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XAPP AI is a Conversational AI (CAI) startup that was spun out of the industry leading XAPPmedia brand in 2021.
XAPPmedia was founded in 2012 and was first to market with interactive audio ads for mobile and smart speakers. The company developed Optimal Conversation™ Studio (OC Studio), to enable the creation of Conversational AI apps at scale. Voice Cast from XAPPmedia is powered by OC Studio.
As the CAI market continued to develop and consumer’s expectations evolved, XAPP AI was formed as a separate entity to sell OC. This allowed for full focus and investment into building a SaaS platform that would enable customers and partners to implement cutting edge CAI experiences across all channels including webchat, website search, text, smart speaker and telephony.
XAPP AI was one of the first SaaS companies to achieve AWS Competencies in both Conversational AI and Applied AI, achievements that have helped it continue to serve thousands of enterprise, public sector, and SMB clients with delightful consumer experiences at scale.
We build best in class conversational AI platforms and solutions. We think like users of our creations and strive for elegance and simplicity through thought, care and attention to detail in meeting our customers’ needs. We design quality into form and function and test obsessively to ensure exceptional value and performance. We are dedicated to continual quality improvement to always deliver the best products.
We are customer obsessed and we seek to serve as measured through individual moments of truth. Every time a customer, partner or end user comes in contact with a XAPP product, solution, website, document or person constitutes a moment of truth. Service relies on communication and responsiveness. We listen to our customers, partners and end users to understand their needs and delight them in our solutions.
XAPP AI leads through innovation. We are hungry to learn with a growth mindset about new market opportunities, technologies and business models and to build products and solutions that simply work better for our customers, partners and end users. We strive to innovate every day in ways large and small in the products we build and the solutions we deliver and in the way we do business. We constantly work to improve our offerings and make XAPP AI best in class.
The people we are and the people we serve are paramount. We are inclusive and value mutual respect and we earn respect through our contributions and by investing our respect in others and valuing their contributions. We treat others with dignity.
Success depends on commitment and dedication in balance with healthy lives. We are a family of individuals united by our shared mission to be our best and deliver best in class conversational solutions that empower our customers. We give the extra effort needed to do things right, to relentlessly pursue quality, reliability, performance, empathy and integrity in everything we do.
Frank RainesRole: Board Director & Co-Founder
Frank Raines is Executive Chairman and co-founder of XAPPmedia. In that role he provides strategic guidance, assists in marketing and fundraising, and leads the board in oversight of the management team. Frank is the retired Chairman and CEO of Fannie Mae and previously was a General Partner of the investment bank Lazard Freres & Co. He was also the Director of the Office of Management and Budget in the Clinton Administration. He has served on the board of Directors of six Fortune 100 companies. Frank also served as Co-Chairman of the Business Roundtable and Vice Chairman of the Business Council.
Frank has been an investor and board member of several start-up companies including Revolution Health (merged with Everyday Health), Revolution Money (acquired by American Express), Extend Health (acquired by Towers Watson), and Exclusive Resorts. Frank is a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School. He attended Magdalen College, Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar.
Pat HigbieRole: CEO & Co-Founder
Pat is an entrepreneur with a career of building technology firms from the ground up. He is building a culture at XAPP that fosters ownership, commitment and innovation from every team member and partner. Prior to XAPP, he was EVP at Xtone; and before that was Founder and CEO of DataFocus. DataFocus was a pioneer in data modeling and relational data base design and later developed NuTCRACKER. He sold the services business to CIBER, and the NuTCRACKER business to MKS (now PTC).
Pat received a BS in Civil Engineering with High Honors from the U. S. Coast Guard Academy and an MS in Civil Engineering from the University of Illinois where he was inducted into the Phi Kappa Phi Honor Society. He is a registered Professional Engineer in the Commonwealth of Virginia.
Curt KolcunRole: Executive Chairman & Co-Founder
Curt’s an accomplished leader, senior executive, and company officer with over 35 years of success advancing technology solutions, leading significant sales organizations, & delivering sustainable long-term growth. He was previously vice president of U.S. Public Sector at Microsoft, with over 27 years of strong results. He was responsible for a multi-billion-dollar business leading a team of sales & technical professionals serving federal, state, and local governments, system integrators, educational institutions, and partners across the United States. His team was focused on delivering mission critical solutions and fostering the evolution of cloud based public sector capabilities. He started his professional and technical career in the U.S. Air Force.
Curt currently serves on the executive committee of the USO National Capital District. He has received numerous awards in recognition of his industry and civic contributions. He is an avid Washington Capitals fan.
Michael MyersRole: Leads Product and Engineering & Co-Founder
Michael Myers has built a career on bringing new and exciting technologies to market. After working on autonomous vehicles in college, he moved on to the RFID business, developing innovative technology for the Department of Defense, as well as for social media platforms. Prior to joining XAPP, he partnered with John Kelvie of Bespoken Tools, at Atomizer Software where he concentrated on mobile and web development.
Michael has a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Virginia and is also an avid ultra-marathoner.
Adam TiberianRole: Leads Sales and Marketing at XAPP AI
Adam is the VP of Sales at XAPP AI. He joined the XAPP team in September 2021 to spearhead sales strategy, drive revenue growth, and ensure our clients have the best possible outcomes.
Adam has 20 years’ experience in sales leaderships roles with the last 10 focused on SaaS solutions and optimizing the sales process. Prior to joining XAPP, Adam was the SVP of Sales for a national SaaS organization that focused on the financial, retail, and nonprofit sectors.
