The Avanti Team

We have a deep understanding of our clients' business challenges and the rapidly changing industry trends that impact their decisions. Our services are delivered by a professional team with a unique blend of comprehensive industry knowledge, domain expertise, operational experience, organizational development and risk management ability, research competency, and analytical skills:

Paul M. Gasparro Managing Director
Catherine WS Jaspersohn Partner
Jean C. Skaane Partner
Sandra M. Tise Partner
David G. Burna Consultant
Kelley Connolly Consultant
Philip V. Holberton Consultant
Barbara I. LaRue Consultant
Dr. Lyle H. Miller Consultant
Jim Pullen Consultant
Marion F. Waddington Consultant
Sherri L. Wolf Consultant

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Paul M. Gasparro Managing Director		Paul Gasparro co-founded Avanti Solutions in 2000 after a career of successfully founding, developing, and selling several high-tech companies, including Voicetek Corporation, Aurora Systems, and NexCen Technologies. Prior to that, he served in key executive positions at Motorola and Fairchild/Schlumberger. Gasparro also served on the M&A team for the acquisition of Membrane by Fairchild, and the acquisition of Fairchild by Schlumberger. During the last thirty years, Gasparro has worked with many of the major telecommunications service providers, manufacturers of telephone and computer equipment, and with Fortune 1000 companies to deliver products and services that improve operational performance of their businesses. He has also served as a member of the board of directors for the Voice Information Services Division of the Information Industry Association, a group dedicated to expanding the market for the use of voice technologies in business through educational as well as legislative methods. Gasparro is a member of the board of directors of the Multimedia Telecommunications Association (M.M.T.A.), a division of the Telephone Industry Association (TIA). The M.M.T.A. is dedicated to expanding the market for Multimedia products through educational and promotional methods. He is also a member of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Enterprise Forum, Inc. which is dedicated to encouraging entrepreneurial enterprises. He has presented at many telecommunications conferences in the U.S. and abroad, including OSS, ALTS, SuperComm, VON, I+N, Voice Europe, Computer Telephony Expo and PBX. Gasparro is a graduate of the University of Illinois (B.S.E.E.) and the Illinois Institute of Technology (MBA). He holds several patents in the fields of computer telephony integration (CTI) and electronic customer relationship management (eCRM).
Catherine WS Jaspersohn Partner		Catherine Jaspersohn co-founded Avanti Solutions in 2000 and has over twenty-five years of extensive operating, business development, and technical experience in the computer industry. For the past eight years, she has also provided full-service marketing and management consulting, as well as product management and development consulting to software-development and service-outsourcing high-tech companies. Her key strengths are in coordinating and managing M&A initiatives for high-tech companies, including D&B Software and Bachman Information Systems; evaluation of strategic business alternatives; business plan development; and formulation and implementation of competitive marketing and product directions and strategies. Jaspersohn’s broad-based background also includes advanced technologies R&D and information systems software engineering and support. Her clients have included first-stage, second-stage, and established companies who provide electronic customer relationship management (eCRM), eLogistics and eFulfillment, network infrastructure, automated speech recognition (ASR), interactive voice response (IVR), and back-office software and services. Jaspersohn is a graduate of the Lowell Technological Institute (Magna Cum Laude B.S. Mathematics) and the F.W. Olin Graduate School of Business at Babson College (Honors MBA). She is a member of Beta Gamma Sigma, the Honor Society for AACSB Accredited Business Programs.
Jean C. Skaane Partner		Jean Skaane brings to her clients over ten years of operations management, risk management, and consulting experience. Prior to co-founding Avanti, Skaane was a senior consultant with KPMG Consulting, LLC, where she provided her Fortune 500 clients with business process re-engineering and financial systems integration services. She also helped her clients to assess and implement e-procurement opportunities and performance management systems (Balanced Scorecards). Skaane spent six months as a project manager in Oslo, Norway, advising an international pharmaceutical company on the implementation of SAP R-3, while redesigning their Sales, Marketing, Regulatory, and Communication processes and systems. In addition to her risk management responsibilities, Skaane participated in M&A services while at Sedgwick (acquired by Marsh and McLennan) for high-tech, bio-tech, and manufacturing clients. Skaane is skilled in project management and in providing a personal, “hands-on” approach to clients in helping them make critical business decisions. Skaane is a graduate of the University of Wyoming (B.S. History) and the F.W. Olin Graduate School of Business at Babson College (MBA). She has an Associate in Risk Management (ARM) from the Insurance Institute of America.
