Headquartered in Chicago, FirstLook by INCISENT Technologies is the pioneer in Dealer Performance Management Software—providing industry-leading New & Pre-Owned Operations Tools, Internet Marketing Tools and Performance Development Programs to automotive franchises in 45 states across the United States since 2003.
FirstLook is the fourth-fastest growing
software company in the US, according to
Inc. Magazine's 2008 INC 500 List
Management Team
Pat Ryan Jr., Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder
Steve Fitzgerald, Chief Operating Officer
Dave Adams, Vice President of Customer Operations
Joseph Grieshop, Chief Marketing Officer
Krishna Kumar, Vice President of Engineering and IT Operations
David McGarry, Senior Vice President of Product Management
John Miniati, Vice President of Analytics
David Nelson, Senior Vice President for Performance Management
Pat Ryan Jr., Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder
Pat Ryan Jr. is Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of INCISENT Technologies, a business intelligence and next generation internet advertising software firm based in Chicago. INCISENT was ranked in Inc. Magazine's 2008 Inc. 500 rankings as the #4 fastest-growing privately-held software company in the United States. Pat is responsible for driving INCISENT's business and product strategy. Pat was awarded a U.S. Patent for INCISENT's first generation Expert System Technology as a part of a team from INCISENT and Northwestern University's Artificial Intelligence DevLab. Outside of INCISENT, Pat serves as a member of the Board of Directors of Penske Corporation.
Pat earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Georgetown University, a Master of Business Administration from the J.L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University and a Juris Doctor cum laude from the Northwestern University School of Law.
Before graduate school Pat worked as a teacher on Chicago's West Side, later founding the Inner-City Teaching Corps (ICTC), an urban teaching program similar to the Peace Corps. Pat also co-founded ICTC's independent public school on Chicago's West Side which has achieved the #1 test score gains in Chicago in the history of the ISAT test and been recognized by the U.S. Department of Education as one of 7 schools in the United States best "Closing the Achievement Gap."
While beginning to build ICTC, Pat attended the Chicago Police Academy where his classmates elected him "Outstanding Recruit." Pat's time as a police officer included work as a narcotics investigator focused on major gang narcotics activity in the inner-city of Chicago; in this role he received a commendation for leading a $1.1 million cocaine seizure.
Pat is a Trustee of Northwestern University and a member of its Executive Committee as well as a member of the Young Presidents' Organization (YPO), the Council on Foreign Relations, the Economic Club of Chicago and is a Trustee of the Field Museum.
Pat has been a Henry Crown Fellow at the Aspen Institute and was named one of the 100 Global Leaders for Tomorrow at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
Pat and his wife Lydia live on Chicago's North Side with their 3 children.
Steve Fitzgerald, Chief Operating Officer
After graduating from Miami of Ohio University with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Business Administration, Steve entered the US Navy. During his 24+ year career as an officer in the Navy SEALs, he deployed to numerous countries around the world. Steve commanded at all levels from Lieutenant (O-3) to his final rank of Captain (O-6) in various assignments with the US military's special mission units. He was directly involved with planning and/or participating in combat operations in Panama, the Persian Gulf, Afghanistan and Iraq, and peace keeping missions in Haiti and Bosnia.
During deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan, Steve commanded Joint Special Operations Task Forces charged with conducting the United State’s highest priority missions against Al Qaeda, Taliban and Iraqi enemy forces. He earned his Masters Degree in National Security Affairs at the Industrial College of the Armed Forces in Washington DC. His service awards include the Defense Superior Service Medal, the Legion of Merit, the Bronze Star (two awards) and the Combat Action Ribbon (two awards).
After retiring from the Navy in 2004, he was hired by Aon Consulting as the Senior Vice President for Sales Operations in the Central Region. He has served with INCISENT Technologies since April, 2006.
Dave Adams, Vice President of Customer Operations
Before joining INCISENT in January 2008, Dave was a consultant with McKinsey & Company. In his 3+ years with McKinsey's Atlanta office, he participated in 13 distinct client engagements spanning a variety of Fortune 100 companies. Dave's specialization within the firm was Operations and Organizational Strategy, and he led the problem solving/solution development of major business issues for his clients' Chief Executives. Dave started his professional career in the US Air Force, where he served as a Special Tactics Officer in the US Air Force Special Operations Command. Over his 9-year career, he led multiple Combat Control/Pararescue teams in joint operations throughout Europe, North Africa, and Southwest Asia.
Dave earned an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management in 2004, and a Bachelors of Science in Management from the United States Air Force Academy in 1993
Joseph Grieshop, Chief Marketing Officer
A proven senior business and marketing executive with a 25-year record of success, Mr. Grieshop has rich experience working with entrepreneurial start-ups and Fortune 500 corporations. His expertise in strategy, research, innovation, branding, marketing, design and sales enablement has helped him to achieve success in the automotive, technology, manufacturing, healthcare, electronic publishing and consumer packaged goods industries.
