Onit Expands Executive Team with Key Leadership Additions

Strategic hirings are part of a larger investment strategy to build on Onit’s success and further scale the business.

Houston, April 9, 2024 - Onit, the leading provider of legal workflow solutions including enterprise legal management (ELM) and contract lifecycle management (CLM), today announced three new senior executive leadership team members. Michelle Culp has joined the company as Chief Revenue Officer, responsible for all go-to-market functions. Nathan Peirson has joined as Chief People Officer, leading the company’s global human resources organization and driving Onit’s strategic talent goals. Laura Fese has joined Onit as Chief Legal Officer, leading the company’s global legal operations. Melanie Shafer has been promoted to the new Chief Customer Officer position, where she will be responsible for the company’s services and customer success functions. They join recently appointed CEO Michael Farlekas and CFO Austin Owens, who joined in June 2023.

Michelle Culp will focus on implementing an integrated, global go-to-market strategy for Onit. This strategy will benefit customers of all sizes by enabling them to better understand the benefits of the entire portfolio of Onit’s ELM, CLM, and custom workflow automation applications. Culp brings a demonstrated history of transforming and leading SaaS sales and marketing teams across multiple customer segments. Before Onit, she served as the Global Vice President of Sales at Sovos, a leading compliance software company serving over 100,000 customers, including half of the Fortune 500, across 70 countries. Culp also served as the Vice President of Sales, Small Business at SAP Concur.

Nathan Peirson brings over twenty years of global HR experience to the Chief People Officer role, with considerable expertise in high-growth SaaS and technology companies. In his role, Peirson will drive Onit’s enterprise talent strategy while building a best-in-class Human Resources function. Prior to joining Onit, he served as SVP of Talent and Employee Experience at Paycor, a leading provider of human capital management software. He also served as Worldpay’s Global Head of Culture and Talent and held multiple global HR leadership roles during his tenure. He was recently nominated as one of OnCon’s top 100 HR Professionals of 2024 award.

Laura Fese has joined as Chief Legal Officer, bringing over twenty-five years of experience in managing legal operations for private and public multi-national supply chain and ERP SaaS businesses.  Recently, Fese served as Executive Vice President, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary of E2open (NYSE: ETWO).  Fese is an effective leader with expertise in accelerating growth through developing exceptional legal talent and implementing critical process and automation improvements.

Melanie Shafer has assumed the new role of Chief Customer Officer. Shafer most recently served as the SVP of Customer Experience of Onit’s Commercial Business. Shafer’s primary focus is to create a scalable service experience for Onit customers, regardless of their maturity stage in legal operations. This comprehensive strategy enables Onit to act as a trusted advisor to its customers, enhancing efficiency, cost containment, and risk mitigation for the General Counsel’s office. Before Onit, Shafer served as VP of Professional Services and Support at Zywave, a pioneer in the insurance technology industry, where she led teams responsible for the implementation and ongoing support of 15,000+ customers through multiple acquisitions and international expansion.

Austin Owens joined Onit in June of 2023 and has focused on improving finance practices to support scalable growth. Owens has brought expertise in financial planning and analysis, business analytics, and business process design to Onit, along with experience in global operations. Owens most recently served as Chief Financial Officer at Data Axle, a leader in data-driven marketing and business intelligence solutions, supporting various activities ranging from business unit partnerships with sales and operations leadership to corporate and treasury-focused responsibilities related to cash management and business development. He also served as the lead across the entire lifecycle of merger and acquisition engagements.

“I am excited by the addition of these outstanding senior leaders with diverse experiences. “Together with our exceptional employees, they will be instrumental in transforming Onit into the leading legal operations software platform company serving companies of all sizes worldwide,” said Michael Farlekas, CEO of Onit. “The industry is at an inflection point, with corporate legal departments needing to adopt a core business platform with AI embedded that supports better productivity, higher efficiency, and data-driven decision-making so legal leaders can focus on helping create business advantage for their corporations.”

About Onit
Onit is a global leader of AI-enabled workflow automation solutions for legal, compliance, sales, IT, HR, and finance departments. With Onit, companies can transform best practices into smarter workflows, better processes, and operational efficiencies. With a focus on enterprise legal management, matter management, spend management, contract lifecycle management and legal holds, the company operates globally. It helps transform how Fortune 500 companies and billion-dollar corporate legal departments bridge the gap between systems of record and systems of engagement.

Onit helps customers find gains in efficiency, reduce costs, and automate transactions faster. For more information, visit www.onit.com.