Leadership Team

Justin Hartanov is the Chief Executive Officer of Evention, where he leads the company’s strategy, growth, and expansion of its financial automation platform for hospitality, retail, and entertainment operators. He joined Evention to help scale the company’s technology and accelerate its mission of helping organizations automate reconciliation, eliminate revenue leakage, and gain a unified financial source of truth across complex transaction ecosystems.

Hartanov brings extensive experience scaling enterprise technology companies. Prior to Evention, he served as CEO of Logicbroker and previously held senior leadership roles including Chief Commercial Officer at Syndigo and Executive Vice President at Market Track, where he helped drive global expansion and enterprise adoption of data and commerce platforms.

He holds a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and Sociology from Davidson College.

Justin lives in Chicago with his wife, Creighton, and their two children. Outside of work, he enjoys coaching youth sports, traveling to Mexico with his family, and spending time on the sidelines rooting for his kids.

Dana Rugienius is the Vice President of Finance at Evention, where she oversees the company’s accounting operations, financial reporting, and internal financial controls. In this role, she helps ensure the accuracy and integrity of Evention’s financial processes while supporting strategic decision-making as the company continues to scale its financial automation platform.

With extensive experience in accounting and corporate finance, Rugienius brings a strong background in financial management, compliance, and operational efficiency. At Evention, she plays a key role in maintaining financial discipline and helping the organization scale while supporting the company’s mission to bring greater accuracy and transparency to financial operations.

Prior to her role at Evention, Rugienius held various accounting and finance positions including a CFO position at a software company.

She earned her Bachelors in Business Administration from the University of Michigan.

In her free time, she enjoys volunteering at a children’s camp where she herself was a camper in her youth. She deeply appreciates the life skills she learned and wants to pay it forward to future generations of campers.

Andrew Pickens is the Chief Revenue Officer at Evention, where he leads the company’s global revenue strategy, including sales, partnerships, customer growth, and go-to-market execution. In this role, he is responsible for accelerating growth, expanding customer adoption, strengthening customer retention and expansion, and helping hospitality organizations gain greater confidence in their financial operations through Evention’s Trust After Checkout platform.

Pickens brings extensive experience building and leading high-performing revenue organizations across the technology sector. Throughout his career, he has helped companies scale growth, strengthen customer relationships, and create repeatable go-to-market motions that drive long-term success. At Evention, he focuses on aligning commercial strategy with customer outcomes, helping operators modernize financial processes, improve visibility across complex payment ecosystems, and protect margins at scale.

He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Biology from Davidson College, where he developed the analytical mindset and problem-solving approach that continue to influence his leadership style today.

Andrew lives in Virginia with his wife, Emily, and their two children. Outside of work, he enjoys working out, coaching his kids’ sports teams, and staying current on the latest sales strategies, leadership approaches, and revenue growth trends.

Mike Baldinger is a Co-Founder and Chief Strategy Officer at Evention, an early pioneer in automated back-office solutions based in Chicago, Illinois. Prior to forming Evention, Baldinger held roles at PeopleSoft and J.D. Edwards, where he built deep experience in enterprise technology and operations.

As a co-founder, Baldinger has helped shape Evention’s growth and product innovation strategy, working closely with customers, partners, and internal teams to deliver financial automation solutions to hospitality, retail, and entertainment organizations around the world. Over the past two decades, he has played a key role in helping operators modernize financial operations through automation, reconciliation, and transaction-level visibility.

He earned a degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Notre Dame.

Outside of work, Mike is an ultramarathon runner who enjoys tailgating his way across the Big Ten with his kids and traveling with his family.

Tracey Banta is the Director of People Operations at Evention, where she leads the company's people strategy, talent development, and employee experience initiatives. In this role, she focuses on building a strong culture, developing scalable processes, and ensuring Evention continues to attract, retain, and support exceptional talent as the company grows.

Banta brings more than a decade of operational and organizational leadership experience in the SaaS industry, with expertise spanning people operations, IT support, facilities, and cross-functional communications. She is known for identifying operational bottlenecks, improving alignment across teams, and building systems that help organizations scale effectively. At Evention, she works closely with leadership to strengthen engagement, streamline operations, and create an environment where employees can do their best work.

