadership and coaching training and experience. In addition to her formal work related experience, Karen has been an active volunteer since 2010 at the United Way Ottawa and is currently the Chair of the Board.

Srini Ogireddy

EVP, Products, Engineering & Cloud

Srinivasa Ogireddy leads Saba's product strategy, global engineering and cloud operations organizations and is responsible for development and delivery of the highly innovative, scalable, and extensible Saba Cloud platform and applications that power the Saba Cloud. Srini brings 20 years of software development expertise focused on building distributed teams in high-growth environments for rapid delivery of robust applications built on high-performing cloud platforms.

Prior to Saba, in Srini's role as vice president of product development and delivery at Coremetrics (an IBM Company), he designed and developed the data tier that maintained billions of real-time customer LIVE profiles and provided the technical foundation for big data analytics and digital marketing applications. Srini has also worked as a software architect at Engineers India Ltd. (EIL), a leading provider of engineering and related technical services for petroleum refineries and industrial projects. Srini earned a Bachelor of Engineering with honors in Mechanical Engineering from BITS, Pilani and a Masters in Computer Applications from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Delhi.

Theresa Damato

Chief Marketing Officer

Theresa Damato is Saba's Chief Marketing Officer, where she leads the global marketing and field enablement teams and directs brand, segmentation, product positioning, demand creation and field enablement strategies. Her organization is responsible for positioning Saba's growth strategy, cultivating opportunities in new and existing customer markets, aligning marketing with revenue and sales growth strategies, and growing demand for Saba solutions globally.

As a veteran in technology marketing, Theresa brings a wealth of experience and passion for success across enterprise software and SaaS. Most recently, Theresa served as vice president of marketing at Trustwave, a global provider of managed security services and SaaS-based compliance solutions, where she was responsible for all aspects of Trustwave's marketing strategy including branding, communications, product, partner, web and field marketing.

Theresa's prior experience includes leadership positions in corporate marketing, product marketing, field marketing, and partner marketing for leading technology organizations including SafeNet, Inc., Aladdin Knowledge Systems, and Deutsche Telekom/T-Systems.

Theresa holds a bachelor's of science degree from Illinois State University.

Paige Newcombe

EVP Global Sales

As EVP Global Sales for Saba's enterprise business globally, Paige Newcombe is responsible for ensuring Saba customers receive an exceptional experience across all organizational interactions. Paige embodies the company's values of working through the lens of the customer. A passionate customer advocate, she leads the development and execution of the company's enterprise customer acquisition, retention, adoption and expansion strategy. Paige oversees a global team of tenured enterprise sales and customer success executives as well as Saba's international go to market initiatives.

Paige brings over 25 years of experience in ensuring customer success and has a global view of customer excellence. Through a diverse set of leadership experiences Paige provides a strategic approach and has developed a proven framework to ensuring client success, outcomes and business impact. Prior to Saba, she held various executive and senior leadership roles at IBM including Cloud Business Development, SaaS Client Success for IBM's Industry Solutions Group, as well as M&A activities and integration. Prior to IBM she served as Senior Director, SaaS Client Success at Coremetrics where that led to industry peer and analyst recognition for best practices in driving client success. She has also held various leadership positions and worked throughout the world on consulting engagements focused on new market expansion and customer retention.

Paige holds an MBA with Honors from St. Edward's University, with a concentration in Global Business and Strategy.

Dr. Peter Wiedemann

GM Talent Acquisition Business Unit

Peter leads Saba's Talent Acquisition Business Unit, including sales, product strategy, R&D, professional services and customer support. An industry veteran with more than 25 years' experience in advanced, multi-national strategic planning and leadership Peter has served in a variety of executive management positions.

Peter joined Lumesse in 2015 from ATAXO Group, a leading online marketing service and technology provider in central Europe where he was the Group CEO for the past six years. Prior to this, he ran the APAC region as SVP for Kelly Services, a world leader in human resources solutions headquartered in Troy, Michigan in the U.S. Previously, Peter was the director of Alexander Mann Solutions and the COO at MrTed in London prior its acquisition by Lumesse (then StepStone Solutions); he also held management positions at EXACT Software in the Netherlands and INFORMIX Software in Germany.

Peter holds a PhD in business administration with economics from the University of Hamburg, Germany, a MBA and a MSc in computer science from the University of Applied Sciences in Munich, Germany.

Christian Foerg

GM EMEA

As Saba's General Manager in EMEA, Christian oversees all go-to-market operations for Europe, Middle East and Africa. Since joining Saba in 2011 as Regional Vice President in EMEA, Christian Foerg has led programs to drive customer success. An experienced HR leader himself, Christian has led HR systems teams in companies like HP, Compaq and Media-Saturn. During this time he has also been a Saba customer for 10 years before joining Saba, leading large integration & HR transformation projects. Therefore Christian has a strong understanding of the HCM/Talent Management market dynamics and business needs of customers.

Mike Warren

GM APAC

As GM of Saba in APAC, Mike guides all activities in the region. Having joined Saba in 2000, Mike has held increasingly senior roles with the company. He has a focus on building systems, improving organizational capability and fostering collaborative relationships. Mike has consulted on a wide range of projects in Europe, Asia, India and Australia across industries including finance, government, manufacturing, defense, aviation, energy and retail. Prior to Saba, Mike worked in various roles in the corporate and government sectors including technology transformation roles in public/private partnerships and government services, where he was recognized with awards for productivity improvements.