Profile

CentralReach is a leading provider of Autism and IDD Care Software, providing a complete, end-to-end software and services platform that helps children and adults diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and related intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) – and those who serve them – unlock potential, achieve better outcomes, and live more independent lives. With its roots in Applied Behavior Analysis, the company is revolutionizing how the lifelong journey of autism and IDD care is enabled at home, school, and work with powerful and intuitive solutions purpose-built for each care setting.

Visit www.centralreach.com

Key Products

CentralReach’s Autism and IDD Care Platform is made up of purpose-built solutions designed for each care setting:

• Therapy Providers that manage the end-to-end operations of clinical care delivery including practice management, clinical data collection, managed billing, learning management, etc.


• Special Education that manages the delivery of ABA and related therapies in schools.


• Employment and Adult Transistion support and empower individuals with an IDD at work and daily living, from initial assessment and goal setting to one-to-one skills training and much more.

Key Executives

Chris Sullens, Chief Executive Officer

Chris Sullens is the CEO of CentralReach, leading the company in its mission to provide a software and services platform to help children and adults diagnosed with autism and related IDDs – and those who serve them – unlock potential, achieve better outcomes, and live more independent lives. Sullens brings decades of experience to the company and has a proven track record of building strong company cultures and taking customer-centric technology companies, like CentralReach, to the next level. Since he joined, CentralReach has won 75+ awards including Deloitte Technology Fast 500, NJBIZ Fast 50, Silver Stevie for Most Innovative Company of the Year, NJBIZ Best Places to Work, and Best in Biz Company of the Year – demonstrating the positive effects of the investments the company is making in its people, process, systems, and client satisfaction initiatives.

Prior to CentralReach, Sullens spent 10 years as President and CEO of WorkWave, a leading provider of cloud-based software solutions for the field service and last mile logistics industries, which was recently acquired by IFS, an EQT-backed, global enterprise software provider based in Sweden. Sullens was responsible for developing the vision, setting the strategy and driving the execution for the company since joining in 2008. During his time there, Sullens transformed WorkWave through significant investment and 11 strategic acquisitions from a single product, single market, predominantly on-premise company, to a multi-product and multi-market SaaS company that is now the leading provider of cloud-based solutions for the field service and last mile logistics industries. Sullens grew employee count from 38 to almost 300 and increased revenue by 800% while maintaining double-digit EBITDA margins, creating an award-winning culture and building a world class SaaS leadership team.

Clark Convery, Chief Operating Officer

Clark Convery is the Chief Operating Officer of CentralReach, overseeing critical growth areas for the company including its Implementation, Customer Success, Customer Support, and CR Institute teams. Convery brings more than 20 years of experience in building and scaling fast-growth organizations and developing best-in-class customer-centric functions across a variety of leading technology companies to help lead CentralReach through its next phase of growth. Buoyed by his passion to bridge gaps between business processes and SaaS platforms, he has extensive experience in high-growth software businesses and specializes in operational scaling during periods of rapid product expansion.

Prior to joining CentralReach, Convery served as the Chief Operating Officer of Visual Lease, an award-winning software provider that helps organizations become compliant with lease accounting standards, where he was responsible for the go-to-market, retention, and product organization and strategies.

Karen Bucks, Chief Marketing Officer

Karen Bucks is the Chief Marketing Officer of CentralReach, in charge of all marketing efforts for the company, developing new growth and customer experience strategies. Bucks has been recognized for her impact on women in business, marketing leadership, and growth strategies and has won a number of awards including Female Executive of the Year by the Stevie Awards, Top 25 Women in Leadership in New Jersey, and Young Leader of the Year by Women in IT.

Prior to CentralReach, Bucks founded and led Oodi, a software platform for marketing agencies to manage their end-to-end operations. She previously held a number of marketing roles at global technology companies, Thomson Reuters and iCIMS.

Rick Russo, Chief Financial Officer

As Chief Financial Officer of CentralReach, Rick Russo is responsible for leading the company’s financial and accounting operations. He brings over 30 years of experience across a variety of technology companies, including multiple leading SaaS software companies, enabling organizations to scale operational performance via highly-effective, empowered, and data-driven finance strategies and teams. 

Prior to joining CentralReach, Russo most recently served as the Chief Financial Officer of ETQ LLC, a leading enterprise SaaS quality management software company, where he drove strategic initiatives that transformed the company in terms of scale and financial profile. Prior to joining ETQ, Russo served as SVP and Chief Accounting Officer and VP of Finance at Epicor Software, a leading enterprise ERP software company. Previously, he held various financial positions, including Senior Director of Corporate FP&A at Solectron Corporation, a global electronics manufacturing company. Russo holds a BS in accounting from the State University of New York, Brockport.   

Perry Pappas, Chief Legal and Compliance Officer

Perry Pappas serves as SVP, Chief Legal & Compliance Officer of CentralReach. He is responsible for all legal and compliance aspects of the company’s rapidly expanding operations. With more than 25 years of legal experience, Pappas began his legal career at Weil Gotshal & Manges LLP and was also a partner in the law firms of Morrison Cohen LLP and Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP. Prior to joining CentralReach, Pappas was the SVP, General Counsel and Chief Compliance Officer of WorkWave LLC. He holds both a BS and MS from Michigan State University and a Juris Doctor degree from the University of Michigan. Pappas is listed in Chambers USA as a recognized practitioner in corporate M&A and has broad experience in contracts, commercial law, intellectual property, privacy, GDPR, and other compliance matters.