She holds formal credentials in Accounting and Property Management, complementing her extensive experience in organizational operations and team development.

Outside of work, Tracey enjoys quilting, hiking, and camping with her family and rescue Rottweiler, Roxy. She is passionate about creating memorable experiences both at work and at home and finds that time outdoors helps keep her grounded and energized.

Patrick Niersbach is the Chief Marketing Officer at Evention, where he leads the company’s global marketing strategy, brand positioning, and go-to-market execution. In this role, he focuses on driving demand, strengthening Evention’s market presence, and helping hospitality, retail, and entertainment operators modernize financial operations through automation and transaction-level visibility.

Niersbach brings more than 15 years of experience leading marketing and growth initiatives for enterprise technology companies. Prior to joining Evention, he held senior marketing leadership roles including Chief Marketing Officer at Logicbroker and Traxero and served as a marketing leader at companies such as Syndigo and InContext Solutions. He is known for building high-impact go-to-market strategies that accelerate pipeline growth and align marketing closely with revenue teams.

He earned a Bachelor of Business Administration in Business from the University of Iowa.

When he’s not building marketing flywheels, Patrick is usually wrangling his kids, plotting the perfect tailgate, or testing the limits of Chicago pool season.

Brian Roth is the Chief Technology Officer and Co-Founder of Evention, where he has helped shape the company’s vision of bringing automation and financial transparency to complex hospitality and retail operations. Since co-founding Evention in 2004, Roth has played a key role in developing the company’s financial automation platform, helping organizations streamline reconciliation, automate gratuity and payroll reporting, and gain transaction-level visibility across their payment ecosystems.

With decades of experience in financial technology and operational systems, Roth has focused on building scalable solutions that replace manual, spreadsheet-driven processes with automation. Under his leadership, Evention has grown into a global SaaS platform used by thousands of locations to improve financial accuracy, reduce administrative workload, and strengthen internal controls across multi-location businesses.

He earned a degree in Mechanical Engineering from Northwestern University.

Outside of work, Brian enjoys spending time with his family and playing recreational hockey with more determination than speed. He is also an avid live music fan, with a 21-year-and-counting streak of attending Lollapalooza in Chicago.

Matt Smallbone is the Director of Professional Services at Evention, where he leads client implementation, onboarding, and service delivery for the company’s financial automation platform. In this role, he works closely with hospitality, retail, and multi-location operators to ensure successful deployment of Evention’s reconciliation and financial operations solutions.

Smallbone has been with Evention for more than a decade, holding multiple implementation and client success roles before becoming Director of Professional Services. His deep experience working directly with finance teams gives him a practical understanding of the operational challenges surrounding reconciliation, payments, and reporting, allowing him to guide clients toward more efficient, automated financial workflows.

He holds a Master of Science in Business Information Technology from DePaul University and a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology and Computer Applications from the University of Notre Dame.

Outside of his gratuity and reconciliation laboratory, Matt and family enjoy the city living of Chicago and trips back to his home state of Michigan. It’s a lifestyle that balances deep dish pizza with deep fishing holes and cityscapes with countryside escapes.

Jeff is Co-Founder and Managing Partner of EAM.

Jeff has been investing in private software companies for more than twenty years. His experience includes partnering with management teams to complete buyout, growth equity, carve out and take private transactions. Jeff started his private equity career at Summit Partners and also worked at Thoma Bravo and TA Associates, where he led and helped manage investments in software and services companies.

Jeff’s passion is working with product-led software companies and partnering with leadership teams and founders to provide growth support through EAM’s Investor-Operator strategy.

Jeff graduated from Babson College and has a MBA from Harvard Business School.

Wendy is an Operating Partner at EAM.

Wendy has a passion for helping to develop people, process and technology to create value for customers and to drive company growth. EAM has a focused investment strategy, strong and diverse team and a true partnership approach to working with portfolio companies.

