Management Team

Ned Lilly, President and CEO

Ned co-founded xTuple, originally called OpenMFG, in October 2001, with the aim of bringing the worlds of open source and ERP together to solve the unmet needs of small to midsized manufacturers.  He was a co-founder of Great Bridge, an early attempt to build a business around the PostgreSQL open source database, in 1999; PostgreSQL is the core technology for xTuple today.  Great Bridge was incubated inside Landmark Communications, a midsized media company where Ned directed corporate venture investments, M&A, and startup activity.  Prior to his work with Landmark, Ned worked for a regional technology group in Washington D.C., and had a brief first career in political media – television, radio, and a nonpartisan news wire.  He holds a B.A. from the University of Virginia, and an M.A. from George Washington University.

Wally Tonra, Vice President Sales

Wally has been with xTuple since 2004, and in ERP sales for almost 20 years.  After all that time selling vendor-centric, proprietary enterprise software, moving to an open source, Mac-friendly ERP package was a natural evolution.  Prior to xTuple, Wally spent 10 years at JD Edwards (eventually acquired by Peoplesoft), in various sales and sales management positions.  He made the move to xTuple before Oracle took over both Peoplesoft and the former JDE.  Prior to JD Edwards he held sales positions at ERP software company Daly.commerce (formerly Daly and Wolcott), hardware supplier XL/Datacomp, and storage vendor EMC.  Wally holds a B.S. from Boston College, where the Mac fanaticism all began. 

Mike Atherton, Director of Product Training

Mike has delivered project management, implementation, and training services to xTuple clients since the earliest days of the company. These clients span a wide range of industries around the world. Prior to xTuple, Mike was a Senior ERP Consultant for Computer Associates International, expert on multiple CA products, notably the Baan Triton/MK product acquired first by SSA, then Infor. He has served as adjunct faculty for The George Washington University and Marymount University and currently guest lectures on project management and systems thinking in The Graduate School's Center for Leadership and Management. He holds a B.B.A from the College of William and Mary and an M.B.A. from the George Washington University. He is also the voice of the xTuple Demo Videos.

Anne Cote, Director of Professional Services

Anne is a certified Project Management Professional (PMP) who has spent the last 15 years managing technology projects for a wide range of companies from Philips to Microsoft.  Anne is responsible for overseeing direct consulting engagements with xTuple and coordinates internal consultants and xTuple partners to accomplish successful xTuple implementations.  Her team has developed implementation best practices which are communicated to customers and partners in the early stages of every engagement.  Anne is also head of West Coast operations, based out of the Seattle area.  She holds a B.A. from Western Washington University in Sociology and Psychology and is certified in Database Management from Georgia Institute of Technology.

John Rogelstad, Director of Product Development

John's career has been focused on manufacturing operations and technology.  Early in his career, he worked as a Quality Manager and Production Planner, and moved into ERP implementation consulting with the Visual Manufacturing product (since acquired by Infor).  He later functioned as the I.T. Manager at Mintel Communications, then took on the same position at the Marena Group where he ultimately transitioned to Director of Operations.  In this role he implemented Theory of Constraints, Lean and Quick Response concepts on the plant floor using xTuple ERP software (and designed xTuple's Constraint Management system) before he finally moved to Virginia to lead new product development at xTuple.  He holds a B.A. from the University of Puget Sound.

Pierce Tyler, Director of Product Support

A founding member of the company since 2001, Pierce is responsible for the day-to-day technical support of xTuple’s global community of customers, implementation partners, and translators. He also oversees product documentation and the quality assurance team, providing leadership on automated testing and continuous improvement processes. He was previously the managing editor for knowledge management at PostgreSQL company Great Bridge. For many years he taught digital literacy and college English at Old Dominion University and the University of Maryland. He also worked as a beat reporter for various newspapers. He holds a B.A. from Wesleyan University and an M.F.A. in English from the University of Maryland, College Park.

BC Wilson, Director of Product Engineering

BC oversees the ongoing engineering and development of the xTuple Classic GUI product, including all customer-sponsored enhancements, as well as the xTuple Web Portal product.  Prior to xTuple, BC was a senior product manager for Trader Electronic Media, where he directed the development of websites for the classified advertising market.  He has also worked as a partner in a web design agency, and a content producer for the Road Runner and Starband broadband service providers. BC began his career as a writer and editor for the Ziff Davis computer magazines. He holds a B.A. in Theology from Georgetown University, and is currently finishing an M.F.A. in creative writing at Old Dominion University.