Leadership Team

Meet the leaders behind our award-winning software.

Purna Mishra

Founder, President, Chief Executive Officer and Board Member
Rick Schlenker

Co-Founder, SVP Strategic Sales
Brett Friedman

Chief Revenue Officer
Dan Bursik

Chief Product Officer
Sushil Pulikkal

Chief Technology Officer
Olivier Batherosse

Senior Vice President – Customer Success
Brian Monaco

Vice President – Value Engineering
Ellen Curnes

Co-Founder, Vice President – Human Resources and Administration, General Counsel
Dara Jahani

Vice President – Global Presales and Product Strategy
Ximing Zhang

Vice President – Application Engineering
Suvarna S. Krishnan

Vice President – Product Development
Ross Connally

Vice President – Sales, Americas
Sasha Tulchinsky

Vice President – Information Technology
Kimberley Kay Drobny

Vice President – Marketing

Purna Mishra

Founder, President, Chief Executive Officer and Board Member

Purna brings a long and successful history of technological and entrepreneurial leadership to Logile. He is a visionary force in enterprise workforce management and optimization.

Purna began his career at Carnegie Group, affiliated with Carnegie Mellon University, which pioneered the concept that led to the development of supply chain management. He then joined American Airlines, developing and implementing real-time aircraft maintenance planning and scheduling solutions.

Eager to apply his logistics management ideas and solutions to workforce management, Purna founded SoftThought Systems, Inc. in 1994, where he led the design and introduction of FDS, a workforce labor scheduling solution. Leading retailers, including Price Chopper, H-E-B, SUPERVALU and Food Lion selected FDS. Many leaders in the retail industry continue to use FDS to this day; verifiable evidence of Purna’s farsighted design philosophy.

SoftThought was acquired in 2000 by Timera, a leading developer of crew management solutions in the rail industry. As President of the Timera Texas subsidiary, Purna led the evolution of the next generation real-time enterprise workforce management solution, EWM. It was selected by leading retailers, including H-E-B, Dollar Tree and, after acquisition by JDA Software in 2004, 7-Eleven and Belk department stores among many others.

At Logile Purna continues to be a pioneer in innovative workforce management solutions. Logile combines workforce and execution management tools to create sophisticated agile, real-time solutions that can be deployed with minimal end-user training. Utilizing agile SOA and EDA architecture and web 2.0 technology, Logile’s solutions incorporate the latest techniques in planning, scheduling, artificial intelligence, operations research, distributed object, web service, software engineering and business process management (BPM).

Purna holds a Master of Science in Computer Science from the University of Oregon and a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from Motilal Nehru National Institute of Technology, a leading engineering and technology institute in the Republic of India.

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Rick Schlenker

Co-Founder, SVP Strategic Sales

As a co-founder of Logile, Rick leads strategic initiatives and oversees key accounts, underscoring his pivotal role in shaping the company’s vision and driving its growth. With more than 25 years of hands-on experience in information technology and retail management, Rick is uniquely qualified to understand the challenges presented in evaluating, selecting and implementing complex enterprise solutions. His leadership has been instrumental in establishing Logile’s culture, which is based on exceeding customer expectations and achieving their budgeted return on investment.

Rick worked closely with Purna in developing and deploying ground-breaking workforce management solutions at H-E-B, (a Tier 1 multinational grocery retailer with annual revenues exceeding 21 billion dollars,) where Rick served as Director of IT Strategy for Store Operations.

Rick and Purna saw the opportunity to bring workforce management and execution compliance solutions to a broader marketplace and they founded Logile in 2005.

Rick holds a Master of Business Administration and Bachelor of Business Administration from the University of Texas at San Antonio.

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Brett Friedman

Chief Revenue Officer

Brett is Logile’s Chief Revenue Officer with global responsibility for all go-to-market functions including sales, marketing, solution consulting, business development and alliances. Brett has spent decades driving growth for enterprise software companies, both large and small. He is passionate about helping customer partners drive value for their organizations and helping colleagues achieve their career ambitions.

Brett’s extensive experience includes growing business in North America and internationally at companies like Reflexis Systems (acquired by Zebra Technologies), Infor, SAP and i2 Technologies (acquired by Blue Yonder). With proven strategic vision, leadership and deep knowledge of retail and the global retail market, Brett brings a time-tested process and approach to sales and marketing at Logile.

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Dan Bursik

Chief Product Officer

Dan leads the product management team and strategy responsible for the functionality and future enhancement of Logile’s product range. With a career spanning over 40 years of retail store operations and labor management expertise, Dan has assisted numerous organizations to improve their service, manage labor expenses and ensure operational excellence. This has been achieved through defining best practices, establishing labor standards, initiating continuous improvement programs, and implementing enterprise technology tools.

