Leadership Team

John Broderick

Chief Executive Officer
With more than 30 years’ experience in business and finance, Mr. Broderick joined the company in 2001 to manage the company’s global finance functions. Previously, he was with Swell Inc., a media and commerce company. As the company’s Executive Vice President of Commerce, he launched the company’s commercial initiatives which included catalog and e-commerce activities. Mr. Broderick also served as interim CFO and helped secure Swell’s first round of venture financing. Mr. Broderick previously served as CFO and Senior Vice President of the North American Operations at Programmer’s Paradise — a $250 million international software reseller. Mr. Broderick holds a B.S. degree in Accounting from Villanova University.

Tony Castagno

Chief Technology Officer
Mr. Castagno brings over 20 years of leadership and technology experience to Cicero where he is currently the Company’s Chief Technology Officer and is responsible for the technology vision and execution for Cicero’s Customer Experience software. Prior to joining Cicero, Mr. Castagno was the Chief Executive Officer of SOAdesk LLC, which pioneered the Intelligent Agent Desktop and Customer Interaction Management space. From 2005 to 2007, Mr. Castagno was the co-founder and Chief Technology Officer for OpenSpan, where he led the development of client side integration. Today this integration technique is globally recognized as Surface Integration. In addition to his duties with Cicero, Mr. Castagno also lectures and blogs on technology and has been published in several trade periodicals. Mr. Castagno graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1989 with a BS in Computer Science. During Mr. Castagno’s service in the Army he led a cavalry tank platoon in the Gulf War and was decorated for his combat actions. Over the course of Mr. Castagno’s career, he has held leadership and technology positions with Deloitte, Verifone, ADP, Personic and was the founder of Vertical Thought an Atlanta-based technology incubator.

Mike Garner

Chief Customer Officer
Mr. Garner brings over 15 years of customer contact operations and technology leadership to Cicero, where he leads worldwide sales. A successful business leader, Mike founded SOAdesk in 2007 to improve customer interaction across the globe by simplifying the agent desktop. Mike has worked in financial planning for Citi, directed service fulfillment teams and led both Northwest and Northeast Sales and Service Operations at Verizon. He then led the BPO business at Afni to record revenue, profit and client satisfaction marks from January of 2004 through July of 2007. In total, Mr. Garner has led over 7000 Agents to impressive results over his operations career, with his teams earning over 40 Customer Service Awards, achieving double-digit productivity gains and garnering 2 National Sales Titles. Mike is a graduate of Eckerd College with a BA in Management and he received his MBA from the Cox School of Business at SMU in Dallas, TX. Mike currently chairs the Call Center Advisory Board for the Outsourcing Institute.

James W. Hunt

Director of Product Development
Mr. Hunt has over twenty-five years experience in the customer contact management field. As a founder of Interactive Response Technologies (IRT), Mr. Hunt led the development of a patented interactive desktop interface for call centers. This product was later sold to Rockwell First Point Contact. Mr. Hunt became Senior Engineering Manager, CTI Products and later Senior Product Manager for CTI products for Rockwell First Point Contact (now part of Aspect Software). In 2002, Mr. Hunt formed Stroudwater Contact Point as a value-added reseller of Rockwell and developer of customer contact solutions. Stroudwater served customers ranging from startups to the Fortune 500. In 2008, Mr. Hunt joined SOAdesk, LLC as Chief Technology Officer to productize SOAdesk’s customer interaction management technology. Mr. Hunt is a regular presenter and speaker at industry trade meetings, has had several articles printed in industry journals and has been quoted as an “Industry Visionary” by Customer Inter@ction Solutions magazine. Mr. Hunt holds a Bachelors degree from Bates College.

Neil Crane

Director of Product Strategy
Mr. Crane’s experience spans nearly 25 years of technology change during which he has experienced first-hand the problems of a centralized approach to enterprise computing, the draw-backs of distributed systems and the need for common-sense, value for money, process integration solutions. As an enterprise solution architect, Mr. Crane has designed and overseen the implementation of enterprise computing systems for Fortune 100 companies on the leading edge of technology adoption. Mr. Crane joined the company in 1996 to lead the professional services team in integration projects based on the then-new IBM MQSeries product and other emerging integration technologies. Previously he was with IBM UK where he worked first as a developer on the MQSeries product family and subsequently provided implementation planning services to the first MQSeries customers. Mr. Crane is co-author of the book "MSMQ from Scratch."

Hal Harris

Director of Professional Services
Mr. Harris has over twenty-five years of experience delivering information technology and solutions to clients. His skill in information planning, business improvement and project management, along with his strong technology background, is focused on delivering solutions and quality professional services to our clients. He has staffed and managed major engagements and projects for Fortune 500 customers throughout the United States. Previous to joining Cicero, Mr. Harris held leadership positions with technology firms delivering solutions in the call center space, education, banking, public sector and commercial market. Hal also serves on the board for several non-profit organizations, including CILOA and the Technology Association of Georgia (TAG).

Clint Babcock

Director of Pre-Sales and Partner Support
Mr. Babcock has over 20 years of experience in application development, project management, and pre/post sales support. Mr. Babcock has managed many of the large projects for Fortune 500 companies. He has a unique ability to speak both to the business challenges faced by call centers as well as address the technical aspects of our products. Mr. Babcock’s current responsibility is the management of Cicero Pre-Sales Engineering and Partner Support.

Alex Aversano

Director of Alliances
Mr. Aversano has been in the technology field for more than thirty years. He is responsible for developing and driving business and marketing solutions through strategic initiatives between Cicero Inc. and select global alliance organizations. Prior to joining Cicero, Alex successfully lead and implemented alliance strategies to drive sales volume through partner channels for major companies such as IBM and Progress Software Corporation. Alex earned his Bachelor of Marketing Management degree at Baruch College, City University of New York.