Sandra M. Tise Partner		Sandra Tise co-founded Avanti Solutions in 2000 and has significant experience in both the operating and corporate development environments. Her experience over the past fifteen years includes senior management roles such as: VP Sales and Marketing, Aurora Systems, a leading developer of off-the-shelf Computer Telephony Integration (CTI) enablers, used primarily by customer relationship management (CRM) application developers; and Founder and COO, NexCen Technologies, a high-tech company focused on providing electronic customer relationship management (eCRM) solutions to the telecommunications market. She has led and participated the M&A teams at three high-tech companies. Tise's considerable corporate development experience combined with her strong operating background provides clients with a thorough understanding of the impact that transactions have on the entire organization. As an expert in the CRM field, Tise is a part of the speaker's bureau for Sales Force Automation, is an active member of the Help Desk Institute, and has spoken at many telecommunications conferences in the U.S. and abroad. Tise is a graduate of the University of Massachusetts (B.A. Accounting) and Bentley College (MBA).
David G. Burna Consultant		David Burna has over fifteen years experience with IT and high-tech businesses, providing project management, strategic planning, business process re-design, and implementation support. He was a senior consultant for several proposed $300+ million merger efforts for large oil industry and manufacturing clients. Most recently, he worked as a project manager and senior business analyst with NerveWire, Inc., a leading B2B e-commerce consulting company. Burna led strategic and development initiatives for a securities lending industry net market (Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, State Street) and a commodities grain exchange for farming industry suppliers (DuPont, Cenex Harvest States). He was also a National Practice Director for CH2M HILL, a global environmental engineering consulting firm, applying decision analysis, risk management, and mediation techniques to complex multi-party decisions. Burna facilitated M&A and strategic planning efforts for public water utilities and telecommunications firms. As a senior hardware and software engineer at Digital Equipment Corporation, he improved the company's design, computer architecture, and network/database performance efforts.  Burna has degrees from Princeton University (B.S. Electrical Engineering/Computer Science), the University of Michigan (M.S. Computer Science), and Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government (Masters in Public Policy).
Kelley Connolly Consultant		Kelley Connolly has several years of consulting and startup experience in a variety of industries. Prior to Avanti, Connolly was an associate director of the customer relationship management (CRM) practice area at Digitas, a marketing and technology professional services firm. In this capacity, Connolly developed online and offline customer care strategies for several major brands, including American Express Financial Advisors, Starwood Hotels, and L.L. Bean. Such work focused on defining fundamental marketing strategy, re-engineering sales and service operations, and leveraging key CRM technologies primarily used in contact centers. Connolly was a product marketing director at NexCen Technologies, a high-tech company focused on providing electronic customer relationship management (eCRM) solutions, where he established the competitive landscape and user acceptance of existing applications and defined product features, integration abilities, pricing, and sales strategy. Currently, he sits on the board of Warehouse Products Testing, a marketing firm he established that partners with global retailers, and is currently assisting the firm in merger negotiations. He is a graduate of Colgate University (BA, Economics) and the F.W. Olin Graduate School of Business at Babson College (MBA, magna cum laude, Marketing and Entrepreneurial Finance).
Philip V. Holberton Consultant		Philip Holberton has more than two decades of experience in financial management, strategic planning, business development and operations, leadership development, and executive coaching for senior executives. Holberton is a member of Barbour Stockwell Incorporated’s Board of Directors. He currently teaches Leadership for Technical Professionals as an adjunct professor in Brandeis University's Masters in Software Engineering Program. His background includes executive positions with Cambridge NeuroScience, General Cinema Theatres, and Becton Dickinson & Company. He has also served as Chief Financial Officer for Genome Therapeutics Corp. and executive coach for its senior management team. Holberton is a Certified Public Accountant and has completed the advanced management program at Harvard Business School entitled Managing the Information Services Resources. He is a current member of Franklin & Marshall College’s Regional Advisory Council. In addition to being on the Executive Board of the MIT Enterprise Forum of Cambridge, he is Chairman of that Forum’s 10-250 Committee, responsible for bringing monthly case studies to the Forum. He is a Past President of the Financial Executives Institute’s Boston Chapter of 1,000 financial officers. Holberton is a professional speaker and a member of The National Speakers Association and its New England Chapter for which he serves as a member of its Board. Holberton is a graduate of Franklin and Marshall College with an AB in Accounting and is a CPA.