As an industry thought leader Dan has led productivity and workforce management teams and initiatives at Cub Foods and Supervalu Corporate Retail; crossing a host of retail markets, formats and banners from Cub Foods to Farm Fresh among many others.

In his tenure at Supervalu Corporate Retail, he introduced many initiatives which helped Supervalu transition from wage percent and sale per hour labor management to fixed and variable factor management with dynamic, standard-based work scheduling.

Dan is a champion for continuous improvement and is passionate about forecast accuracy and schedule optimization. He supports employee engagement in improving performance, ensuring trust through transparency in the application of standards and store-specific data so everyone can see and everyone understands.

For Logile, Dan has key roles in developing future system requirements and in assisting our customers in driving optimal benefits from the power of Logile’s system functionality and best practice expertise.

Dan holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota.

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Sushil Pulikkal

Chief Technology Officer

Sushil is Logile’s Chief Technology Officer. In this role he is responsible for leading the entire software development team, including supporting contractors in China and India. He is passionate about imparting the philosophy of customer-focused development that distinguishes Logile’s applications from the competition.

In addition to guiding the development team, he has a leadership role in the development and evolution of Logile’s Sales and Labor Planning, Enterprise Standards Management and Time & Attendance modules and has an active role in ensuring that Logile’s applications are successfully implemented for the customer.

Sushil is a longtime collaborator with Logile’s founder, Purna Mishra, going back to their time at Timera Texas where he played an integral role in developing their EWM application. In addition, Sushil has worked at Tata Consultancy Services, where he was a key member of the development team creating sophisticated solutions for the financial industry.

Sushil has a Master of Science in Computer Science and Engineering from University Of Texas at Arlington and a Bachelor of Engineering degree in Electronics Engineering from Shivaji University, India.

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Olivier Batherosse

Senior Vice President – Customer Success

Olivier Batherosse serves as Senior Vice President of Customer Success at Logile, bringing over two decades of global experience in professional services, customer engagement, and enterprise solution delivery. His IT and services industry leadership spans Europe, North America and Asia, including managing large-scale operations and support centers in India. Olivier is passionate about helping customers succeed by aligning technology with strategic goals, delivering process optimization and measurable business outcomes, and fostering long-term partnerships.

Prior to joining Logile, he held senior leadership roles at several tech companies including Symphony RetailAI and Aldata, where he built and led international teams supporting complex transformation initiatives. Olivier will play a key role in Logile’s continued global growth and is instrumental in launching and supporting operations at the company’s new fully owned subsidiary in Bhubaneswar, Odisha, India. He holds a master’s degree in engineering from ECAM and is a certified Project Management Professional.

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Brian Monaco

Vice President – Value Engineering

Brian Monaco is the Vice President of Value Engineering at Logile where he is focused on helping retailers succeed and plan for growth, advance their business goals, and maximize return on their technology investments. Since joining Logile in 2017, Brian has been an invaluable executive leader and an integral part of Logile’s trajectory, most notably leading the retail operations, customer success and consulting teams. With a career spanning over 33 years of retail store operations and labor management, Brian has earned a formidable reputation with his expertise in turnaround initiatives, developing talented leadership teams, creating business strategies, and applying industry trends to deliver positive business results. He draws on his experience to help him truly understand the challenges customers face and collaborate with those customers for mutual success.

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Ellen Curnes

Co-Founder, Vice President – Human Resources and Administration, General Counsel

Ellen, a co-founder of Logile, brings over 20 years of legal and administrative experience to her position. She is responsible for directing Logile’s legal and administrative affairs, including human resources.

Ellen began her collaboration with Purna Mishra while serving as general counsel for an affiliated group of three technology companies, including Timera Texas. Ellen’s experience was critical in guiding the organizational development of young companies in changing and competitive markets. She was a crucial team member in implementing and furthering customer relationships and industry partnerships, as well as formulating and implementing overall company policy. In addition to her legal responsibilities, Ellen directed human resources for the group.

Ellen has also served as senior corporate counsel for Union Pacific Corporation and has worked with Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, LLP and Hughes & Luce, LLP, representing clients in many industries..

Ellen holds a Juris Doctorate from the University of Virginia School of Law, where she was a member of the Law Review and Order of the Coif. She holds a Bachelor of Arts with Highest Distinction from the University of Kansas.

Ellen also serves as Executive Director of Juntos Servimos, a U.S. based charitable organization bringing healthcare, education and shelter to communities in northern Mexico impacted by extreme poverty and drug cartel violence.

