Our Team

Not just technology — a team.

When you partner with Silverchair, you are buying more than our technology – you are looking to partner with great people who solve problems together, and our unique company culture serves as the foundation for the community we are building with our clients. After all, the team plays the key role of working directly with publisher staff to understand your requirements and vision and translate them into an optimal product on the Silverchair Platform. Silverchair and our publishers work in tandem in shaping implementations, engaging in creative dialogue around the strategies that will best help each publisher to achieve their unique goals.

``I am consistently surprised about how much I like everyone at Silverchair and how you can all be so friendly and competent at the same time!`` —Rob O'Donnell, Rockefeller University Press

``Everyone at Silverchair is brilliant and very helpful. We're extremely satisfied with the team.`` —Client Satisfaction Survey

``Clients simply like the people at Silverchair; they like the communications, they like the culture. It’s clear that Silverchair is not viewed as 'a mere vendor,' but as a strategic partner.`` —Independent consultant

Leadership

Thane Kerner
Chief Executive Officer

Thane Kerner
Chief Executive Officer
LinkedIn
Thane is Chief Executive Officer of Silverchair Holdings, a pioneer in distributed digital knowledge technologies for education, reference, and professional workflow. The firm’s primary operating unit, Silverchair Information Systems, is a global leader in technology products and services that drive digital growth for scholarly and professional publishers. In 2012, SHI achieved the successful exit of Silverchair Learning Systems to Vista Equity Partners/Relias, now a subsidiary of Bertelsmann SE & Co. Mr. Kerner has served on the Executive Council of the Professional and Scholarly Publishers Division (PSP) of the Association of American Publishers; the Board of Directors of CHOR, Inc., and the Board of Visitors of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Will Schweitzer
President

Will Schweitzer
President
LinkedIn
As Silverchair’s President, Will works with the CEO and the management team to lead Silverchair. He oversees our business development, customer success, delivery, finance, product, people operations, and technology teams, making sure our products, services, and growth strategies meet the needs of our growing community. He has a deep knowledge of scholarly publishing, having worked in the industry for over 18 years in product and publisher roles for leading commercial and society houses including, most recently, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (Science Magazine), SAGE Publications, the American Psychological Association, and Lippincott Williams and Wilkins.
Lily Garcia Walton
Chief People Officer

Lily Garcia Walton
Chief People Officer
LinkedIn
Lily drives the company’s people strategy, enabling the success of Silverchair’s exceptional professionals. She has more than two decades of experience leading technology, education, media, and professional services organizations through transformative change while preserving a strong culture and a sense of mission. Lily is licensed to practice law in Colorado, DC, and Virginia, and she is certified as a Senior Professional in Human Resources. She is a resident of Nelson County, Virginia, where she shares a cottage in the woods with her husband, two boys, three rescue cats, and a Morkie-Poo.
Brian Fitzgerald
Chief Financial Officer

Brian Fitzgerald
Chief Financial Officer
LinkedIn
Brian leads the financial, accounting, and administrative functions for the organization. He is a licensed CPA in the commonwealth of Virginia. Prior to joining Silverchair, Brian held leadership roles in public accounting, private equity, venture capital, and operations. In addition to financial reporting and forecasting, Brian is committed to process improvement, scalability, and sustainable growth.
Stuart Leitch
Chief Technology Officer

Stuart Leitch
Chief Technology Officer
LinkedIn
Stuart leads the strategic evolution and expansion of The Silverchair Platform, designing and leading technology initiatives for greater platform scalability and capability while enhancing Silverchair’s unparalleled flexibility for new product development. Stuart joined Silverchair in 2012 and has twenty years of enterprise architecture, system design, and software development experience in the education, engineering, nonprofit, and investment industries.
Jake Zarnegar
Chief Client Strategy Officer

Jake Zarnegar
Chief Client Strategy Officer
LinkedIn
As Chief Business Development Officer, Jake Zarnegar works directly with scientific and scholarly publishers to explore new partnerships and find the best alignment of Silverchair’s complementary suite of technologies and services with each publisher’s digital product strategy. A 20+ year industry veteran, Jake is a frequent speaker at SSP, ALPSP, and STM events covering emerging topics at the intersection of technology and scholarly publishing.
Paul Sanders
Chief Delivery Officer