Barbara I. LaRue Consultant		Barbara LaRue brings over twenty years of consulting experience to Avanti Solutions and its clients. Prior to joining Avanti, LaRue was a Senior Manager at Arthur D. Little, Inc., where she provided her Fortune 1000 clients in the telecommunications, information, utility, and electronics industries with process engineering, change management, and performance improvement services. She has led significant due-diligence projects for several large telecommunications operators, both domestically and abroad. She has applied her extensive expertise in front- and back-office operations to enable start-up telecommunications organizations to offer cost-efficient services. LaRue is a skilled project manager, with a proven track record in organizing, prioritizing, and implementing major client projects. Her strengths are in helping clients develop, analyze, and implement strategies; reviewing business plans and investment opportunities; analyzing the impact of technology on business opportunities and helping clients make decisions regarding the use of technology; and helping clients look for performance improvement opportunities across all of the functional areas of the business. LaRue is a graduate of the University of Michigan (B.A. Social Sciences and Education).
Dr. Lyle H. Miller Consultant		Dr. Lyle Miller has published over 120 scientific papers in the field of stress. He has consulted to over 200 corporations, government agencies, hospitals, universities and other non-profit organizations. His large-scale organization coaching and consulting clients include IBM, BellSouth, Gillette Corporation, AT&T, Polaroid and the US Passport Office. Dr. Miller is co-author of two popular books on stress, The Stress Solution and Stress and Marriage, which have sold over 150,000 copies combined. He developed the Biobehavioral Model of Stress™ and the core Stress Navigator™ product intellectual property. Dr. Miller has published over 120 stress-related scientific papers. Over 500,000 people have taken the Stress Navigator™. His work was featured on the cover of Time Magazine and is quoted extensively in print and in authoritative, professional web sites, such as the site maintained by the American Psychological Association. Dr. Miller is an internationally recognized authority on stress assessment, stress management and organizational stress consulting. He is on the Board of the American Stress Institute and is an advisor to many executives on the relationship of stress to business and individual performance and the costs associated with both. A clinical psychologist by training, he is the architect of the web-based stress management system, and the Organization Stress Profile™.
Jim Pullen Consultant		Following an extensive background in the computer industry, including design, technical and senior marketing positions with companies including TRW, ICL, and Datapoint, Jim went on to gain experience in the financial sector with 3i, a major venture capital firm. He also acted as a business development consultant with clients ranging from large multinational corporations to small venture backed start-ups. His work in all these sectors included extensive North American and European experience. He has completed more than 20 acquisition and disposal transactions, spanning telecommunications, applied technology, software, and professional services. Relevant experience includes: structuring an agreement involving DSP technology with Siemens for DSP Group; sale of a European distributor of fax systems and unified messaging systems; and acted on behalf of a buyer of embedded DSP systems companies. Jim has a B Sc Eng in Electrical Engineering from London University.
Marion F. Waddington Consultant		Marion Waddington is a Certified Public Accountant who brings over 15 years of combined public accounting and private industry experience. She was previously the Controller of NexCen Technologies, a high-tech provider of CRM software to the telecommunications market; General Manager of Permobil, Inc., a manufacturer and distributor of high-end medical equipment headquartered in Timra, Sweden; and Manager of Finance and Administration of Advanced NMR Systems, Inc., a bio-tech start-up which was later acquired by General Electric. She was a part of the M&A team to transition employee benefits, and developed and implemented financial reporting processes when NexCen was acquired by UCMS, a CRM services company based in Australia. Waddington is a hands-on accountant who is experienced with a wide variety of accounting software and has been instrumental in assisting two of her companies with upgrading and integrating new company-wide software systems including accounting, MRP, and inventory control. Waddington is a graduate of the University of Massachusetts (Cum Laude B.S. Business) and is a member of the Massachusetts Society of CPAs.
Sherri L. Wolf Consultant		Sherri Wolf brings over ten years of financial experience to Avanti Solutions and its clients. Prior to joining Avanti, Wolf was a Managing Director at Internet Capital Group (ICG), a publicly traded Internet venture capital organization with 80 business-to-business e-commerce companies in its portfolio. At ICG, Wolf was an active member of and counsel to the senior management team and was responsible for developing and managing a global investor relations strategy and communications program. Before her tenure at ICG, Wolf was Vice President of Equity of Research at Adams, Harkness and Hill (AH&H), a full-service Boston-based investment bank. At AH&H she was responsible for researching and analyzing industry and company fundamentals on emerging growth companies across several technology sectors. Research coverage included the networking technology sector, Internet holding companies, and information technology services companies. She was chosen as “Homerun Hitter” in 1999 and 2000 by Institutional Investor Magazine. Wolf is a graduate of Columbia College (B.A. Economics) and the M.I.T. Sloan School of Management (M.S. Finance).