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

Senior Executives, Finance, and HR

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Alex Stepien

CEO

Drives company strategy, sales, marketing and investor relations for the enterprise.

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Doris Espiritu

CONTROLLER

Provides financial guidance, accounting, compliance oversight, and HR expertise.

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Kurt H. Reilly

CO-FOUNDER & CTO

Executes product vision through product strategy, development and technical operations.

Customer Success

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Jill Murphy

VP OF CUSTOMER SUCCESS

Heads up our Customer Success team to exceed our customer's expectations.

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Samantha Lucas

CLIENT SERVICES

TEAM LEAD

Cordially gets our new customers up and running on the AwardSpring platform.

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Milan Bhatnagar

CUSTOMER SUPPORT & TRAINING SPECIALIST

Quick and friendly support specialist available when you need him most.

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Leah Kanost

CUSTOMER SUPPORT & ONBOARDING SPECIALIST

A friendly voice during both onboarding/training and our busiest support seasons.

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Julie Semyck

SR. CUSTOMER SUCCESS MANAGER

Ensures every AwardSpring customer is happy and has their voice heard about both product and service.

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Lora Barber

IMPLEMENTATION & TRAINING SPECIALIST

Warmly onboarding our new customers to the AwardSpring platform.

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Marina Pavicevic

CUSTOMER SUPPORT & TRAINING SPECIALIST

Gets those customer support requests resolved fast and friendly.

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Diana Castro

CUSTOMER SUCCESS MANAGER

Brings the voice of the customer to the forefront through renewals and engagement.

Sales & Marketing

Brandon Weisenberger, Director of Sales

Brandon Weisenberger

DIRECTOR OF SALES

Leads our Sales teams to ensure we're creating great value for our customers.

Kavina Shah, Account Executive

Kavina Shah

ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE

Aligns solutions with the unique needs of our C&U partners.

Abby Trowbridge, Revenue Operations Specialist

Abby Trowbridge

REVENUE OPERATIONS SPECIALIST

Our RevOps guru keeping sales motions optimized.

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Ty Cary

SALES DEVELOPMENT REPRESENTATIVE

Educates our college and non-profit parters on the value of our platform.

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Reid Smithe

SR. ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE

Aligns solutions with the unique needs of our C&U partners.

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Joe Schlidt

ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE

Aligns solutions with the unique needs of our C&U partners.

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Sam Marrazzo

ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE

Aligns solutions with the unique needs of our Foundation partners.

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Sadie Nierzwicki

SALES DEVELOPMENT REPRESENTATIVE

Educates our college and non-profit parters on the value of our platforms.

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Mike Kowieski

SEM/PPC MARKETING ADVISOR

Manages our marketing demand-gen efforts through SEM.

Mike Schwarz, Jr., Account Executive

Mike Schwarz, Jr.

ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE

Aligns solutions with the unique needs of our C&U partners.

Kailyn Warner, Senior Account Executive

Kailyn Warner

SR. ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE

Aligns solutions with the unique needs of our C&U partners.

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Joslyn Desforges

SALES DEVELOPMENT REPRESENTATIVE

Educates our college and non-profit parters on the value of our platform.

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Cambree McCullough

SALES DEVELOPMENT REPRESENTATIVE

Educates our college and non-profit parters on the value of our platform.

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Juan Flores

ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE

Aligns solutions with the unique needs of our Foundation partners.

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Chris Zahumensky

SR. LEAD, CUSTOMER SOLUTIONS

Building great solutions for existing and prospective partners.

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Rachael Rubin

ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE

Aligns solutions with the unique needs of our partners.

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Gil Rogers

MARKETING ADVISOR

Makes content to help partners do their jobs better.

Product Management & Engineering

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Tessa Fedchenko

PRODUCT MANAGER

Designing the next generation of platform features and usability.

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Dennis Leise

DIRECTOR QA & PROJECT MANAGEMENT

AwardSpring's process guru for all things quality and project management.

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Traci Richards

QUALITY ASSURANCE

Ensures the software we create meets our high standards of use and function.

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Cristyan Moreno

FRONTEND DEVELOPER

Brings new features to life on the AwardSpring platform.

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Mike Frame

SR BACKEND DEVELOPER

Dev guru adding great new features to the platform for our customers.

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Krishnaraj Rajagopal

FULL STACK DEVELOPER

Adds great new features to the AwardSpring platform.

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Arumugavel Krishnamoorthy

QUALITY ASSURANCE

Ensures the software we create meets our high standards

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Karthika Muruganatham

FULL STACK DEVELOPER

Adds great new features to the AwardSpring platform.

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Prasath Govindaraj

BACKEND DEVELOPER

Adds great new features to the AwardSpring platform.

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Dan Rovito

DIRECTOR OF ENGINEERING

Oversees the development of the AwardSpring platform.

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Cass Montemagni

PRODUCTION SUPPORT ENGINEER

Ensures AwardSpring is running smoothly through our partnership with Azure.

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Kirk Koster

SOFTWARE DEVELOPER

Full-stack developer adding great new features to the AwardSpring platform.

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Karthik Kothandam

LEAD FRONTEND DEVELOPER

Brings new features to life with AwardSpring user interface.

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Vivek Srinivasamoorthy

DBA/SQL DEVELOPER

Database expert helping optimize platform performance.

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Dilipkum Selvaraj

QA LEAD & AUTOMATION ENGINEER

Ensures the software we create meets our high standards

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Prabakaran Subramani

FRONTEND DEVELOPER

Brings new features to life on the AwardSpring Platform.

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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: