Executive Team
Driving Spireon Forward
We Go Higher, Together. This core value applies to our executives as well. The Spireon management team is comprised of savvy executives and industry experts that bring years of experience to a cutting edge company. They cultivate our strong culture, and work tirelessly to help our team and customers scale, grow, and succeed.
Our Team

Bob Burden
SVP, Fleet & Asset
Bob Burden has 12+ years of experience as an executive, leading sales teams in the Telematics industry. As the Senior Vice President of Sales at Spireon, Bob will lead the SMB, Reseller and Channel segments of the business towards continued rapid sales growth executing industry-leading go to market strategies. Prior to Spireon, Bob was the CEO of Blueprint Sales Solutions, an international consulting firm working in the SaaS space with a focus in the Telematics industry. Prior to Blueprint, Bob was the VP of Sales at Fleetmatics for 10 years. His teams were instrumental in building their SMB and mid-market divisions leading to a successful IPO in 2012.

Carla Fitzgerald
Chief Marketing Officer
As Chief Marketing Officer, Carla Fitzgerald is responsible for strengthening and extending Spireon’s brand and market reach. Prior to joining Spireon, Fitzgerald drove high-performance marketing teams and strategies at top technology companies in the wireless, enterprise and consumer software arenas, including CA and Quest Software, and most recently as CMO at Smith Micro Software.

Rick Gruenhagen
Chief Technology Officer
Rick Gruenhagen brings diverse and vast technology expertise to the CTO position based on key leadership roles at PayPal, Amazon and Microsoft. He has a proven track record of building SaaS-based platforms that effectively monetize Big Data and Internet of Things (IoT) solutions. Gruenhagen previously served as Vice President of Software Engineering at Impinj, where he built the end-to-end technology platform that propelled the company into a successful Initial Public Offering.

Rashid Ismail
SVP, Customer Success
As Senior Vice President of Customer Success, Rashid Ismail will manage customer lifecycle management bringing even greater strength to Spireon’s award-winning customer service program. Ismail joins Spireon with nearly 20 years of experience, most recently at CoreLogic, a leading provider of property data and analytics, where he served as senior vice president of operations with a focus on improving customer retention, productivity and processes and achieved significant results.

Rita Parvaneh
Chief Financial Officer
Rita Parvaneh joined the company’s leadership team in 2011 as Vice President, Controller. In that role, Parvaneh successfully steered the merger of EnfoTrace GPS, Procon GPS and PFS, LLC as the companies joined resources and expertise to become Spireon, the industry’s leading vehicle telematics company. A Certified Public Accountant, Parvaneh has a Bachelor of Arts in Business Administration with concentrations in Accounting and Finance from California State University Fullerton.

Jason Penkethman
Chief Product and Strategy Officer
Jason Penkethman serves as Chief Product and Strategy Officer and brings extensive experience in telematics, mobile and cloud-based product technology. Prior to joining Spireon he played a central role at Telogis in expanding connected vehicle product initiatives with leading automotive companies. Prior to Telogis, he was VP Product Management and Marketing at Comtech focused on navigation and telematics, and Corporate VP Engineering at Smith Micro leading mobile enterprise software development. Jason has also held mobile device technology leadership roles with Hewlett-Packard, Nokia and Motorola.

Reggie Ponsford
SVP, Automotive Solutions Sales
Reggie Ponsford oversees sales for the vehicle finance market segment, including Buy Here Pay Here (BHPH), franchise, rental and power sports vehicle dealers, as well as direct and indirect lenders and strategic accounts. He previously served as vice president of national accounts,and was responsible for Spireon’s largest and most complex customers in the automotive space. Ponsford has over 18 years of sales and management experience within the wireless asset management and location-based services markets. Ponsford earned a bachelor’s degree in business and managerial economics at California State University, Long Beach.

Roni Taylor
SVP, FAI Strategy and Business Development
A seasoned veteran of the transportation industry, Taylor has over 25 years of experience in marketing and product management. Her career has spanned a number of fleet telematics providers, helping them establish product road maps and increase customer reach. In 2011, Taylor joined Spireon as Vice President of Product Management where she launched product and marketing initiatives for Spireon’s Fleet and Asset Intelligence segment. As Vice President of Strategy and Business Development – Fleet & Asset she connects fleet customers and partners to cutting edge industry trends and Rich Data solutions.

Kevin Weiss
Chief Executive Officer
Kevin Weiss is Spireon’s Chief Executive Officer. Prior to joining Spireon, Kevin served as CEO of Unitrends, a global technology company that delivers end-to-end business recovery solutions. Prior to Unitrends, Kevin served as President and Chief Executive Officer of multiple private-equity owned technology-enabled companies following his role as President of McAfee and senior sales and marketing leadership roles at IBM.

Tim Welch
Chief Operating Officer
As the Chief Operating Officer and EVP of Share Services for Spireon, Inc., Tim Welch oversees the daily operations of the company including product planning, purchasing, financial performance, partnership development, contract management, logistics, customer support, and sales. Prior to joining the Spireon management team, Welch served as the Chief Executive Officer for ProconGPS Inc., a company he was instrumental in launching. Tim has a B.S. in Marketing and an MBA in Logistics from the University of Tennessee.