After beginning his career shaping brand and image strategy for Sive/Young & Rubicam, Donovan & Green, the American Stock Exchange and others, he founded and managed Grieshop etc., a marketing agency serving Fortune 1000 business-to-business and business-to-consumer clients. Mr. Grieshop also co-founded Insight Development, a consulting, business incubation and executive mentoring firm that developed solutions, revitalized services, and launched/privatized and marketed public-sector companies serving the automotive and aerospace industries. As Vice President of Strategic Marketing and Research for Synergistics, Inc. he co-led the technology solutions start-up to become Inc. 500's 252nd-fastest growing company in 2000. He then successfully co-led the business through an acquisition by IT Factory to a global market-leading position in the customer relationship management and collaborative web-services space.
More recently, as Vice President of Marketing for automotive retailing industry leader Reynolds and Reynolds, he managed corporate and solution brand rationalization, integration and revitalization, and was responsible for directing Market Intelligence, Research and Voice of the Customer, Brand & Market Strategy, Marketing Communications, Competitive Intelligence, Sales Channel Marketing, Influencer Marketing and Customer, Field and Events Marketing.
Joe has won over 150 national and regional awards in research, marketing, branding, advertising, design and corporate Best Practices from such prestigious organizations as the American Association of Advertising Agencies, the American Advertising Federation, Printing Industries of America, Marketing Leadership Council and Corporate Executive Board. He has a Bachelor of Science in Design from the University of Cincinnati.
Krishna Kumar, Vice President of Engineering and IT Operations
Krishna has nearly 20 years of experience developing software in research and commercial environments, and has executive responsibility for all aspects of engineering and production operations for INCISENT's online product offerings.
After an early career in academia focused on research problems in artificial intelligence, combinatorial optimization and computational geometry, he joined Optimax Systems, a startup based in Cambridge, MA that developed innovative factory scheduling products for large manufacturers in the automotive and heavy machinery sectors. Optimax was acquired by i2 technologies and he spent 8 years at i2 as an engineer and architect, developing enterprise products and infrastructure components for supply chain planning and optimization in the Manufacturing and Retail verticals. He moved to Chicago in 2003 and prior to joining INCISENT in 2006, he led the engineering team that developed a web-based enterprise labor forecasting and scheduling product aimed at Tier 1 retailers at Oracle Retail.
Krishna obtained his Bachelor's Degree in Electronics and Electrical Engineering from IT-BHU, India and his Master's and Doctoral degrees in Computer Science from Texas A&M University. He lives on the north side of Chicago with his wife Christine and son Joel.
David McGarry, Senior Vice President of Product Management
Since 2006 David has served as the Senior Vice President of Product Management. In this role he is responsible for the design and development of new products and the enhancements of the current product suite. From February 2003 to 2006, he was Senior Vice President of Engineering at the company, where he was the driving force behind conception, design, construction and successful launching of the initial products and tools to gain entry into the market place.
Before joining INCISENT, David worked in the high-tech consulting industry. He served at Arthur Andersen and Lante as a Manager in their technology consulting practices.
David has his BS from Syracuse University and is a graduate of NYU's The Stern School of Business MBA program.
John Miniati, Vice President of Analytics
John is a seasoned technology executive, with operational experience bringing e-commerce, wireless, internet and other technology products and services to market in Silicon Valley, Europe and Chicago.
Prior to INCISENT John was the Vice President of Marketing Services at comScore (a leading internet information provider) where he led a team of analysts to provide online and multi-channel consumer shopping insight to companies such as Hewlett-Packard, KodakGallery.com and Symantec. He was Business Unit Manager for a consumer shopping site at Disney Internet Group, and Director of Product Management at a wireless internet pioneer that won PC Magazine's Editor's Choice Award in 2001. John started his career at Hewlett-Packard, where he held various roles from Engineer to Senior Program Manager.
John was granted two US Patents for exchanging information between the internet and mobile devices. He holds his B.S. in Engineering from Cornell, as well as a dual MBA and Masters of Engineering Management from Northwestern (The MMM Program).
David Nelson, Senior Vice President for Performance Management
Since 2001, David has guided FirstLook's (the division dedicated to the automotive industry) Performance Management Team in defining and executing industry retail performance standards, resulting in significant operational performance improvements at over 1,600 franchises across the country. Some of the nationally-recognizable dealers that he has positively impacted include groups such as Penske, Hendrick and Tuttle Click. The Performance Management Team is composed of automotive experts who are schooled in cutting-edge technologies that are grounded in the most effective practices of today's dealerships.
David joined INCISENT already a successful entrepreneur, having co-founded Uncle Julio's Restaurants. Under David's leadership, Uncle Julio's grew profitably to ten units in five states with 1,000 employees and $65 million in revenue. David holds a Bachelor Degree from University of Texas, a Kellogg MBA and Juris Doctor from Northwestern University's School of Law.