Team
Management
Jordy Leiser
Co-founder & CEO
Jordy's first leap into the world of online customer service came over eight years ago when he worked as a customer service representative at GearDirect.com, a Denver-based e-commerce company providing gear, apparel and related products for outdoor sports. He's a passionate consumer and has a strong sense for customer and brand loyalty, which was refined while working at IMG, where he focused on brand management and licensing for various sports and entertainment properties. Prior to co-founding STELLAService, Jordy worked in investment banking at JPMorgan. Jordy spent his younger years in Colorado before heading east to Bucknell University, graduating magna cum laude with a double major in Economics and Political Science. He also spent a year studying Marketing at the London School of Economics.
John Ernsberger
Co-founder & VP Sales
John's passion for great service began when he was a kid working at an upscale restaurant where he observed the nuances of high quality customer care. John never fully appreciated the power and importance of customer service, however, until he moved to Seville, Spain, where the idea of outstanding service is not much more than remembering which product the customer actually ordered! Previously, John worked as a paralegal at Davis Polk & Wardwell, and prior to co-founding STELLAService he was a Regional Director at SEI Investments. John grew up in various places along the east coast and attended Bucknell University, graduating with a degree in Business Management.
Mike Herring
VP Engineering
Mike manages the technical arm of STELLAService. He has worked his entire career (over 15 years!) in software engineering and systems architecture and specifically in Web Development. He has led teams in designing, building and scaling systems for some of the largest companies in the world including Sony, Samsung, Novartis, and Coldwell Banker. Prior to joining STELLAService, Mike spent five years as a Lead Engineer on multi-disciplinary teams working on global initiatives at Mercedes-Benz USA. A passionate believer in open standards, common-sense best practices, and usability-focused development, Mike loves what he does and enjoys teaching and mentoring junior developers. Originally from the New York area, he currently lives in New Jersey with his wife and two kids.
Dave Miller
VP Operations
Dave is the data guy. Dave oversees the operation of evaluating each and every online merchant in the queue to be rated by STELLAService. From managing the Customer Experience Analysts to slicing and dicing the data for analysis and interpretation, Dave is on the front-lines of each and every evaluation. Prior to joining STELLAService, Dave held various roles with Dimensional Fund Advisors. Originally from Denver, Colorado, Dave holds a BS in Finance from the University of Southern California.
Nicole Falcaro
Operations Analyst
Meticulous and detail-oriented by way of her mathematics background, Nicole prides herself in her ability to investigate even the tiniest of details of every situation - which comes in handy when analyzing hundreds of thousands of customer service metrics and data points. Daughter of a waitress and a chef, and once a waitress herself, the rewards of excellent customer service in the restaurant business industry is what ultimately allowed her to attend Bucknell University, where she earned a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics. Nicole's a passionate runner and Jason Mraz enthusiast, and while she enjoys the big city she also has a passion for the kind of intimate, small-town service of her native Dingmans Ferry, PA.
Sam Collin
Sales and Marketing Director
Sam began developing his sales and marketing skills in college when he made his first attempt at “guerilla marketing” by running around the Boston University campus in a gorilla costume chasing his friend dressed up as a banana. Upon graduating from BU and prior to joining STELLAService, Sam spent two years doing business development for an NYC digital agency. Although Sam's grown somewhat accustomed to the snowstorms and slush of the east coast, he still uses any excuse he can to visit his sunny hometown of Port Saint Lucie, Florida.
Paul Wagner
Software Developer
Paul began coding as a youngster, teaching himself to program games in QBasic on an old 286. His love of computers blossomed as the internet became more ubiquitous, and today, finds himself striving to make the web a better place in which to live. Having come from Mercedes-Benz and Standard & Poor's, Paul decided that it was time to stop being a small cog in a big machine and start building something for himself as a member of STELLAService. Paul graduated from TCNJ with a degree in Computer Science, and lives in Manhattan, where he is proud to be part of the thriving tech community. When he's not staring at a computer screen, you'll find him eating, sleeping or drumming.
Josie Levi
Shopper Manager – West Coast
For over 15 years, Josie has led multi-disciplinary teams in the development of large-scale internet projects for various industries including retail, media and entertainment, financial services, and healthcare. She especially enjoyed her work developing brand strategy and e-commerce websites for clients as varied as Adidas, Wells Fargo, and the Home Shopping Network. As Shopper Manager for the West Coast, Josie oversees a team of mystery shoppers that are dedicated to helping uncover and identify the best sites on the web when it comes to customer service. She really enjoys her role in the day-to-day operations of the mystery shopper process. Born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, Josie lives there with her husband and two children.
Customer Experience Analysts
All STELLAService evaluation data comes from our staff of full-time, highly trained Customer Experience Analysts (unfortunately we can't reveal their identities due to risks of them receiving special treatment from online retailers!).
