Verusen expands executive sales leadership
Verusen, a provider of AI-powered MRO materials optimization and collaboration and one of Atlanta's 100 fastest-growing companies, announced the strategic hiring of new sales and revenue leadership.
Three professionals with deep industry expertise and a visionary approach to MRO materials and inventory optimization have been appointed. They join Verusen as the company announced its global expansion into large vertical opportunities, including oil & gas, mining, and power generation & utilities.
Balancing MRO working capital and risk have come to the forefront as large asset-intensive industries such as oil and gas, mining, energy and utilities, resources, and heavy manufacturing seek solutions to optimize their MRO inventories, spend and risk with deeper intelligence. Traditional MRO inventory optimization is no longer sufficient to meet the needs of an increasingly complex global supply network. Instead, traditional inventory optimization has evolved into a comprehensive approach across systems, processes and people for MRO Materials Optimization to continuously optimize data, inventory, procurement, and risk across a global network using purpose-built AI and deep learning.
Worldwide opportunities are burgeoning for improved MRO software and data science. For example, the global oil and gas industry stockpiles billions in parts to keep their production platforms, pipelines, and refineries up and running. Additionally, the total global mining equipment spare parts market alone reached $140B in 2023, according to Grand View Research.
To meet this growing need, Verusen has appointed MRO industry veteran Jeremiah Woodford as chief revenue officer, responsible for leading the entire sales process, including revenue and sales pipeline creation, market development, and sales operation. Woodford brings over two decades of sales leadership experience in asset-intensive industries, MRO, and supply chains. He previously held leadership positions as CRO IFS EAM and at IBM Consulting as partner & global practice leader of MRO Inventory Optimization, helping customers provide global visibility to their supply chain and MRO practices.
In addition, Jeromy Risner, CRMP, has been appointed director of pre-sales engineering. He is a maintenance and reliability professional whose career started with turning wrenches and quickly evolved to reliability specialist, then implementing and teaching maintenance best practices in asset-intensive industries. Risner has successfully leveraged this reliability experience to transform sales processes and effectiveness in the EAM and MRO inventory optimization software space at IFS Ultimo and IBM Oniqua.
Jim Combs, former worldwide senior sales leader of IBM MRO Inventory Optimization, has been appointed sales director. He started his career as a test engineer for nuclear power plants before being promoted to project manager and county sales manager for Mexico. His experience and sales expertise have allowed him to provide the CMMS / EAM needs for numerous heavy asset industries, including mining, utilities, manufacturing, and CPG. For the past 30 years, Combs has been an enterprise sales leader working with Vale, Duke Power, FPL, Goldcorp, Cenovus, General Mills, ThyssenKrupp, Griffith Lab, IMERYS, and other clients in asset-intensive industries, helping transform their Maintenance and Spares Parts Management programs to ensure production uptime and drive cost savings.
"We are seeing significant growth in the market for MRO Materials optimization, especially in select vertical markets. We're excited to expand Verusen's reach into these markets and executive bench with MRO-focused sales and revenue operations leadership through the additions of Jeremiah, Jeromy, and Jim," said Versusen CEO Scott Matthews. "Our explosive growth is aligned with the transformative impact of Verusen's AI-driven solutions on MRO inventory operations. With the addition of these deeply experienced executives, who are nuanced in specific growth industries such as mining and oil and gas, we are well positioned to expand our reach and address customer challenges while scaling for new opportunities globally."
“Verusen not only boasts a forward-thinking team but also embodies cutting-edge AI solutions aimed at MRO Capital and Risk Optimization for large industrial organizations,” said Woodford. “This is an exciting time to be joining the company. Verusen’s purpose-built AI technology is welcomed to a market burdened by poor data quality, inefficient processes, and outdated solutions. Legacy software and consulting firms have long promised improvements but often fail to deliver substantial change. After participating in a supermajor Exploration and Production (E&P) company’s AI adoption initiative using Verusen’s Large Language Models and Probabilistic AI models, we are confident that our innovative technology will revolutionize how asset-intensive companies manage their MRO inventory. Gone are the days of configuring legacy software; at Verusen, we are training AI models to support material managers' daily jobs.”
"Having Jeremiah, Jeromy, and Jim join Verusen at this time is pivotal to our ability to expand rapidly within asset-intensive vertical markets where traditional inventory optimization software no longer meets the needs of these complex global organizations,” said Paul Noble, founder and chief strategy officer of Verusen. “Their combined and deep understanding of the changing landscape of MRO is essential to our trajectory for global sales growth and vertical expansion in 2024.”
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