Jim Buchanan

CEO

Jim has spent the past fifteen years in executive management roles in the talent acquisition industry. Prior to Cadient Talent, Jim co-founded Merlin Technologies, the parent company of Assess Systems, a human capital management company specializing in assessment software and solutions. Under his leadership, the company experienced significant growth and was acquired by a private equity firm in 2015.

Before Merlin, Jim was the CFO of Peopleclick, one of the first companies to offer an applicant tracking system serving a blue-chip customer base - including forty-nine of the Fortune 100 and more than a third of the Fortune 500. Jim earned his bachelor’s degree at Indiana State University and his MBA at Indiana University.

“Despite having painfully ordinary basketball skills, I have a curious connection with the NBA. In college I worked closely on a class project with Larry Bird, one of the “50 Greatest Players in NBA History”! Then, much later, while working at a public company one of our board members was David Stern, the Commissioner of the NBA!”

Tom Bright

CTO

Tom has many years of experience building leading global organizations and successful products and solutions. Prior to Cadient Talent, Tom, was the CEO of Field2Base a leading mobile field service solutions company, whose intuitive digital forms platform allows companies to digitize any paper forms and go paperless in just days.

Before Field2Base, Tom served as COO of Peopleclick, Inc., one of the first companies to offer an applicant tracking system serving a blue-chip customer base- including forty-nine of the Fortune 100 and more than a third of the Fortune 500. Tom was instrumental in the successful acquisition of Peopleclick to Bedford Partners. Tom grew up just north of Boston, where received his undergraduate degree from the University of Massachusetts – and his Boston accent.

“I have a passion for coaching fast pitch softball at an elite level, and I’ve helped many of my players receive athletic and academic scholarships to their dream schools!”

Bob Cotton

CFO

Bob has thirty years of financial and business performance management experience with both public to private companies, ranging in size from small, mid-market, to Fortune 500. Bob is a key player in managing overall achievement of corporate goals and objectives and blending larger strategic planning with active involvement day-to-day operations.

Prior to joining Cadient Talent, Bob played a leading role directing general finance, accounting, FP&A, legal, and human resource functions. Bob has expertise in directing financial aspects of mergers and acquisitions, as well as private equity financing; managing internal finance and operations; treasury and FX management. His software expertise includes software and services pricing, deal structuring and contract negotiation, and Software Industry Technical Accounting Standards.

“I’ve water skied in 1 ocean, 2 Seas, and 3 Rivers – can you guess which?”

Michelle Barry

VP, Engineering

Michelle is a results-driven software engineering manager skilled at delivering high-performance, multi-million-dollar web applications built in SaaS architecture for Fortune 500 companies. Before joining Cadient Talent, Michelle held a number of leadership roles in at PeopleFluent, culminating in her role as Senior Vice President where she oversaw their suite of SaaS-based talent acquisition applications, providing market-leading recruiting workflow, onboarding, interview scheduling, and contact management modules.

Michelle has also held technical managerial roles at Plurimus, Keane, Ciber and Computer Associates. She holds a BBA in Management Information Systems from Kent State University and currently serves on the board of MDLive.

“I once tried to beat the Guinness Book of World Records time for solving a Rubik’s Cube and came up three seconds short of beating the record!”

Mark Long

VP, Sales

Mark has over 20 years sales experience with the last 16 years being spent in the talent acquisition and talent management industry. Prior to Cadient Talent, Mark was with Jobvite, a provider of talent acquisition solutions. At Jobvite, Mark was responsible for building and driving the sales function focused on the mid enterprise space. Under Mark’s leadership Jobvite added over 100 mid enterprise clients.

Prior to Jobvite, Mark held many roles at SilkRoad technology, a provider of talent acquisition and human capital management solutions. Mark was a founding member of SilkRoad and helped build and lead each sales function at SilkRoad growing the company from 10 employees to over 500 employees at it’s peak. Mark held multiple leadership roles at SilkRoad culminating in running all aspects of North American sales as the SVP of Sales with a team of over 55 sales professionals helping SilkRoad grow into a leading provider of HCM solutions.

I am an avid sports fan, particularly baseball. I love the dynamics that either make or break a team and how a team of people working together to a mutual goal are always stronger than any single individual regardless of talent.

Nicky Peele

VP, Marketing

Nicky has over twenty years of experience in marketing and operations on both the corporate and agency side of the business. Prior to joining Cadient, Nicky spent seven years in leadership positions with ALPHA Marketing, supporting global clients such as Lenovo, DHL, and Samsung. On the corporate side, Nicky has held a number of senior marketing positions at an array of software, mobile app, and high-tech companies.

Nicky serves her community as a member of the board of The First Tee of the Triangle, a children’s non-profit that teaches life skills and builds better people through the game of golf.

“I’ve been an avid sailor since childhood, and over the years, I’ve captained my best girlfriends on a number of exciting bareboat charters. To date we’ve enjoyed over ten “Girls Gone Sailing” voyages throughout the Caribbean and the Bahamas.”

Jon Puckett

VP, Customer Success

Jon has over twenty years of experience in delivering talent management software solutions to enterprise and SMB customers. At Cadient Talent Jon is responsible for retention, product adoption, and the long-term success of Cadient Talent's customers, including Implementations, Training, Professional Services, Customer Success Management, Account Management, and Technical Support.

Prior to Cadient Talent, Jon spent twelve years with the Talent Acquisition division of Kronos where he built professional services and account management teams while leading customer renewals. Prior to Kronos, Jon worked for Unicru and Decision Point Systems. Jon received his BA in Business and Secondary Education from Eastern Illinois University.

"As a major Portland Trail Blazer fan, I was once part of a reality TV show centered on the selection of the Portland Trail Blazers dance team! While, unfortunately, all my footage was left on the cutting room floor, it was a great experience and I remain a diehard Trail Blazer fan. Go Blazers!!"