When away from work, Adam enjoys spending time with his wife and two kids navigating the Charleston waterways or volunteering at the local aquarium with his daughter.
Pete HaasRole: Helps customers solve business challenges with practical AI solutions
Pete is a veteran in voice and conversational AI. His achievements developing intelligent voice assistants have earned recognition, and awards in the industry. Named a top 40 Voice AI influencer to follow in 2020, he’s a frequent writer and presenter on applied AI.
Since receiving his Master’s degree in Information Systems, he’s worked with Experian, Samsung’s voice assistant team, and various contact centers before joining XAPP AI.
In his downtime, he enjoys playing piano and guitar while spending time with his family in the foothills of the Smoky Mountains.
Yina Smith-DanenhowerRole: Leads product strategy of all XAPP AI product initiatives
Yina Smith-Danenhower is Head of Product Design at XAPP AI, which provides conversational AI customer self-service and business productivity solutions for large and medium sized businesses. XAPP AI is an Amazon Web Services (AWS) Independent Software Provider (ISV), part of the AWS Contact Center Intelligence program and was awarded the AWS Applied AI and Machine Learning Competency. Yina is the product owner for XAPP AI’s proprietary Optimal Conversation™ Framework, which is a data driven approach to creating the Optimal Conversation for a use case based on a company’s business needs, objectives, and technology constraints. Optimal Conversations studio powers conversations for sales, customer service, citizen services, and other use cases by combining the strengths of intelligent search and conversational AI across website search, chat and voice channels leveraging artificial intelligence to solve common business challenges. Yina has led conversation design on solutions for multiple Fortune 100 customers at XAPP AI. She previously worked as a Choreographer and Dancer, Architectural Designer and UX Designer. Her diverse experiences have brought rich perspectives to her approach in her work.
She is also an active speaker having spoken at various conferences including the UXPA Boston 2021, Women in Voice Summit 2022, Inclusive Product Work, Out of Architecture Webinar, and VoiceCON.Live.
Yina holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Dance and International Studies from Middlebury College, and a Master of Architecture degree from Harvard Graduate School of Design. She currently resides in Boston, MA. In her free time, she likes to cook, play with her cute pup, hike, and box when there’s not a heat wave.
James BodenRole: Manage and deliver conversational AI experiences
James joined XAPP in 2018 and currently serves as a Project Manager focusing primarily on enterprise customers. Throughout his time here he has held a variety of responsibilities from customer success and data analysis to conversation design and business strategy. Some of his work at XAPP includes an omnichannel experience across voice and chat for PepsiCo and a children’s game on Google Nest Hub for TIME for Kids.
James holds a Master of Science in Commerce with a focus in Marketing and Management from the University of Virginia, and a Bachelor of Arts in Communications from Denison University. He enjoys his time outdoors fishing and is a passionate Washington Capitals fan.
Hannel SoRole: Leads Customer Success & owns media/streaming voice apps
Hannel leads the media department, as well as all applicable customer success operations, for XAPP. He has created award-winning voice interactive experiences for radio, podcasting, and sports over the last four years. With past history in both customer success and product at XAPP, Hannel brings a comprehensive approach to his ownership of all streaming voice applications.
Hannel graduated from the University of Michigan with a double major in English and Political Science. In a past life, he was also ranked 8th in the US for short track speed skating. In his free time, Hannel likes to sing, read a good fantasy book, and write poetry.
Chris DietzRole: Lead AWS Architect
Chris started his career as a software engineer developing software for automated insulin pumps for people with diabetes. Later he became an Android mobile applications developer for the United States Army’s mobile initiative. These applications included a wide variety of features including GPS tracking, chat, inventory tracking, and even an animated comic book.
He later moved to San Francisco, California developing a wide variety of mobile applications before moving to the Washington DC area as XAPPmedia’s lead mobile engineer. Two years after working for XAPP, he found an interest in AWS Serverless technology and made a pivot to become an AWS Architect.
He now builds and maintains the backend infrastructure that powers XAPP.AI’s technology. Chris has a bachelors degree in Computer Science and Mathematics from the University of Alabama in Huntsville.
In his free time he likes to cook, and is an amateur competitive powerlifter.
Bela VizyRole: Creates custom voice applications for various assistant and messaging platforms
Bela has a Master’s degree in electrical engineering and many years experience in the computer industry as an application developer, but also as a systems administrator. He worked for many successful software companies both in Europe and in the United States.
In his free time, he enjoys cooking, playing video games, and traveling.
Jason RadinRole: Lead tester for XAPP AI
Jason Radin is the lead Q&A tester for XAPP AI. He comes to us from our sister company XAPP Media where he was a Q&A specialist for Alexa and Google skills. Since January of 2014, Jason has helped XAPP launch multiple successful Alexa skills, Google skills and chat bots for a wide array of well known companies, Jason, previously worked as a researcher, content creator and database developer for multiple health and security companies in the Washington, D.C metro area which specialized in technology. His eagerness to learn and try new things make him a perfect match for our Q&A department.
Jason currently resides in Irvine, CA and is a huge, movie, media and technology buff. He loves playing with the newest gadgets and watching the latest movies on the big screen. Jason holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science from the George Washington University.
We’re always searching for great talent to contribute to our growing team. Do you think you have something to offer? Let’s connect
855-491-2959
703-822-5314