Wendy has more than 30 years of hands-on experience in various leadership roles and has been a driving force in building high-growth education technology, e-commerce and financial services companies. Her career includes serving as President and COO of edX, a prominent education technology company, where she played a pivotal role in shaping their business model. Wendy also spent 13 years at Vistaprint (now Cimpress) where she helped lead the company’s growth from $1 million to more than $1 billion in revenue, with several of those years as COO.

Wendy earned her B.S. in Finance from the Rochester Institute of Technology.

Shawn is an Operating Partner at EAM.

Shawn is a passionate operator and technologist. He is inspired by working with a collection of diverse and talented companies. He believes companies excel when they balance their focus on platform and product, operations, commercials, and culture. Shawn enjoys helping shape and promote this balance across the EAM portfolio, creating value for team members, customers and investors.

Shawn has more than twenty-five years of operating experience and has extensive experience in software and tech enabled service companies. Shawn has had roles as CTO, COO and CEO. Shawn was most recently CEO of Scribe Software.

Shawn graduated from Plymouth State College, Northeastern University (State of the Art, Computer Science) and Northeastern University Business School (MBA).

A C-Suite Executive with extensive experience in hospitality technology solutions, this leader is passionate about guiding companies through transformation, where every challenge becomes an opportunity to innovate and drive growth. The approach centers on leveraging data and technology to streamline operations and create personalized, memorable customer experiences while delivering significant profitable growth. Navigating complex market dynamics is both rewarding and motivating, and it is the core of what drives this executive's work.

A career highlight includes leading a significant transformation as CEO that resulted in a 75% increase in ARR, a 500% boost in EBITDA, and raising NRR from 54% to 90%, all while expanding the customer base by over 50%. During a tenure at Hyatt, the team designed a solution that reduced training time for front-office staff from months to weeks, underscoring the power of operational innovation in creating memorable experiences.

Mike Baldinger is a Co-Founder and Chief Strategy Officer at Evention, an early pioneer in automated back-office solutions based in Chicago, Illinois. Prior to forming Evention, Baldinger held roles at PeopleSoft and J.D. Edwards, where he built deep experience in enterprise technology and operations.

As a co-founder, Baldinger has helped shape Evention’s growth and product innovation strategy, working closely with customers, partners, and internal teams to deliver financial automation solutions to hospitality, retail, and entertainment organizations around the world. Over the past two decades, he has played a key role in helping operators modernize financial operations through automation, reconciliation, and transaction-level visibility.

He earned a degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Notre Dame.

Outside of work, Mike is an ultramarathon runner who enjoys tailgating his way across the Big Ten with his kids and traveling with his family.

Brian Roth is the Chief Technology Officer and Co-Founder of Evention, where he has helped shape the company’s vision of bringing automation and financial transparency to complex hospitality and retail operations. Since co-founding Evention in 2004, Roth has played a key role in developing the company’s financial automation platform, helping organizations streamline reconciliation, automate gratuity and payroll reporting, and gain transaction-level visibility across their payment ecosystems.

With decades of experience in financial technology and operational systems, Roth has focused on building scalable solutions that replace manual, spreadsheet-driven processes with automation. Under his leadership, Evention has grown into a global SaaS platform used by thousands of locations to improve financial accuracy, reduce administrative workload, and strengthen internal controls across multi-location businesses.

He earned a degree in Mechanical Engineering from Northwestern University.

Outside of work, Brian enjoys spending time with his family and playing recreational hockey with more determination than speed. He is also an avid live music fan, with a 21-year-and-counting streak of attending Lollapalooza in Chicago.

Erik Nejman was a Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Evention, where he has played a key role in building the company into a leading provider of financial automation software for hospitality, restaurant, retail, and entertainment organizations. Since co-founding Evention in 2004 alongside Mike Baldinger and Brian Roth, Nejman has helped guide the company’s strategy, product development, and growth as it expanded from solving gratuity and payroll complexities for hotels to delivering a comprehensive suite of reconciliation and financial automation solutions used by thousands of locations worldwide.

Under his leadership, Evention has grown into a global SaaS platform that automates reconciliation across payments, cash, tips, and other financial transactions, helping operators increase accuracy, reduce administrative work, and strengthen financial controls across complex multi-location businesses.