An exceptional platform with top notch support starts with its people.
Our Vision
To broaden access to educational opportunity.
Our Mission
To help scholarship administrators connect donor funds to the students who need them.
Our History
AwardSpring was officially born on January 1, 2015. In that first year, we focused on creating a viable new product, testing it, and building our approach to sales and marketing. From there, we shifted our attention to perfecting the AwardSpring service model and solidifying our product/market fit. As we gained good traction in the market - bolstered by terrific feedback from our customers about both our product and our service model - we've layered on a more robust sales and marketing engine and expanded our product offering into Donor Management.
Now, with terrific customers, a great pair of products, and a dedicated and loyal team, AwardSpring continues to focus on growth, efficiency, and delivering outstanding products. In January of 2025, AwardSpring welcomed a new CEO while our old CEO moved back into product and engineering. With a fresh round of investment, a more robust executive team, and a growing staff, we plan will double-down on making our products even more useful for our customers and solidifying ourselves as the go-to partner for Scholarship and Donor Management.
Our Core Values
ACTION: When in doubt, spring into action. Be accountable. Teach what you've learned.
DETERMINATION: Simplify and improve everything you touch. Expect obstacles. Be creative and relentless in your effort to overcome them.
HUMANITY: Show empathy and kindness to everyone you interact with.
IMPROVEMENT: Work hard every day to grow your knowledge and capabilities. Strive to become invaluable to clients and peers.
Our Team
Executive Team
Alex Stepien
CEO
Drives company strategy, sales, marketing and investor relations for the enterprise.
Doris Espiritu
CONTROLLER
Provides financial guidance, accounting, compliance oversight, and HR expertise.
Kurt H. Reilly
CO-FOUNDER & CTO
Executes product vision through product strategy, development and technical operations.
Brandon Weisenberger
VP, SALES
Leads our Sales teams to ensure we're creating great value for our prospective customers.
Customer Success
Samantha Lucas
CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE MANAGER
Leads the operations related to onboarding and supporting our customers.
Milan Bhatnagar
SENIOR SUPPORT SPECIALIST
Quick and friendly support specialist available when you need him most.
Leah Kanost
SENIOR SUPPORT SPECIALIST
Quick and friendly support specialist available when you need her most.
Julie Semyck
SR. CUSTOMER SUCCESS MANAGER
Ensures every AwardSpring customer is happy and has their voice heard about both product and service.
Lora Barber
SENIOR ONBOARDING SPECIALIST
Warmly onboarding new customers to the AwardSpring platform.
Marina Pavićević
SENIOR ONBOARDING SPECIALIST
Warmly onboarding new customers to the AwardSpring platform.
Sales & Marketing
Kavina Shah
ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE
Aligns solutions with the unique needs of our C&U partners.
Abby Trowbridge
REVENUE OPERATIONS SPECIALIST
Our RevOps guru keeping sales motions optimized.
Ty Cary
SALES DEVELOPMENT REPRESENTATIVE
Educates our college and non-profit parters on the value of our platform.
Reid Smithe
SR. ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE
Aligns solutions with the unique needs of our C&U partners.
Joe Schlidt
ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE
Aligns solutions with the unique needs of our C&U partners.
Sadie Nierzwicki
SALES DEVELOPMENT REPRESENTATIVE
Educates our college and non-profit parters on the value of our platforms.
Kevin Finnegan
CUSTOMER SOLUTIONS LEAD
GTM lead for our Donor Management/Fundraising solution.
Mike Kowieski
SEM/PPC MARKETING ADVISOR
Manages our marketing demand-gen efforts through SEM.
Mike Schwarz, Jr.
ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE
Aligns solutions with the unique needs of our C&U partners.
Kailyn Warner
SR. ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE
Aligns solutions with the unique needs of our C&U partners.
Joslyn Desforges
SALES DEVELOPMENT REPRESENTATIVE
Educates our college and non-profit parters on the value of our platform.
Cambree McCullough
SALES DEVELOPMENT REPRESENTATIVE
Educates our college and non-profit parters on the value of our platform.
Juan Flores
ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE
Aligns solutions with the unique needs of our Foundation partners.
Rachael Rubin
ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE
Aligns solutions with the unique needs of our partners.
Justin Campbell
SR. ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE
Aligns solutions with the unique needs of our C&U partners.
Gil Rogers
MARKETING ADVISOR
Makes content to bring our platform and its benefits to life.
Product Management & Engineering
Dan Rovito
DIRECTOR, ENGINEERING
Oversees the development of the AwardSpring platform.
Tessa Fedchenko
PRODUCT MANAGER
Designing the next generation of platform features and usability.
Traci Richards
QUALITY ASSURANCE SPECIALIST
Ensures the software we create meets our high standards of use and function.
Mike Frame
SR BACKEND DEVELOPER
Dev guru adding great new features to the platform for our customers.
Cristyan Moreno
FRONTEND DEVELOPER
Brings new features to life on the AwardSpring platform.
Krishnaraj Rajagopal
FULL STACK DEVELOPER
Adds great new features to the AwardSpring platform.
Arumugavel Krishnamoorthy
QUALITY ASSURANCE
Ensures the software we create meets our high standards
Prasath Govindaraj
BACKEND DEVELOPER
Adds great new features to the AwardSpring platform.
Sudhakar K.
FRONTEND DEVELOPER
Brings new features to life on the AwardSpring platform.
Dennis Leise
DIRECTOR, QA & PROJECT MANAGEMENT
Process guru for all things quality and project management.
Cass Montemagni
PRODUCTION SUPPORT ENGINEER
Our DevOps and escalations expert ensuring smooth operations.
Kirk Koster
SOFTWARE DEVELOPER
Full-stack developer adding great new features to the AwardSpring platform.
Karthik Kothandam
LEAD FRONTEND DEVELOPER
Brings new features to life with AwardSpring user interface.
Vivek Srinivasamoorthy
DBA/SQL DEVELOPER
Database expert helping optimize platform performance.
Dilipkumar Selvaraj
QA LEAD & AUTOMATION ENGINEER
Ensures the software we create meets our high standards
Prabakaran Subramani
FRONTEND DEVELOPER
Brings new features to life on the AwardSpring Platform.
Sangeetha Samuel Patturaja
FRONTEND DEVELOPER
Brings new features to life on the AwardSpring platform.
Our Dream Scholarships
Our customers inspire us with the uniqueness and inclusivity of their many thousands of awards. Here's a collection of dream scholarships from some of our employees - hopefully someday we can make these come true for future students:
