After an early career as a software development consultant in real-time system controls and defense sector enterprise IT, Steve formed Fonative, Inc. in 1992 (then known as Ampersand, Inc.) to respond to increasing demand and opportunities for this expertise.
In Fonative’s first decade, Steve built and led a talented team of program managers, software architects, and engineers to tackle a broad range of defense and national intelligence community projects with prime contractors that included Lockheed Martin, PRC, Titan Aerospace, and Sun Federal.
In 2000, Steve refocused the company toward providing scalable telephony systems and call centers in the private sector, and went on to work with innovative firms such as Lavalife LLP (formerly Interactive Media Group), Dialogic Corp., Vsys, and others. Immersed in large-scale enterprise telephony, Fonative was quick to see the potential for VoIP. Steve was invited to join the VON advisory board and became a sought-after speaker at industry conferences.
From 2000 to 2007, Steve also played a pivotal role at Lavalife as its contract CTO and Chief Scientist through its acquisition by Vertrue in 2006. He initiated the migration of its IVR systems and call centers to VoIP, saving $2.4 million in annual operating expenses. After launching the first large-scale North American enterprise inbound VoIP platform, Lavalife won the Canadian CIPA Silver Award for Excellence in Innovation.
In 2008, Fonative began building its own software products, resulting in the launch of the Kaliope® Suite of modular call center components which expanded into a significant installed base. As IT sector after IT sector moved to the cloud, Fonative created its robust CPaaS solution in 2014, which entered production use the following year and is currently powering more than 50 U.S. contact centers representing thousands of agents and millions of calls per month.
In addition to leading Fonative as CEO, Steve serves part-time as a Managing Director at Dunn Rush & Co. LLC, a Boston-based investment bank where he lends his expertise in Technology, Media, and Telecommunications as a Registered Investment Banking Representative (Series 62, 63, 79).
Steve graduated with distinction from Cornell University in 1984 with a degree in Computer Science and currently holds three patents in areas related to voice call processing (U.S. Patent Numbers 9,053,711, 9,679,584, and 10,014,006).