Cheryl Michael, Chief Product Officer

Cheryl Michael is the company’s Chief Product Officer leading the future of the CentralReach platform and services. Michael brings over 20 years of healthcare technology experience to the table and has a proven track record of advancing health tech platforms forward. Her experience optimizing product management practices and delivering innovative healthcare technology solutions will play a key role in advancing CentralReach’s mission to provide the end-to-end software and services that help our customers produce superior outcomes for their clients and further solidify CentralReach’s position as a leader in the ABA market.

Prior to CentralReach, Michael was Executive Vice President of Product Management and Engineering at Envera Health. She also held strategic product roles at both Picis and GE/Agility HealthCare Solutions. Michael holds an MBA from Virginia Commonwealth University.

Sean Banerjee, Chief Technology Officer

Sean Banerjee serves as the company’s Chief Technology Officer overseeing the technology team in its mission to build high-performing, innovative and reliable products. Banerjee brings over 25 years of proven experience in building enterprise-grade software platforms in multiple healthcare start-ups and growth companies, all leading to IPOs and other forms of exits quickly. 

He most recently came from SOC Telemed, a publicly-traded leader in the B2B acute telemedicine space where he was Chief Technology Officer and led the company to a successful IPO in 2020. Prior to SOC Telemed, Banerjee led the software engineering of the value-based care platform of Evolent Health leading to an IPO. Before that, he also held senior technology leadership roles at healthcare companies such as Anthem, and Lumenos.

Drew Hamilton, Chief Revenue Officer

Drew Hamilton serves as CentralReach’s Chief Revenue Officer overseeing the company’s revenue-generating teams and next-phase growth strategies. Hamilton brings more than 20 years of experience in scaling health tech organizations to help lead CentralReach through its next phase of growth by growing highly-effective revenue teams to deliver best-in-class products and services to customers across the world.

Prior to joining CentralReach, Hamilton served as the Chief Revenue Officer at Kareo, the leading provider of cloud-based clinical and business management software solutions for independent healthcare practices and billing companies, where he was responsible for revenue growth and raising financing to scale the organization.

Before Kareo, Hamilton was the Executive Vice President and General Manager at Teletrac, Inc., a leading SaaS provider of location-based technology solutions and services for mobile assets. While serving in this leadership position, Hamilton was instrumental in navigating Teletrac through two ownership changes and led the business in explosive growth. Hamilton holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in English, Art History, and Business from Southern Methodist University.

Toni-Lynn Alfano, VP of People

Toni-Lynn Alfano is the Senior Vice President of People at CentralReach where she brings extensive experience as a strategic HR leader aligning business strategy with human capital management, workforce design, change management, agile thinking and performance management and talent development for multi-national and global organizations. Alfano excels in HR operational excellence and growing impactful high growth platforms in technology, manufacturing, and service-oriented businesses. Prior to joining CentralReach, Alfano was VP of Human Resources for a multinational chemical ingredient company. As head of the human resources function, she played a pivotal role in integration activities with focused efforts on transformational workforce landscape, process optimization, and designing organizational structure and programs to scale.

Alfano holds a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology and a Masters in Counseling / Industrial Psychology, both from Seton Hall University in South Orange, New Jersey.

Customer Insights

“People ask me why we picked CentralReach, and from the start, it was clear during our evaluation that CR is deeply committed to being an industry leader — not just a great software platform, but a true partner in the autism care professional community. That really stood out to us, and we’ve seen that commitment reflected as things have continued to evolve. There’s a lot happening at once, which is exciting. They’re focused on meaningful innovation and maintaining high quality across the entire platform.” — Aaron Blocher-Rubin, PhD, BCBA, President & CEO, Arizona Autism United  

“I think one of the biggest challenges our therapists face is burnout. They’re working with clients who have complex needs, supporting parents who are going through a lot, and often having difficult conversations during the day. A lot of their documentation ends up happening after hours. CentralReach continues to help us however they can to reduce that burnout — making it so there’s less extra work and helping to ease the load wherever possible.” — Rina Barak, CEO, SLEA Therapies

Investors

CentralReach Joins Forces with Roper Technologies to Accelerate Outcomes for Individuals with Autism and IDDs

Corporate Responsibility

CentralReach promotes a culture of caring and inclusivity with explicit policies in place to support DEI efforts, including initiatives to hire those with autism and related IDDs. Approximately 85% of adults with autism are unemployed and CentralReach has committed to promoting a workplace that is both inclusive and welcoming of the neurodiverse community.

CentralReach actively hires autistic adults throughout the organization and is continuously seeking innovative ways to support and engage the neurodiverse community. This effort is driven by the company’s ReachOut program, an intentional program that actively seeks out and hires unemployed autistic adults who are interested in getting into the software and technology space.

The company also creates inclusivity and diversity training not only for internal employees but also for its customers. Today, over 30% of CentralReach’s courses include a component of diversity and inclusion.