Aptean — Account Dossier

Why This Company

Fit:

• PE-backed enterprise software company (~$500M–$1B revenue, $2B+ valuation) with 56 acquisitions across 12+ countries, no CPO, no procurement team, no procurement technology. Tactical staff do manual purchasing on spreadsheets. (Craft.co; Tracxn; PE Hub; Aptean Leadership; Aptean Careers)

Pain:

• 56 acquisitions with zero centralized procurement — each entity inherited its own vendors, contracts, and purchasing systems. Aptean acknowledges "slower-than-expected progress on back-end platform unification." Estimated $40M–$100M+ in indirect spend is completely unmanaged. (Tracxn; SWOT Analysis)
• Entirely manual procurement operations — Procurement Associate and Sr. Buyer roles describe processing purchase requisitions, issuing purchase orders, and running day-to-day procurement with no tools. No procurement software appears in any job posting. (Aptean Careers)

Timing:

• Clearlake Capital (invested July 2024) has procurement optimization capability within its O.P.S. framework — they employ a dedicated O.P.S. Procurement Analyst (Rishika Chandrupatla, hired Sept 2024) and stated they will "leverage their O.P.S. operational improvement approach to further support Aptean's team." 18+ months post-investment, they are in execution mode. (Clearlake O.P.S. Hires, Sept 2024; Aptean Clearlake PR)
• 7 acquisitions in ~15 months (JobRouter, Indigo Software, TRASER, Germanedge, Logility, JMA, OpsVeda) — each adding suppliers, systems, and fragmentation to a company that already has no procurement infrastructure. (Tracxn; GlobeNewsWire — Indigo Acquisition)

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Decision Makers

Tom Cervino — EVP, Global Finance & Accounting

Primary Decision Maker

• LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/tom-cervino-cpa-44044255
• Email: tom.cervino@aptean.com (inferred — first.last pattern, 85.6% adoption; RocketReach)
• Cares about:
  • Financial integration of acquisitions — his stated responsibility includes "integration of acquisitions into Aptean's finance structure." With 7 acquisitions in 15 months, this is his dominant workload. (The Org)
  • Cost synergy realization — former CFO Jack Walsh publicly stated cost synergies are the "central component" of Aptean's M&A formula. Cervino inherits and executes this mandate daily. (CFO Thought Leader Podcast #295)
• Why they matter: De facto CFO (no titled CFO since May 2023), CPA with EY/audit background, stable finance leader through 3 CFO departures — he controls the budget and directly experiences the pain of fragmented spend across 56 entities. (The Org; PR Newswire — Promethean/Giterman)

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Bob Kocis — President & COO

Operational Sponsor / Potential Champion

• LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/bob-kocis-1b0072a
• Email: bob.kocis@aptean.com (inferred; RocketReach)
• Cares about:
  • Seamless operational execution — owns "overall business operations and customer success for the regions." (Aptean Leadership)
  • Building incrementally, not replacing — stated about a past vendor engagement: "We didn't want to throw that out, because there was a lot of goodness." Prefers evolution over revolution. (Force Management Case Study, 2025)
• Why they matter: Operational authority over business operations; procurement tool adoption requires his endorsement. His preference for incremental building aligns naturally with Simfoni's land-and-expand model (tail spend PAYS entry → expand).

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Brad Debold — EVP, Mergers & Acquisitions

Integration Advocate

• LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/brad-debold-85b4ab19
• Email: brad.debold@aptean.com (inferred; RocketReach)
• Cares about:
  • Post-acquisition integration — leads "Aptean's inorganic growth strategy, responsible for global mergers and acquisitions and the integration of new operations into Aptean's structure." (Aptean Leadership)
  • Cost synergy delivery — with ~11 years at Aptean and most of the 56 acquisitions under his belt, he is the person operationally accountable for delivering integration value. (Crunchbase; The Org)
• Why they matter: He experiences procurement fragmentation more acutely than anyone — he knows exactly how many vendors, contracts, and systems each acquisition brings. Not the budget holder, but a powerful internal advocate and referral path to Cervino.

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Prashant Mehrotra — Partner & Managing Director, Clearlake Capital

PE Mandate Authority

• LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/prashant-mehrotra-a42a00
• Email: Not available (PE firms are reached through warm introductions)
• Cares about:
  • O.P.S. value creation — Clearlake stated they look forward to "leveraging their O.P.S. operational improvement approach to further support Aptean's team." The O.P.S. team includes a dedicated procurement analyst (Rishika Chandrupatla, hired Sept 2024), indicating procurement optimization is within scope of the O.P.S. mandate. (Aptean Clearlake PR, July 2024; Clearlake O.P.S. Hires, Sept 2024)
• Why they matter: Led Clearlake's investment in Aptean. A PE-level introduction — Simfoni approaching Clearlake's O.P.S. team with a procurement optimization proposal — bypasses the cold approach and comes with built-in mandate authority.

