SimpleFi Leadership Team
Jon Essig
Biography
Jon is a business leader and enterprise architect with focus on planning, analytics and consolidation solutions. He is a recognized industry expert, speaker and author.
Jon has years of experience advising companies on their business processes and IT solutions. In addition, to holding leadership roles in sales, finance and IT.
Jon has architected many successful programs, working with c-level execs, corporate finance, regional business units, and IT to create and implement a companywide vision. Jon holds a Bachelor of Science in Finance and is a Certified Public Accountant.
Michael Thompson
Biography
Michael brings over 20 years of experience selling data, analytics, and planning solutions to the organization, where he started as an analytics consultant in 2003 and later transitioned into a sales role in 2007.
Some of Michael’s strengths include strategic planning, creatively thinking outside of the box, and relationship management. These strengths have provided him with the ability to work closely with C-Level executives, Finance, IT, and Business Groups across the enterprise within numerous small-market, mid-market, and large enterprise companies.
Michael attended the University of Georgia’s Terry College of Business, where he obtained a Bachelor of Business Administration in Economics.
Beth McBreen
Biography
Beth has 10+ years’ experience architecting and designing robust SAP planning, analytics and consolidations solutions and over 15 years of overall finance experience. She has multiple many large engagements and has a proven track record of success. She has been involved with SAP BPC since version 4.2, and has expertise in Microsoft, NetWeaver and Hana versions of the tool.
Beth is also an early adopter of the SAP Analytics Cloud (SAC) solution. After participating in the original SAC product beta 5+ years ago, Beth’s SAC experience includes pre-packaged solution build (including SAP 2019 2nd place Hackathon winner), multiple end to end implementations (including the first large planning deployment in the U.S.), and advisory services with many clients to help them realize value since the product’s inception.
Eric Blondin
Biography
With over 20 years of experience working with BI and planning solutions, Eric Blondin leads SimpleFI’s Platform and Technology practice. During his career, Eric managed teams of experts to help organizations define their BI strategy and roadmaps.
On top of the U.S., Eric has provided expertise to SAP customers in France, Belgium, Switzerland and Canada, he was also involved in the academic sphere, teaching Business Intelligence to masters students at the Université de Sherbrooke (Canada) and SAP Education BW classes (France). With his great customer mindset and excellent communication and team-playing skills, Eric also lead the team that won first place in the 2019 SAC Planning Hackathon.
Henner Schliebs
Biography
Henner is an EPM veteran with over 20 years of experience driving Go-To-Market through marketing and selling sophisticated FP&A solutions to the office of finance. He started as a financial consolidation consultant in 2000 in Europe and later transitioned into customer success roles, immigrating to the US in 2010. He has spent a few years in the Silicon Valley before he moved his family to Austin, TX.
Having gained vast customer success experience across the globe, Henner’s strengths include translating business challenges into technology building scalable programs and structures that help technology organizations build trust with their (prospective) customers. These strengths have provided him with the ability to work closely with C-Level executives from SMB as well as F100 organizations.
Henner attended the RheinMain University of Applied Sciences in Wiesbaden, Germany, where he majored in Marketing and Finance.
Dan Skiendziel
Biography
Dan has 10+ yrs of EPM experience from both technical and functional perspectives. His 25+ years of corporate FP&A experience and technical acumen led Dan to seek opportunities to use this skillset to partner with other FP&A groups to realize their untapped potential through SAP technology platforms. Having led SAP BPC consolidations on the corporate side and several end-to-end planning solutions as a consultant, Dan has proven to his domestic and international clients the value this experience brings to their Planning, Forecasting, Consolidation SAC and BPC implementations.
He holds a Bachelors in Business Administration (Accounting) from Saginaw Valley State University and Masters in Business Administration from Indiana Wesleyan University. Dan resides in Holland, Michigan with his wife Sue and enjoys hiking, cycling, and the Lake Michigan shoreline.
Jason Reid
Biography
Jason, as our Senior Director Customer Success and Head of BTP CoE, brings over 17 years of SAP experience with strong BTP product knowledge and hands-on customer engagement in many different industries.
“When I was with SAP, I worked with SimpleFi for many years. SimpleFi always impressed me with their teamwork, detailed product and functional knowledge, and dedication to customer success. When the opportunity came to join, it was an easy decision. SimpleFi’s investment in their Customer Success Program, in partnership with SAP, is an exciting direction.”
Jason is based in the Toronto, Canada, Metro Area and spends his time with his family, canoeing, fishing, and enjoying nature.
Ingo Hilgefort
Biography
Ingo has years of experience running BI and Data & Analytics practices within SAP and the SAP Ecosystem, having authored many expert books enlightening and educating consultants around the globe. He came into the SAP world via the acquisition of BusinessObjects where he was a leader in the Crystal Decisions unit of the first hour.
Ingo is originally from Germany (herzlich Willkommen Ingo!) and immigrated to Canada in 2004 being a dual citizen. In his spare time Ingo likes to go out with their 3 dogs and also doing some serious Sheep Herding (2 dogs are Border Collies), and one of the dogs placed #5 for Border Collies in all of Canada for Sheep Herding. The Hilgeforts are living ~45 min outside of Vancouver, BC, in a city called Maple Ridge with mountains, trees and lakes around us.
Another “hobby is keeping Ingo busy: he has written a total of 14 (!!!) books about integrating Analytics products with SAP landscapes, starting with SAP BusinessObjects XI and BW 3.5.
Keith Jackson
Biography
Keith comes to work with us from Spaulding Ridge, where he served as Partner. With a robust foundation in continuous improvement and Support Services, his tenure at Spaulding Ridge has been marked by guiding transformative Sales Performance Management (SPM) solutions. This focus has empowered their team to integrate functions across the office of the CFO and CRO, fostering enhanced cash flow and revenue growth for their clients.
Keith holds a BS in Business Information Systems from Bellevue University and an MBA from Regis University. He has 10+ years of significant experience & expertise in Sales Performance Management, building an AMS team & practice, and implementing Anaplan solution models.
Keith lives in Ashland Nebraska with his wife and way more animals than should be announced publicly. He has two grown sons. During his personal time, he flexes his culinary skills for gatherings that his wife loves to organize with friends and family. He also enjoys travel and seeing new places and cultures.
Mike Sullivan
Biography
Mike has years of experience running EPM consulting practices for Kepion and Column 5. In these roles, Mike was an absolute leader in both technical product and accounting / finance expertise in addition to building and growing their teams of consultants (Mike has led a team of 10+ EPM consultants for the last 15+ years). Prior to the last couple consulting roles, Mike worked for Outlooksoft directly, owning 50% of the NA territory. He joins SimpleFi from Kepion, where he supported their upstart EPM platform growth.
Mike enjoys sports and participating in outdoor activities. He resides in the Chicagoland area and holds a bachelor’s degree in accounting from Northern Illinois University.