Paul Sanders
Chief Delivery Officer
LinkedIn
Paul leads the Delivery arm of Silverchair, responsible for the product development projects that fuel the growth of our platform and our clients. Passionate about building high-impact SaaS products and high-performing Agile teams, Paul’s background spans product management, marketing and user experience, with a maniacal focus on the customer that provides a uniquely holistic approach to delivering products. Culture champion on the side, he is passionate about creating lovable places to work.
Tim Barton
Executive Advisor

Tim Barton
Executive Advisor
LinkedIn
Tim works with the CEO and other members of the Executive team to advise on Silverchair’s growth and execution of the company’s strategy. Tim joined Silverchair in 2018, having previously worked at Oxford University Press for 27 years in various positions across the organization, including President of OUP USA. Tim served most recently as Managing Director for the Global Academic Division, where he was responsible for OUP’s research publishing globally, including journals, scholarly books, and reference, and for higher education, and dictionary publishing.
Sarah Heid
VP, Customer Success

Sarah Heid
VP, Customer Success
LinkedIn
Sarah Heid is Vice President of Customer Success, working with all clients to provide high-level advocacy both internally and externally, driving client business values to achieve our shared goals. Sarah is focused on using her client knowledge to help Silverchair be proactive in solving customer problems and promoting a higher level of quality and accountability. Sarah’s primary purpose is to ensure that we are keeping the client’s voice at the forefront of everything we do at Silverchair. Prior to joining Silverchair, Sarah spent over 15 years in sales working directly with end users and businesses to achieve mutually beneficial outcomes. Sarah and her husband Chris have two pugs, Henry and Churchill and enjoy traveling the world in search of great wine (New Zealand is a favorite).
Craig Griffin
VP, Solutions Engineering

Craig Griffin
VP, Solutions Engineering
LinkedIn
As the Vice President of Solutions Engineering at Silverchair, Craig works with clients, end users, architects and user experience designers to develop Platform solutions for our client’s success. This role includes market evaluation, feature analysis, business case development, technical review, and prioritization. Prior to Silverchair, Craig worked with government clients at SRA International.
Hannah Heckner
VP, Product

Hannah Heckner
VP, Product
LinkedIn
As Vice President of Product, Hannah Heckner works to inform, prioritize, and execute on the Silverchair Platform Development Plan, as well as oversee the development of new Silverchair products. This includes serving as a representative of Silverchair’s product function at client, sales, and industry meetings; evaluating requests for platform enhancement and new features; facilitating Publisher Working Groups that discuss industry trends, publisher needs, and developing Silverchair solutions; and managing vendor relationships and internal implementation for 3rd party integrations. She has worked within academic publishing for over 10 years and has experience with both commercial and non-profit publishing and is a proud Member-at-Large of the Society for Scholarly Publishing Board of Directors.
Jon Meadows
VP, Software Engineering

Jon Meadows
VP, Software Engineering
LinkedIn
Jon Meadows is the VP of Software Engineering who is responsible for managing technology leaders over the following areas: Software Development (Developers and Technical Leaders), Software Quality Assurance (SQA), Technical Operations (TechOps), Developer Operations (DevOps), and User Interface and User Experience (UI/UX). He provides prioritization, direction, and serves as a point of escalation. Jon has 13+ years of technology experience with 10+ of those years managing and leading individuals and teams. Prior employers include KPMG and S&P Global. Jon holds a BBA in Computer Information Systems (CIS) and Finance from James Madison University. He is married to his childhood friend and they are actively being trained to become better people and parents by their two daughters, who are wonderful (most of the time…).
Derek Naughton
VP, Architecture

Derek Naughton
VP, Architecture
LinkedIn
Derek Naughton is a Solutions Architect who works with all of our clients to align our platform with their needs. Derek has worked with Silverchair since 2013 and has helped maintain our platform and work with the teams in growing its capabilities for our clients with a technical perspective and some creative solutioning. Derek came to Silverchair with 9 years of IT consulting experience and a Computer Science degree from Dublin Institute of Technology (D.I.T), Dublin, Ireland.
Ossie Nadeem
VP, Finance

Ossie Nadeem
VP, Finance
LinkedIn
Stephanie Lovegrove Hansen
VP, Marketing

Stephanie Lovegrove Hansen
VP, Marketing
LinkedIn
Stephanie is responsible for Silverchair’s brand and product marketing strategy, collaborating with internal teams, clients, and partners to facilitate clear communications with Silverchair’s growing community. She has worked in the publishing industry for 18 years, including at the University of Virginia Press and Clarivate Analytics.
Nicole Brown
Director, Customer Success