Our Analysts are more than just mystery shoppers They're investigative consumers in every sense of the word, and we've trained them with our proprietary methodology to dig into every nook and cranny of the online shopping experience. They visit every online store and comprehensively evaluate the features, functionalities and service-oriented tool sets. They order real products to their homes and evaluate the speed, accuracy, reliability and efficiency of the shipping experience, and then asses the ease and convenience of the returns process. They call, email and live chat each online retailer at random times and across every phase of the shopping life cycle (browse, decide, checkout, post-sale) to gauge the availability, responsiveness, professionalism and knowledge of each store's customer support team. The extensive and consistent approach by each of our 20+ professionally trained Analysts ensures that STELLAService is able to provide you with the most reliable assessment of an online store's service policies and practices.
We pride ourselves on the objective and independent nature of our online service ratings. Leveraging our comprehensive, expert-driven methodology for measuring service performance, our Analysts are the people on the ground (or at their computers) who allow our vision of customer service transparency on the Web to become a reality.
Advisors
Industry Advisors
Susanne Furman, Ph.D
Dr. Susanne Furman is currently focused on various research initiatives in biometrics with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), a think-tank within the U.S. Department of Commerce. NIST's mission is to promote U.S. innovation and industrial competitiveness by advancing measurement science, standards, and technology in ways that enhance economic security and improve our quality of life.
Previously, Dr. Furman was usability engineer with the Web Communications and New Media Division in the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services in Washington D.C. She has a Ph.D. in Applied Experimental Psychology Human Factors and ten years of experience in user-centered design. Susanne manages both the usability program at HHS and the usability.gov Web site. Previously, she has held usability positions at GE Global Exchange Services and IBM.
Lane Becker
Lane Becker is the cofounder of Get Satisfaction, a web startup dedicated to fostering new methods of communication and collaboration between companies and their customers.
Lane is also cofounder of Adaptive Path and currently sits on the Board of Directors. Adaptive Path is a user experience strategy, research, and design consultancy, known for, among other things, coining the technology terms "blog" and "ajax." While with Adaptive Path, Lane ran the consulting business and, as the creator of the New Ventures program, developed strategic partnerships with early-stage startup companies to provide them with long-term support for their product ideation, design, and launch strategies.
John Dila
John Dila is currently the Director of Global Customer Care at TripAdvisor.com. John is leading TripAdvisor's new customer care operations, shaping its customer support strategy and service culture and building a global team of customer service agents.
Prior to TripAdvisor, he held senior management roles at eBay where he researched, designed, and implemented eBay’s global customer communications strategy for 8000+ customer support reps, reaching 88M active customers. He also led the firm’s turnaround strategy for the Site User Assistance part of the business focusing on loyalty, conversion, and providing superior service through web-based applications. Prior to eBay, John directed Verity Inc.’s (now Autonomy) customer communications department and held management roles at VoIP start-up firms in Silicon Valley. He began his career as a writer at special effects and animation software firms owned by SGI and Autodesk, where he learned customer-centric communications techniques, including usability testing and user-centered design principles. John is also an author and lecturer. He has written extensively about business and management topics, global strategic communications, and customer experience. He has lectured and spoken at universities and conferences in the US and China.
Other Trusted Industry Advisors
Marsha Collier; Shep Hyken; Tim Sailor; David Rich
Business Advisors
Doug Lebda
Doug Lebda is the Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and Director of Tree.com. Previously, he was President and Chief Operating Officer of IAC. Prior to joining IAC, he served as the CEO of LendingTree, which he founded in 1996. Before founding LendingTree in June 1996, Doug worked as an auditor and consultant for PriceWaterhouseCoopers. Doug is a member of the Board of Directors of Eastman Kodak and Recycle Bank. Doug graduated from Bucknell University, where he received a B.S.B.A. in Business Administration. He has also been the recipient of an Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year award, the Council for Entrepreneurial Development’s Trailblazer award, and the Inman Innovator of the Year award.
Dennis Campbell
Dennis W. Campbell is an Associate Professor at Harvard Business School. He currently teaches the second-year MBA elective Managing Service Operations. From 2003-2005, he taught the HBS required MBA course Financial Reporting and Control. He also teaches in the HBS doctoral program and several executive education programs including the Driving Corporate Performance, Achieving Breakthrough Service, and Consumer Financial Services. Professor Campbell received his DBA from Harvard Business School and his B.S. degrees in mathematics and economics from the University of Redlands (Redlands, CA). Prior to beginning his doctoral studies, he worked at the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve in Washington, D.C. He enjoys living in Sudbury, MA with his wife, son, daughter and two dogs.
Investors
