Team

John Michael Lawrie, our CEO and Chairman, is a globally recognized business and technology strategist with proven success in transforming enterprises to create growth, new market opportunities, and value for stakeholders. Mr. Lawrie is the founder and chief executive officer of The Lawrie Group, a private company providing consulting services on value creation and enterprise transformation, and related investment management services.

Mr. Lawrie served as chairman, president, and chief executive officer of DXC Technology (NYSE: DXC), a leading, independent end-to-end IT services company serving more than 6,000 global enterprise clients in more than 70 countries. A Fortune 500 company, DXC was formed in April 2017 through the merger of the Enterprise Services business of Hewlett Packard Enterprise (“HPE”) and Computer Sciences Corporation (“CSC”), where he served as president and chief executive officer from May 2012 to March 2017 and was appointed chairman in December 2015.

Mr. Lawrie grew DXC’s industry practices, talent base, and solutions portfolio with several strategic investments and acquisitions including: argodesign, Aspediens, Fixnetix, Fruition Partners, Luxoft, Molina Medicaid Solutions, TESM, Tribridge, and UXC. These acquisitions, coupled with the development of a global network of digital transformation and innovation centers, accelerated DXC’s transformation from an IT services provider to a scaled digital services provider during his tenure. Mr. Lawrie spearheaded more than 200 industry-leading alliances, with companies such as Amazon Web Services, Inc., AT&T, Inc., Dell Technologies, HP, Inc. (“HP”), HPE, International Business Machines Corporation (“IBM”), Micro Focus International plc, Microsoft Corporation, PriceWaterhouseCoopers (“PwC”), SAP SE, ServiceNow, Inc. and VMware Inc. Mr. Lawrie retired from DXC in December 2019.

Mr. Lawrie has also served as chairman of the board of directors of Perspecta (NYSE: PRSP), formed by the merger of DXC’s U.S. Public Sector business with Vencore Holding Corporation and KeyPoint Government Solutions in May 2018. He also served as the initial chairperson of CSRA, Inc. for two quarters following its spinoff from CSC and prior to the merger of CSC with the Enterprise Services unit of HPE.

Mr. Lawrie joined CSC from UK-based Misys plc, a leading global IT solutions provider to the financial services industry, where he served as group chief executive from November 2006 to March 2012. He also served as the executive chairman of Allscripts-Misys Healthcare Solutions, Inc. from October 2008 to August 2010. From February 2007 to February 2015, Mr. Lawrie also served on the board of directors at Juniper Networks (NYSE: JNPR). Prior to Misys, Mr. Lawrie was a partner with ValueAct Capital, a San Francisco-based private investment firm, served as the chief executive officer of Siebel Systems Inc. Mr. Lawrie spent the first 27 years of his career with IBM, where he rose to the role of senior vice president and group executive, responsible for sales and distribution of all IBM products and services worldwide.

Mr. Lawrie is a trustee of Drexel University, Philadelphia. Mr. Lawrie holds a B.A. in history from Ohio University and an MBA from Drexel University. Mr. Lawrie also received an honorary doctorate from the Shiv Nadar University in India.

David Johnson, our CFO and director, has previously served as a senior managing director responsible for technology investments of Blackstone Group, a leading investment firm. Mr. Johnson has decades of experience at multinational organizations and has specific experience in mergers and acquisitions and related acquisition integration.

Mr. Johnson joined the Blackstone Group in 2013 as a senior managing director and was responsible for heading the firm’s technology sector. He has led numerous mergers and acquisition deals including the 2014 acquisition of Accuvant, an information and security services provider. Under Mr. Johnson’s leadership, Accuvant merged with FishNet Security to create Optiv Security, Inc., one of the largest private cyber security companies in the world.

Prior to Dell, Mr. Johnson spent 27 years at IBM, where he held various corporate development and finance roles including vice president of Corporate Development. In this role, he was responsible for IBM’s acquisitions, divestitures, minority investments and acquisition integration. During the latter part of his career, Mr. Johnson led all mergers and acquisitions activity, including the $3.5 billion acquisition of PwC’s consulting arm in 2002. Currently, Mr. Johnson sits on the board of various companies including Cloudreach, Intsights Cyber Intelligence and Mphasis Limited. Mr. Johnson earned his B.A. in English and his M.B.A. in Finance from Boston College.

