About Us
Special Advisors to Pollenware
RON PRESSMAN, Advisor to Pollenware
Ron is currently the National Board Chairman for A Better Chance, the largest national organization focused on helping disadvantaged children of color enter the nations top middle and high school educational institutions. Currently the program supports 2000 children in over 300 schools across the country. Prior to that, Ron worked at General Electric where he served in a variety of roles including CEO and President of GE Capital Real Estate, Chairman and CEO of GE Asset Management and Chairman and CEO of GE Insurance Solutions. His experience includes work in the global real estate lending and investing business.
Ron was the Chairman of the Mayor of Kansas City's Union Station Task Force, a Vice Chairman of The Greater Kansas City Community Foundation and Vice Chairman of the Kansas City Civic Council.
Ron holds a Bachelor's degree from Hamilton College.
JEFFERY SCHWARTZ, Advisor to Pollenware
Jeffrey joined Bain Capital in 2000 and is a founding Partner of Bain Capital Ventures and a Managing Director of the firm. Prior to Bain Capital Ventures, Mr. Schwartz worked at Wellington Management Company, where he was a portfolio manager for several public equities funds. He also served in the Equity Capital Markers Group of Merrill Lynch. In addition to his firm and portfolio company responsibilities, Mr. Schwartz also serves on the Board of Metro Lacrosse, is a trustee of Noble and Greenough School, and coaches several youth athletic teams.
Jeffrey received an MBA from Harvard Business School and a B.A. in Economics from Dartmouth College.
WILLIAM D. ZOLLARS, Advisor to Pollenware
Bill most recently served as Chairman, President and CEO of Yellow Roadway Corporation for 12 years, one of the largest less-than-truckload carriers in the United States.
Prior to taking Yellow Roadway's top position, Mr. Zollars was President of its subsidiary Yellow Transportation, Inc., a position he had held since 1996, when the company underwent a major management transition.
Before joining Yellow, Mr. Zollars was Senior Vice President of Ryder Integrated Logistics, a $1.5 billion division of Miami-based truck rental and leasing company Ryder System, Inc. Mr. Zollars also spent 24 years in various executive positions at Eastman Kodak, including assignments in London, Toronto and Tokyo.
He serves on the boards of Cigna, Cerner Corporation, ProLogis Trust, The Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota and United Way of Greater KC
.
Bill has a bachelor's degree in economics from the University of Minnesota and is a member of Phi Beta Kappa.
Pollenware Management Team
ALEXANDER C. KEMPER – CHAIRMAN and CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER
Alexander C Kemper is the founder of Pollenware and serves as Chairman of the Board. In addition, Kemper is Chairman of the Board of The Collectors Fund, a private equity fund focused on alternative asset classes.
Prior to founding The Collectors Fund and Pollenware, Kemper founded Perfect Commerce (fka eScout.com) and served as the company’s Chairman and Chief Executive Officer from 2000-2006. Under Kemper’s leadership Perfect Commerce created the Open Supplier Network™ (OSN™) and became the largest and fastest growing provider of on-demand supplier relationship management (SRM) technology in the United States.
Prior to founding Perfect Commerce, Kemper served as Chairman of the Board and CEO of UMB Bank and CEO of UMB Financial, a NASDAQ traded financial services company with assets of more than eight billion dollars. Kemper began his career with UMB upon graduating in 1987 from Northwestern University where he majored in American History.
Kemper is an active angel and venture investor and currently serves on the corporate boards of UMB Financial (NASDAQ: UMBF), UMB Bank, NIC (NASDAQ: EGOV), AXA Art USA (NYSE: AXA), Sipvine, SCD Probiotics and BATS Exchange, the third largest stock exchange in the world.
Kemper and his family are active in academic, civic and philanthropic endeavors and Kemper serves on the board of the Agriculture Future of America (AFA), a non-profit scholarship and leadership development organization which he co-founded.
Kemper and his family live on a farm in Kansas City, Missouri, where they raise and care for their horses, sheep and any and all wild animals (not including their 4 children).
ROY OWENS – PRESIDENT
Prior to co-founding Pollenware, Roy was Vice President, World-wide Sales and Marketing for Perfect Commerce where he managed the Global Sales and Marketing Teams servicing 120 of the Fortune 500. His revenue and management responsibilities spanned a client base in 24 countries with deployments in 7 languages. As one of the founding team members in 2000, Roy became the company’s largest revenue producer helping the company grow from startup to more than $40M in revenue.
Prior to Perfect, Roy was co-founder and CEO of Owens & Morgan, Inc. With his leadership, the company became one of the top 5 firms in the Custom Menswear industry with more than 600 clients throughout North America. Roy sold Owens & Morgan in 2000 and joined Perfect Commerce.
Roy, his wife and two children reside in Lake Quivira, KS and are involved in various community and public service endeavors.
JOHN E. KILL - EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT and CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER
John provides comprehensive finance, accounting, and analytic capabilities for Pollen, Inc. John has nearly 20 years of experience in financial management within the financial services industry. Most recently, John was SVP and CFO of Advent Financial Services LLC, a leading provider of prepaid debit card based tax payment solutions. Prior to that, John spent 14 years at H&R Block where he was the head of finance for the digital tax division and also drove the financial engineering behind many of the company’s new financial services product launches. John began his finance career working on corporate taxation for Deloitte & Touche, a 'big four' CPA firm. In his spare time, John has loaned his economic modeling skills to various LMI savings research projects sponsored by Harvard, Brookings, and The Aspen Institute, among others. John has a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration, Accounting and an MBA in Finance from the University of Kansas. John is a Certified Public Accountant and a Certified Internal Auditor.
John and his family reside in Leawood, Kansas.
ALAN REID – EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT, SALES
Alan comes to Pollenware with a background in both management consulting and emerging technology sales. He brings more than 20 years of management experience in the sales and implementation of both software and client solutions. After honing his skills in management consulting with USC Consulting Group, Alan served as one of the leaders in the original sales team for FreeMarkets (FMKT, the creator of reverse auctions, now part of ARBA). This led to roles with other niche start-up technologies companies like CombineNet, an advanced sourcing application platform, and Hubwoo, a global leader of cloud procurement solutions and services.
Alan and his wife live in Kansas City, along with their three children, two of which are away at university.
SCOTT LOEWEN – VICE PRESIDENT, DIGITAL MARKETING, SRM and ACCOUNT MANAGEMENT
Scott focuses on the overall digital marketing efforts for our Pollenware, Supplier Relationship Management program and brings a variety of relevant marketing experience to the Pollen, Inc. team. An integrated marketing veteran of more than 18 years, he started his career as co-founder of a direct marketing advertising agency in Kansas City. There he learned the art and science of driving customer business and campaign objectives through analytics driven marketing campaigns. Scott started the firm's digital practice and in doing so was inspired to join a 100% digital agency where he refined his skills in overall digital marketing strategy and digital production including web site and application development, e-mail marketing, online gaming, e-commerce, analytics implementation and reporting. Most recently, Scott was a digital marketing program and account management team leader at VML, Inc., a global digital marketing and technology firm and the lead digital marketing firm in the WPP family, working on national brands such as Gatorade, Southwest Airlines and Allstate Insurance. Scott has a Bachelor's degree in Journalism w/emphasis in Advertising from the University of Kansas and has been honored by the International Association of Business Communicators with the Floyd Walker Incredible Award.
Scott, his wife, and four children (all girls) reside in Overland Park.
