Leadership

Chris DavisChris Davis Send Chris Davis an email.
President and CEO
As the President and Chief Executive Officer of Semantra™, Davis charts the strategic direction and growth for the company. Davis is a seasoned executive with a proven track record of success in domestic and international markets. He has extensive experience in global sales and marketing management, profit and loss management, as well as consulting and general management in technology companies and start-ups.

Davis comes to Semantra from Metrowerks, a software subsidiary of FreeScale Semiconductor, where he served as Vice President of Business Development and General Manager of the Wireless Software Division. At Metrowerks, Davis spearheaded and ultimately sold the wireless business unit that successfully supported key wireless players including Vodafone, Orange, Sprint, Nokia, SonyEricsson and Motorola, among others. Prior to Metrowerks, Davis served as President and Co-founder of MobileGateway, a wireless systems integration company serving the Fortune 1000 market. Davis has served in other key positions in the IT, wireless and telecommunications industries, including Ernst & Young Consulting and GTE Wireless. Davis holds a Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) degree and an MBA from the University of Texas at Austin.

Kurt PimentelKurt Pimentel Send Kurt Pimentel an email.
Vice President of Business Development

As Vice President of Business Development, Kurt Pimentel is responsible for channel and alliance development, and the creation and management of Semantra's sales, professional services and customer support teams.

Pimentel brings over 15 years of sales and business development experience earned while working with some of the top technology providers in the country. Most recently, Kurt served as the Global Business Development Manager for Teradata, where he increased revenue recognition through joint sales engagements. Prior to Teradata he directed business development at Accuship, a leading provider of transportation spend management, consulting and business process improvement. Pimentel also served as a National Account Manager at SAS Institute, the eighth largest business intelligence software company in the world.

Pimentel holds a BS and MBA from Auburn University. He currently resides in Dallas.

Cody AufrichtCody R. Aufricht Send Cody Aufricht an email.
Vice President, Marketing
Mr. Aufricht has 20+ years of marketing experience and is responsible for driving Semantra's go-to-market strategies. He has held senior management positions on both the corporate and agency side of strategic marketing services.

Prior to joining Semantra, Aufricht was Senior Vice President of Marketing for ePartners, Microsoft's largest partner in the middle market business application space. Under his marketing direction, ePartners grew from a $5 million start-up to a $90 million market leader, and in 2002 and 2006 was the sole recipient of Microsoft’s prestigious Marketing Excellence Award. Previous to ePartners, Aufricht was Director of Marketing for Todays Staffing, a $240 million business unit of CDI Corporation. In this capacity, he developed and directed the corporate marketing strategy for over 130 company-owned and franchise locations throughout the U.S. and Canada.

Travis GrubbsTravis Grubbs Send Travis Grubbs an email.
Vice President of Channel Operations, Microsoft Dynamics

As Vice President of Channel Operations for Microsoft Dynamics, Travis Grubbs is responsible for developing the channel relationship with Microsoft. His duties include creating and executing partner programs that drive Semantra's product into partner ecosystems, as well as developing Semantra's professional services model and offerings.

Grubbs joins Semantra after working with ePartners as VP of IT. During his tenure at ePartners, Grubbs was responsible for all aspects of ePartners' IT infrastructure including line-of-business application development, support and maintenance, enterprise business intelligence, unified communication systems and security. Grubbs aligned ePartners' technology deployment strategy with its business strategy and led initiatives in business process optimization, portal collaboration and document management, WAN innovation development, and enterprise content management.

Grubbs received his BA and MBA from Texas Christian University. He resides in Arlington, TX with his wife and three children.

Derek Lane Send Derek Lane an email.
Chief Technical Officer
As CTO, Derek is responsible for merging the technical innovation of the Founder with the pragmatic matters surrounding the overall software development life cycle (SDLC). This includes working with all areas of the company and the market to define the product roadmap, as well as to lead all efforts related to architecture, technology, and process. Derek has a proven background applying extensive experience in consulting, technology evaluation, and technology and process adoption for companies of all sizes from start-ups to the Fortune 1000.

Marvin ElderMarvin Elder Send Marvin Elder an email.
Founder, Vice President of Research & Development
Semantra’s founder, Marvin Elder, is a software inventor and a veteran information technology executive with more than 30 years of experience. In the 1980s, he invented the first PC-based database application with built-in natural language (Salvo), which was featured as one of the Best Database Products of the Year by PC Magazine. Elder was voted Future Computing’s Software Entrepreneur of the Year and over the past three decades he has been deeply involved in furthering data management technology as inventor, software architect and published author.

Elder is regarded as a leader in emerging technologies and in the direction of the strategic use of such technologies. With Semantra, he is responsible for product development, researching and monitoring new technologies and assessing their potential to become new products and services. Elder holds an Engineering Route-to-Business degree from the University of Texas as well as an MBA from Southern Methodist University.