The legal technology company Clio today announced the expansion of its leadership team, naming four people to C-suite positions as chief operating officer, chief people officer, chief technology officer and chief marketing officer.
“These additions to Clio’s leadership will extend our capabilities on all fronts, including our products, people, operations, in what’s becoming an exciting and fast-paced market for cloud-based legal technology,” Jack Newton, CEO and founder, said in announcing the appointments.
These new appointments will set the stage for Clio’s next phase of growth, Newton told me this morning.
The new executives are:
Ronnie Gurion, chief operating officer. Gurion fills the position previously occupied by George Psiharis, who had been COO since 2018 and is now leaving Clio for a new opportunity, while remaining a company shareholder.
Gurion was formerly GM and global head of Uber for Business, where he oversaw the rapid growth of the business to a multi-billion dollar gross booking platform available in more than 30 countries. His resume also includes roles as chief strategy officer for Home Away and managing director of business development for Airbnb.
Clio said that Gurion’s reputation for leading marketplace, e-commerce and SaaS businesses to achieve rapid global expansion and growth, paired with his record for recruiting and developing an impressive set of leaders, will help shape the company’s next chapter for continued growth.
Sarah Bettencourt, chief people officer. Bettencourt joined Clio last May after holding CPO positions at Lightspeed and PointClickCare. She has over 20 years of experience leading the integration of employees through mergers and acquisitions, scaling workforces to the thousands at $400M revenue companies, and guiding organizations through similar stages of growth, Clio said.
As CPO, Bettencourt will lead the development and execution of talent strategy and acquisition, culture and DIBE initiatives, and talent management, development, and total compensation.
Clio also named two current employees to new roles on Bettencourt’s team: Lyndsey Dyer as VP of employee enablement, and Natalie Archibald as VP of employee success.
Jonathan Watson, chief technology officer. Watson, who joined Clio in 2017 as VP of engineering, becomes the company’s first CTO, as he is named to this newly created position.
During his time at Clio, he has led the ground-up reengineering of Clio’s practice management software in 2017 and launched Clio’s integrated client intake and CRM platform in 2019. This year, he launched a legal-specific mobile and desktop client communication app and oversaw the recent launch of Clio’s own online payment processing software.
He has also built out and staffed the cecurity arm of Clio, including compliance, defensive, and offensive security functions responsible for vulnerability management, secure coding practices, developer and organizational training, security incidents, and forensics and remediation.
In his role as CTO, Watson will have a direct impact on scaling Clio’s product offerings to existing customers and the wider market, while also tailoring new developments to the unique needs of legal professionals, Clio said.
Reagan Attle, chief marketing officer. In this newly created CMO role, Attle will continue to lead Clio’s marketing, as she has done for the past five years as VP of marketing, where she oversaw growth of the marketing team to 70 people and led the announcements of major Clio news over the years, including its Series D and E funding rounds, acquisitions of Lexicata, CalendarRules, and Lawyaw, and the launch last month of Clio Payments.
In 2020, Attle launched Clio’s COVID-19 Relief Fund, through which the company donated $1.1 million in direct financial aid and Clio software to individuals in the legal industry who needed assistance.
As CMO, Attle will focus on driving growth across Clio’s revenue lines, leading demand generation, product marketing, partner marketing, digital strategy, brand development, and corporate communications, Clio said.
