Leadership

Jim Ryan is obsessed with candor, passion, professionalism, keeping score, celebrating success and giving back. He is known for driving change, developing talent and encouraging transparency, leading to Flexera consistently being named a "top workplace".

He guides our company as its chief executive and provides strategic vision as we move forward. Jim has been with the company since 1998, spending seven of his years overseas running our international operations. Prior to becoming CEO in 2016, Jim was Flexera’s Chief Operating Officer.

Prior to that, his roles have included everything from leading global sales and services, running our Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region and managing many other functions within the company. Jim was instrumental in leading the spin out of Macrovision’s software business unit to the private equity firm of Thoma Bravo and, of course, our subsequent investments with Ontario Teacher’s Pension Plan (OTPP) and TA Associates. Before that he held roles with Reliant Data Systems and Unison Software (now IBM Tivoli).

Joe Freda keeps our financial health on course.

As chief financial officer, Joe leads the global financial strategy and operations of the company and is responsible for capital and operating budgets, taxes and investor relations. He also provides oversight of procurement, IT and facilities.

Joe previously held senior financial management roles at software companies such as InstallShield, now a Flexera solution and Platinum Technology. He began his career with Price Waterhouse (now PricewaterhouseCoopers), managing client engagements in the software, media, and technology industries for both publicly traded and privately held companies.

Joe is a graduate of the University of Illinois – Urbana/Champaign with a BA in Economics and holds both an MS in Accountancy and MBA from DePaul University. He is a certified public accountant.

Ryan is a thought leader in go-to-market strategy, marketing, sales, and customer success. At Flexera, Ryan is responsible for reimagining the customer experience to drive growth – innovating our go-to-market approach and partnering with customers and partners to achieve their goals.

Before joining Flexera, Ryan drove customer relationship best practices across Vista Consulting Group's portfolio of companies, worked with one million sellers in 65 countries as CEO of Holden International, and as Microsoft's Sales and Marketing leader, helped drive the transition from on-premise to SaaS for thousands of customers.

Ryan has a MBA from Harvard Business School and a BA from Harvard University.

As Chief Growth Officer, Eric is responsible for driving top- and bottom-line growth, including corporate, business, go-to-market and product strategy, mergers and acquisitions, partnering and business development, business operations and insights, business integration and transformation, and cross-company execution. He has more than two decades of experience in the technology industry, with a strong focus on growth, new businesses and business transformation.

Prior to joining Flexera, Eric served as a vice president of Intel Corporation, where he was a senior executive and general manager in the company’s Internet of Things (IoT) group. There he developed Intel's consumer IoT strategy and spearheaded the company’s entry into new consumer and enterprise markets. Before that, he co-founded and drove products and services for Intel’s digital home division.

Prior to Intel, Eric served as executive vice president, product development for Rovi Corporation (formerly Macrovision Corporation), where he was responsible for designing and building the company's software and services.

Eric earned a BS in engineering from Duke University, an MS in engineering from Stanford University, an MA concentrating in International Affairs from Georgetown University, and an MBA from Duke University's Fuqua School of Business.

Conal is responsible for leading all things IT, including security, at Flexera.

Previously our Chief Information Security Officer (CISO), as CIO Conal will continue ensuring we have the best data practices in place to protect our intellectual property and customer data, while also leading our overall IT strategy.

Conal has held leadership IT roles in the corporate sector for 10 years with another decade focusing on the security realm, leading security and compliance efforts at companies like Genesys and Rovi.

Laura is a catalyst with the uncanny ability to unravel complex challenges and connect disparate dots to accelerate business growth. She is an expert at creating strategic plans, articulating vision and ensuring flawless implementation to transform organizations.

Laura developed her unique approach through executive positions at a number of Chicago advertising agencies. Most recently she was EVP Managing Director, Strategy, at Merge. She has served as Chief Strategy Officer, Strategy Director and Client Service Director, applying her inspiring leadership and vision to B2B and B2C clients in a wide range of industries.

Laura has a BS in Political Science and an MBA from the University of Illinois.

Elizabeth Lages is a change agent. El, as she is known, has spent her time building operational excellence throughout the organization. She is known for increasing employee engagement, driving rigor in our sales processes, and building relationships with her optimism and warmth.

She is instrumental in making Flexera a “top workplace” through performance management, manager training, and continuous employees feedback. El has been with the company since 2004 in various sales and operations leadership roles before moving into organizational effectiveness in 2017.

Born and raised in New York City, El has a B.S. in communications at State University of New York.

Art Middlekauff leads Flexera’s global engineering and support teams. In his time at Flexera, he helped develop such well-known software brands such as FlexNet Manager Suite, AdminStudio, and InstallShield. He also instituted a consistent agile methodology in multiple development teams around the world.

Art pioneered the development of our Software License Optimization solution, which enables buyers to gain control of their IT assets, reduce software costs, and maintain license compliance. While developing this solution, Art worked directly with several Fortune 1000 companies to ensure that the desired business outcomes were achieved.

Prior to joining us, Art spent eight years developing line of business applications for organizations such as Hewitt Associates, Pella Windows and Doors, and Chicago Title and Trust. Art studied computer science at Northwestern University’s McCormick School of Engineering where he received his bachelor’s degree with honors.

Brent guides our Supplier business as its General Manager and provides the operational direction and strategic vision as the business moves forward.

He is obsessed with operational excellence and is passionate about delivering world class results. He is known for driving accountability, organizational change and developing leaders. Prior to becoming GM of the Supplier business, Brent was Senior Vice President of Strategic Growth for Flexera.

Having worked at Flexera since 2000, he has held a variety of roles, largely customer and employee focused, across the company ranging from running Flexera’s global services organization to integrating the companies Flexera acquires. Prior to joining Flexera, he worked for Visa International.

As General Counsel, Kraig serves as a strategic advisor while overseeing the full range of Flexera’s global legal activities and policies, including a major focus on Flexera’s software, data, IP, M&A, litigation, and cybersecurity matters. Having long detested “legalese”, he takes pride in leading and driving the company forward with a pragmatic and business-savvy approach to legal issues. Within Flexera he is known for building from scratch an outstanding global legal team that partners with our internal teams around the world to provide legal support and solve problems in a collaborative, efficient, simplified way that moves the company forward with the customer front and center.

Kraig joined Flexera in 2010. Prior to Flexera, he had the pleasure of learning deeply in Cisco’s fantastic legal department and with two large international law firms. Kraig is a graduate of the University of Illinois College of Law and earned a BA in Biology and Business Administration from Saint Louis University.

Walker owns our technology roadmap.

Walker came to us through the BDNA acquisition, where he was President, leading the company through its growth. He was previously Chief Technology Officer at BDNA and also Chief Technologist at a $3B division of Oracle. His expertise encompasses all aspects of technology strategy, building relationships with large-scale customers, and evolving company culture.

Walker has a BS in Computer Engineering from University of California, San Diego.