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Al Lalani
Co-Founder and Chief Strategist
Maciek Gorzkowski
VP of Customer Success
Chris Bechtel
VP of Growth and Marketing
Kranti Deshmukh
VP of Technology
Steve Swain
VP of Business Development
Al Lalani
Co-Founder and Chief Strategist
Al brings extensive experience in product management, marketing, and technology to Annex Cloud. Prior to founding Annex Cloud, he founded Immply Group, a web development agency. Before that, he led eCommerce at Teleflora where he was responsible for Product Management and Marketing for the teleflora.com, eFlorist and findaflorist.com properties. He also held senior technology roles at SaaS startups including Foodlink Online and Agribuys which offered a lot of learnings that he has been able to utilize in growing Annex Cloud. Under Al's leadership, the Annex Cloud team has grown from 2 to over 150 with people across several offices and 3 continents. Al is a frequent speaker at several trade shows including eTail and shop.org. When he’s not working, he loves spending time with his two girls and his family or just catching up on sleep.
Maciek Gorzkowski
VP of Customer Success
Maciek is a pragmatic, passionate, curious and strategic digital marketer with over 20 years agency and client-side experience including work in Warsaw, London, and the US. He has extensive experience in business development, client management, forecasting, managing and working with fortune 500 brands including P&G, British Airways, Shell, HSBC among others. Maciek is a strategic thinker with a deep understanding of digital channels and user experience. He is a business leader who embraces the challenges of a changing digital landscape and enjoys getting involved. Maciek is an experienced with entrepreneurial ventures including co-founding digital ad agency Play, navigating the complexity of a multinational global agency, JWT and being involved in late and early-stage start-ups, Machinima and Annex Cloud.
Chris Bechtel
VP of Growth and Marketing
Chris brings more than 20 years of marketing expertise, specializing in growth marketing, demand generation, marketing automation, pipeline optimization, content marketing, and sales acceleration. Previous to Annex Cloud, Chris was the Managing Partner at Growth Engine Labs a strategic consulting firm providing growth services to dozens of rapidly-expanding B2B and B2C tech startups as well as leading eCommerce brands including, AnyMeeting, Life After Denim, Payable, Phunware, Purlisse, Realty Mogul, and Sixgill. Prior to Growth Engine Labs, Chris was CEO of a SaaS content management software platform in the PR space working with clients, such as CarMax, Target, Toyota, and UCLA among many others. With deep connections to the LA startup community, Chris is a mentor in a number of start programs including Founder Institute, StartupBoost, Stubbs-Alderton's SAM, and Techstars. Chris is a frequent speaker at industry events and a former Digital Marketing instructor at General Assembly.
Kranti Deshmukh
VP of Technology
Kranti is a hands-on information technology leader bringing over 19 years of technology experience to the Annex Cloud team. Kranti brings experience in software solutions across various domains including retail, AECO (Architect, Engineering, Construction & Operate), e-commerce, EAI - Enterprise application integration using traditional software delivery models as well as SaaS models on private and public clouds. He has sound experience in complete software development processes using Agile and SAFe - Scaled Agile Framework and excels at taking a project from initial startup and analysis through to completion of production deployment and support. Kranti came to Annex Cloud from Trimble Inc ( (TRMB). Prior to Trimble Inc, Kranti worked at FoodLink Online LLC., Cyber Advanced Technology Systems, and Advanced Centre for Computing Technology as a technology leader using various open source and Microsoft technologies. In his free time he enjoys outdoor activities like hiking, backpacking, and running and loves playing Cricket and watching movies.
Steve Swain
VP of Business Development
Steve is responsible for driving strategic partnerships, alliances and mergers and acquisitions to accelerate growth for Annex Cloud and its customers. He works closely with partners around the world, ranging from strategic alliances to system integrators, technology partners, and agencies, to identify areas of collaboration, drive innovation and unlock shared value. Prior to his work with Annex Cloud role, Steve had an early career as a professional baseball player with the Houston Astros and Seattle Mariners for 6 seasons. He has also spent 20+ years in high tech in various leadership positions and industries including, IT Security, digital printing, manufacturing, and SaaS and has played a prominent role in IPOs, acquisitions, and mergers. Swain resides in sunny Carlsbad, CA with his wife Karen.