Jonathan Morris serves as our Chief Development Officer. He has served in the capacity of CFO splitting his time between Twelve Seas Investment Company II, FreeCast, Inc. and Hush Aerospace since May 2020. Prior to that, Mr. Morris served in the capacity of CFO at Imageware Systems, Inc. in 2020. In addition, from 2016 to 2019 Mr. Morris led principal investments and structuring as President and Sr. Managing Direct at a large family office. From 2012 to 2016, Mr. Morris served as a Director at The Blackstone Group, Inc. and on the board of SunGard AS from 2014 to 2016.

From 2005 to 2012 he was in the Technology, Media, and Telecommunication Investment Banking Group of Credit Suisse. Mr. Morris began his career in 1997 within the private equity division of Lombard, Odier et Cie, private bank in Switzerland and subsequently went to work as an associate at GAIN Capital, a currency hedge fund from 1999 to 2003. Mr. Morris earned his B.S. in Economics and Finance from the University of Virginia and his M.B.A. from Georgetown University.

Kristin Muhlner, one of our independent director nominees, has more than 20 years of experience in leading high-growth technology organizations. Ms. Muhlner possesses a diverse background in executive management, business operations, customer experience, product strategy and revenue generation. She also is a recognized leader in enterprise software and cloud technologies, having held key leadership positions such as Executive Chairman of the board of directors of Skyword, Inc., President and Chief Operating Officer for Framebridge, Inc., Executive Vice President of Global Revenue for Sprinklr, Inc. (“Sprinklr”), and various leadership positions at newBrandAnalytics, Inc., RollStream, Inc., webMethods, Inc., Deloitte & Touche Consulting Group and Accenture plc (formerly Andersen Consulting).

Throughout her career, Ms. Muhlner has provided strategic leadership in a variety of roles, including chief executive officer, chief marketing officer and executive vice president of revenue, and she has worked with such major brands as Hyatt, Kohl’s and McDonald’s. Ms. Muhlner currently serves on the board of directors for Computer Services, Inc. (“CSI”) (OTCQX: CSVI) and as Chief Executive Officer of Affect Therapeutics.

Ms. Muhlner earned her B.A. in Economics from Rhodes College.

Edward Ho, one of our independent director nominees, is an experienced executive and board member. Mr. Ho served as Executive Vice President and General Manager for DXC Technology Company (NYSE: DXC) until October 2020. Mr. Ho previously served as the President of Global Payment Solutions of D+H Corporation (TSX:DH), a publicly traded, leading, global financial technology company, where he was responsible for leadership of its digital, global transaction banking business. In addition, Mr. Ho previously served on the board of directors of Fenergo, a privately-held Fintech company that is a leading provider of compliance and data management solutions.

From January 2013 to April 2015, Mr. Ho served as the President and Chief Operating Officer of Fundtech Corporation, a private equity owned, leading provider of digital payments banking software and services, where he was responsible of sales, marketing, product management, development, professional services, customer support and certain general and administrative functions. Prior to his role at Fundtech, he served for nine years as Executive Vice President and General Manager of the capital markets division at Misys plc, a provider of banking, treasury, trading and risk management software solutions.

Previously, he had been Chief Executive Officer and President of IQ Financial Systems, a developer and marketer of commercial lending and risk management software systems. Mr. Ho also spent 15 years as a banker with Bank of America, Bankers Trust and Deutsche Bank. Mr. Ho earned his B.A. from Columbia College and his M.B.A. from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

Zain Oke has more than 20 years as an experienced senior financial and operational executive advising national and regional healthcare systems, life science, real estate and hospitality, consumer services, and technology companies. As a former audit partner with Deloitte, her expertise in strategy, finance, and operations has helped companies across multiple aspects of a company’s life cycle, from pre-IPO to mature stages. Ms. Oke has experience scaling businesses, preparing companies to go public, and managing post-IPO governance, risks and controls. She has led post-merger integrations of newly acquired businesses and implementations of financial and operating systems to improve and optimize critical business functions.

Currently, Ms. Oke serves as General Manager Car Care for AAA NCNU, a consumer services business with over $2B in sales and innovative expansions into B2C technology product and service offerings and the autonomous and electric vehicles market. With responsibility for the California market, she directs all automotive services business operations and business development, including mergers, acquisitions and integrations. She has also led the corporate strategy and response to significant business disruptions and crisis management events, while managing all real estate and construction expansions and operations for the company. Previously, as Chief Audit Executive and as Controller, Ms. Oke addressed enterprise risk, instituted operational enhancements, and established more effective processes and controls to improve margins and enhance efficiencies.

Ms. Oke holds a Business Administration degree from University of Berkeley, Haas Business School and is a former certified public accountant.