Connection Vectors:

• PE Conference Circuit: Simfoni attends PEI Operating Partners Forum events; Clearlake partners attend PE industry events. Potential overlap for establishing a relationship. (Strength: Moderate)

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TVN Reddy — CEO

Executive Sponsor

• LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/tvn-reddy-1a14387
• Email: tvn.reddy@aptean.com (inferred; RocketReach)
• Cares about:
  • M&A as growth engine — 34+ acquisitions under his leadership. Stated: "What we want isn't necessarily up for sale" — proactive, aggressive acquisition philosophy. (The Software Report, 2022)
  • End-to-end visibility — described it as "one of the most compelling reasons organizations are investing in AI." (Aptean Blog, Feb 2026)
• Why they matter: Owns the strategic direction that creates the procurement fragmentation problem. Unlikely first meeting, but a deal of this scope ($150K+ ARR across a ~$1B entity) would require his awareness. His "end-to-end visibility" language mirrors Simfoni's core value proposition.

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Jenny Peng — CTO

Technical Evaluator

• LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/jennylinpeng
• Email: jenny.peng@aptean.com (inferred; RocketReach)
• Cares about:
  • Enterprise Business Systems — her scope explicitly includes internal IT alongside product development and cloud operations. Internal tool adoption falls under her purview. (Aptean Leadership)
  • Interconnected ecosystem — stated: "The long-term aspiration is to have an interconnected ecosystem with AI-led workflows" with "purpose-built applications and integrations between them." (Aptean AppCentral Q&A, Jan 2025)
• Why they matter: Technical gatekeeper for integration assessment. Any procurement tool must connect to Aptean's fragmented internal systems (Salesforce, various ERPs from 56 acquisitions). Her "interconnected ecosystem" philosophy aligns with consolidating fragmented data.

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Entry Strategy

Recommended Entry Point: Tom Cervino

As de facto CFO with explicit ownership of acquisition financial integration, Cervino is the budget holder who experiences fragmented spend daily across 56 entities. His EVP title (not CFO) creates a lower access barrier than a traditional C-suite approach. His CPA/EY background means he values quantified evidence and data rigor — Simfoni's analytics-first approach aligns with how he thinks. He has been the stable finance leader through 3 CFO departures — he is the institutional decision maker. (The Org)

Potential Champion: Bob Kocis

As President & COO, Kocis has operational authority and would need to endorse any significant operational tool. His stated preference for building incrementally rather than replacing ("we didn't want to throw that out") aligns with Simfoni's PAYS tail spend entry → expand model. His sales leadership background means he instinctively understands ROI. (Force Management Case Study, 2025)

Highest-Leverage Warm Path: Kearney → Clearlake O.P.S.

No direct person-to-person connections exist between Aptean's decision makers and Simfoni's sales team. However, Simfoni has a powerful institutional pathway:

• Kearney is Simfoni's strategic investor ($8M Series A-2) and active go-to-market partner, combining "Simfoni's technology and tail spend expertise with Kearney's agile strategic consulting approach." (Simfoni-Kearney Partnership)
• Kearney's PE practice has served 120+ private equity funds since 2022 and 1,000+ portfolio companies since 2020. Their operational value creation offering explicitly includes "Procurement Excellence." (Kearney PE Practice; Kearney Operational Value Creation)
• Clearlake's O.P.S. team has procurement within its operational improvement scope — they hired a dedicated O.P.S. Procurement Analyst, Rishika Chandrupatla (LinkedIn), in September 2024. (Clearlake O.P.S. Hires, Sept 2024)

The sales team should engage Kearney's PE practice leaders to facilitate an introduction to Clearlake's O.P.S. procurement function. This transforms the approach from cold vendor outreach to an investor-facilitated introduction aligned with the PE firm's own operational mandate.

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Key Context

• Cost synergies are the stated M&A formula — former CFO Jack Walsh publicly described "the realization of cost synergies rather than revenue synergies" as the "central component" of Aptean's M&A success. Procurement consolidation is the most obvious unaddressed cost synergy lever. (CFO Thought Leader Podcast #295)
• Logility (acquired April 2025) does not compete with Simfoni — Logility is a supply chain planning tool (demand forecasting, inventory optimization). It has no spend analytics, spend management, or tail spend automation capability. (Aptean — Logility Completion)
• Organization is actively building operational infrastructure — a Director of Revenue Operations posting describes "building from 0 to 1 and scale globally," signaling receptivity to new operational tools. The PE-driven cost-cutting environment (offshoring to India/Poland, post-acquisition layoffs) makes the PAYS zero-upfront-cost model especially compelling. (Glassdoor — RevOps Posting; Glassdoor — Reviews)

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Quick Reference

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