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Dara Jahani

Vice President – Global Presales and Product Strategy

As vice president of global presales and product strategy, Dara helps shape and deliver the Logile capabilities that equip retailers to streamline their store planning and execution strategies and optimize performance. An accomplished WFM technology leader, Dara brings 20+ years of WFM experience to his role. Starting with Workbrain, and upon its acquisition, at Infor, he held leadership positions in implementation, product development, product strategy and most recently heading presales and global strategy.

He has deep experience across multiple verticals with a significant focus on retail including apparel, specialty, big box, department store, pharmacy and grocery segments. Logile’s ground-breaking development in WFM and AI-based machine learning in forecasting, staff planning and scheduling are examples of the innovation that attracted Dara to join the Logile team and apply his passion to bring retailers the best solutions on the market.

Dara holds a degree in Applied Sciences and Engineering from the University of Waterloo, Canada.

Ximing Zhang

Vice President – Application Engineering

Ximing is the Vice President of Application Engineering at Logile, where he leads a dynamic software team dedicated to solutions for Inventory Management Systems.

With over three decades of seasoned experience in software development and research, Ximing is a key contributor to Logile’s pioneering advancements in workforce optimization. Collaborating closely with Purna, Ximing and his adept team have engineered Logile’s acclaimed suite of solutions, including Staffing Planning and Analysis, Labor Scheduling, Employee Self-Service, and Task Management.

Before joining Logile, he worked in the defense industry as a principal researcher, and then in the telecom world as a software engineer.

His academic journey underscores his multidisciplinary expertise. He holds a Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering from Eindhoven University of Technology, Netherlands and the Max-Planck Institute, Germany. He earned a Bachelor of Engineering degree from Tsinghua University, China.

Driven by a relentless pursuit of excellence, Ximing continues to lead his team towards new heights of success at Logile.

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Suvarna S. Krishnan

Vice President – Product Development

Suvarna S. Krishnan is a seasoned engineering leader with over 18 years of experience driving innovation across diverse industries. Her expertise spans AI forecasting, Operations Research, Resource Scheduling, and big data product architecture enabling her to spearhead the development of cutting-edge solutions.

Suvarna’s contributions to engineering and R&D have been instrumental in the success of organizations such as Reflexis Systems Inc., Fortune 500 companies such as Zebra Technologies and retail enterprises worldwide. Her work has directly impacted their bottom lines by fostering expansion into new markets and creating impactful software products.

Suvarna leads the research and development of workforce management (WFM) at Logile bringing together diverse technical expertise to develop and enhance state-of-the-art systems for Forecasting, Task management, Scheduling and Timekeeping.

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Ross Connally

Vice President – Sales, Americas

Ross Connally is Logile’s VP of Sales, Americas. Ross leads the sales and business development teams in order to partner with companies to solve their labor and operational challenges via technology.

Ross has over 20+ years of workforce management focus and leadership, prioritizing people and customers first. Ross’s team aims to deliver outcomes that drive efficiency and ROI, while educating all retailers on how to best manage labor to positively impact shareholder returns.

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Sasha Tulchinsky

Vice President – Information Technology

Sasha is the VP of Information Technology entrusted with providing senior leadership and improving day to day IT Administrative Operations, IT Security, Software Quality Assurance, Asset Management, Change Management Controls, IT Process Disciplines, and IT Asset Expense Controls. Delivering technology strategies for process improvements and enhancing the customer experience are Sasha’s fundamental objectives.

Sasha brings over 28 years of grocery retail experience across workforce management systems and store operations. The relationship with Logile began during Logile’s humble and visionary beginnings in 2005. In 2018 the transition from the grocery retail industry to a Logile leadership role commenced to ensure Logile’s success through the anticipated rapid growth of its existing solutions offerings and expanding development of new Tier 1 solutions.

Sasha holds a Bachelors of Science degree in Management with concentrations in Systems and Human Resources from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

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Kimberley Kay Drobny

Vice President – Marketing

Kimberley Kay Drobny is a driven marketing executive with a proven track record of driving growth through strategic marketing, demand generation, and brand development across SaaS and enterprise technology sectors. With expertise in solution marketing, product positioning and digital strategy, she is passionate about aligning marketing initiatives with business objectives to deliver measurable results. Kimberley has held senior leadership roles at Theatro, Waterfield Technologies and ESI, where she built high-performing teams, led go-to-market strategies and launched award-winning campaigns. She is known for her ability to scale teams, integrate sales and marketing efforts, and lead product innovation in fast-paced, tech-driven markets.

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