Leadership

Kevin Kemmerer brings 30 years of software expertise to Brightly. He joined as an Operating Executive in early 2020 and was named CEO of Brightly, formerly Dude Solutions, in July of the same year. Kevin sits on the board of Symplr, a Healthcare Compliance + Credentialing company and volunteers with the Ben Franklin Technology Partners in Philadelphia, a non-profit organization focused on job creation. Kevin began his career as a software developer in the financial services industry and moved on to be a Management Consultant at Deloitte Consulting and a Mergers & Acquisitions executive at Broadview (now Jefferies, Inc.). Kevin helped launch Kennet Capital in the US, Broadview’s growth-stage venture capital fund. Later in his career, Kevin served as EVP and Managing Director of Safeguard Scientifics (NYSE: SFE) and as an Executive-In-Residence at Warburg Pincus where he focused on healthcare IT investments. Prior to joining Brightly, he was EVP of Product at iPipeline, a SaaS software company focused on the insurance market. As a member of Clearlake Capital’s Executive Council, Kevin works with the executives of Clearlake’s software portfolio companies to improve performance and unlock value in their companies.

Kevin holds an MBA from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania, and a BE in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from Vanderbilt University.

Jodi McDermott is a passionate and data-driven product executive with 20+ years of experience in digital technology, analytics and product management. Jodi has led building products from idea to market launch with expertise in driving growth and leading successful divestures. Prior to joining Brightly, Jodi worked at both start-up and established firms, including SHL (formerly a business unit of CEB, now Gartner), comScore, USA TODAY, Visual Sciences (acquired by Adobe) and AddThis (acquired by Oracle). She is passionate about building technology products with a strong emphasis of using data to drive user experience, design and the product development process.

Jodi is an active member of NextGen Venture Partners, a member of the American University Kogod Business School Information Technology Council and a director emeritus of the Digital Analytics Association, in which she served as both president and treasurer. She graduated from Pepperdine University with a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration and holds an MBA from American University.

Brian began his career guiding organizations through the technology revolution of moving their business processes to the cloud. After nearly a decade of successfully delivering solutions to Fortune 500 companies and federal agencies, Brian cofounded two SaaS companies. GroupLynx, LLC leveraged web technologies to enhance school campus security and communication, and CommLogix, Inc. supported environmental and operational efficiencies in public buildings by leveraging smart building technologies.

In 2006, Brian joined the founding management team of FacilityDude, the commercial-market focused sister company to SchoolDude. Since that time, Brian has served in a variety of roles across product development, product marketing, strategy and corporate development. He currently leads corporate strategy, alliance management and M&A for Brightly. Brian is a graduate of Wake Forest University.

Brian Benfer is a data-oriented and values driven sales leader who has spent his career developing sales teams for high-growth SaaS companies. Brian believes if you obsess over client experience, you’re guaranteed to deliver the best results for your clients and employees. Prior to joining Brightly, Brian served as VP of North American Sales for SolarWinds, focusing on delivering security solutions to their clients, on their way to a 2018 IPO. He also led SMB Sales for Citrix ShareFile, taking the sales team from a local Raleigh startup to a market leader in the content collaboration space over several years of exponential growth. Brian is a graduate of North Carolina State University. 

Erikka Buracchio has over 20 years of management experience with high-growth technology companies and over 10 years of executive human resource experience. Her professional background includes positions at both established global technology companies such as NTT, as well as small start-up private organizations such as Marconi. She is a graduate of Penn State University and has held her PHR certification since 2012 and is an active member in the RTP HR community. Her passion is building innovative teams and growing high-performance leaders in order to drive profitable business growth in a global environment.

Before taking on the role of Chief People Officer at Brightly, Erikka held a range of positions focused on talent development, team building and process improvement. Most recently, she served as SVP of Global Human Resources at Allscripts Healthcare Solutions, Inc.

Kent Norton is an innovative leader with more than 20+ years of experience in both software and hardware product development. During his time in the SaaS industry, Kent’s passion for collaborative team building and leadership has enabled him to successfully build and manage a variety of diverse, high-performing engineering teams across the globe. 

Prior to serving as CTO of Brightly, Kent spent part of his career at Honeywell Corporation as CTO & VP of Engineering, and at SPX Corporation, where he served as VP of IT for the Industrial Segment. Most recently, Kent served as CTO of Omnitracs, where he managed all global technology operations, including hardware and software engineering, information technology, test engineering, agile program management, AI/ML and data engineering, and information security. Kent attended the University of Cincinnati, receiving a Bachelor of Science degree in Civil Engineering, and later continued his education at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

Steve brings his deep experience as a leader to the role of SVP of International Operations.  He joined the Brightly team as the General Manager of the Confirm UK team in 2020 and demonstrated his history of developing a strong team results and client retention.   

Steve was a Management Consulting Partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers as well as having many roles in the software industry from sales representative and management, product management, customer support, professional services, consulting and implementation execution and company executive leadership for multiple software companies for both SaaS and On-Prem companies.   

His international experience at PwC and various software companies for the past 30+ years, with more than 25 of those years globally in the Americas, Europe, MENA, ASEAN and ANZ markets.   

Steve received his bachelor’s degree from Saint Mary’s College of California and did his Master studies at Auburn University.  Steve served in the U. S. Army and now resides in Charleston, SC.