Nicole Brown
Director, Customer Success
LinkedIn
Lindsay Jacobik
Director, Client Services

Lindsay Jacobik
Director, Client Services
LinkedIn
Lindsay Jacobik has been with Silverchair since 2015. She has held a variety of roles from Business Analyst to Product Owner and now Director of Client Services. Her experience ranges from our build teams, to our Business as Usual (BAU) teams and to our maintenance team. She is determined to help clients conceptualize, develop, and deliver high quality projects that help advance their product vision. In doing so, she is focused on developing strong partnerships through clear and transparent communication. When not at Silverchair, she enjoys baking for her neighborhood, hiking and spending time with her newborn son.
Brian McDonald
Director, UX

Brian McDonald
Director, UX
LinkedIn
Brian leads a team of User Experience (UX) Designers and Front End Developers who are responsible for the successful execution of user experience design, responsive web design, accessibility compliance, and front-end performance on client sites and platform tools. Before joining Silverchair, Brian worked as an Online Design Director at Penguin Random House.
Patrick Sullivan
Director of Analytics

Patrick Sullivan
Director of Analytics
LinkedIn
Patrick Sullivan is the Director of Analytics, guiding the company’s stats and reporting platform. He has held many roles at Silverchair, including client services analyst, developer, architect, and DevOps team lead. In his free time he likes to run a home-computing lab complete with ancient hardware mostly stored in his guest room closet.
Heather Wright
Program Director

Heather Wright
Program Director
LinkedIn
As Program Director, Heather Wright manages high-performing product delivery teams and works closely with Client Success to support our clients in achieving their product vision. She joined Silverchair as a Product Owner in 2019 and has over 15 years of experience in the publishing industry. Heather has truly enjoyed the move to academic publishing and working with clients such as Oxford University Press. She is passionate about people and improving processes and finds mentoring and developing teams rewarding. When she is not in the office, Heather enjoys spending time with her family and friends, and taking on challenging DIY projects from gardening to refurbishing furniture.
Micah Jones
Program Director

Micah Jones
Program Director
LinkedIn
Micah oversees the platform and analytics teams. He has been with Silverchair since 2019 and he has experience working with BAU and build teams. He is passionate about continuous improvement, process optimization, and concise communication.
Matthew Owen
Program Director

Matthew Owen
Program Director
LinkedIn
Matt Owen is a Program Director who works with several clients including Wolters Kluwer and the American Academy of Pediatrics to ensure they are getting the best value from the Silverchair platform. Matt joined Silverchair from Booz Allen Hamilton where he worked as a Senior Project Manager and earned several certifications including Project Management Professional and Lean Six Sigma Green Belt. Matt holds a Bachelors of Arts degree in Political Science from James Madison University and a Masters of Business Administration from Liberty University. He enjoys spending time outdoors with his wife and two sons as well as running the occasional marathon.
Lisa Cunningham
Program Director

Lisa Cunningham
Program Director
LinkedIn
Chip Felker
Director, Software Engineering

Chip Felker
Director, Software Engineering
LinkedIn
Chip Felker is the Director of Software Engineering and is responsible for managing a team of tech leads. Chip started at Silverchair in 2010 as a software developer. It wasn’t long before he was managing a team of developers and was still writing code himself. The number of developers he managed continued to grow as the company grew. Now he manages the team of leaders that manage the developers. Chip keeps his finger on the pulse of all of that goes on in the development community at Silverchair and continually supports the group in the many ways necessary. Chip is the father of three grown children who are all married and starting their own families. Grandchildren are a real joy!
Robb Burgess
Director of Technical Operations & DevOps

Robb Burgess
Director of Technical Operations & DevOps
LinkedIn
Robb Burgess is the Director of Technical Operations & DevOps. As an Information Technology professional with 15 years of experience in multiple disciplines, he has worked in the governmental, legal, medical, and enterprise web hosting industries with a focus on security in each role. Robb swiftly rose through the ranks in the Silverchair Technical Operations department giving him a firm grasp on all aspects of the Silverchair technology footprint. Robb is also the Silverchair Security Team Lead, driving the enhancement of security processes and procedures across the Silverchair Platform.
Peter Torres
Manager, Talent Recruitment & Development

Peter Torres
Manager, Talent Recruitment & Development
LinkedIn
Walker Swain
Director, Business Development

Walker Swain
Director, Business Development
LinkedIn