Q&A with the Chief Operating Officer

Emily Medrek, Marketing Associate at Invoice Cloud, is a recent graduate from UMass Amherst with a dual degree in Journalism and Economics. She began her career at Invoice Cloud in February and along with being the editor of Cloudburst, she helps billers with marketing the Invoice Cloud SaaS platform to their customers. Here, she gets to know Chief Operating Officer, Rob Autor better and discovers some of the ways he is contributing to Invoice Cloud’s growth.

Rob joined Invoice Cloud about two months ago, after spending the last five years at Continuum in Boston working as the SVP Global Service Delivery. As COO, Rob is responsible for Software Engineering, Security, Operations and Product Development. The people and level of commitment throughout Invoice Cloud to build a great company with market leading products and services were key factors in his decision to join the team. He is excited about the company’s success to date and expected growth, and the opportunity to help Invoice Cloud scale to a dramatically larger company over the next five years.

Q. Hi Rob, thanks for joining me today. In the last two months, you have begun implementing your vision for the Invoice Cloud products and services – what is your vision?

A. Invoice Cloud has a history of building best-in-class products and services that solve real business problems for our clients and are tailored to meet the specific needs of particular industries such as utilities, tax and financial services. Over the next few years, I envision taking these solutions to the next level. We will continuously improve the client and consumer experience and add innovative new features that help our clients better serve their customers while increasing the efficiency of their employees. To achieve this, one of my top priorities is spending significant time gathering client feedback and product requirements. Feedback is now starting to flow in and we are using this to build both short and long-term roadmaps of product enhancements and new offerings.

Q. Invoice Cloud has experienced a whopping 40% growth over the last year. What are some of the challenges to that level of growth?

A. The biggest challenge thus far has been finding the right people to hire. We are constantly looking for top talent who not only have the needed skill sets, but also fit with Invoice Cloud’s culture and are highly customer-oriented. Another major challenge is continuously improving our processes and systems to stay ahead of the growth curve. Of course, we sometimes make mistakes and need to adapt reactively. But, we strive to always look ahead and proactively build the foundation needed to support each successive wave of growth.

Q. How would you describe the Invoice Cloud culture?

A. There are a lot of different aspects to our culture. It’s definitely customer centric and outwardly focused on the market. We are committed to remaining the market leader and that means we value innovation, rapid change and continuous improvement. We are team-oriented, but also recognize individual contribution. Invoice Cloud is a highly collaborative and non-hierarchical work environment with a very hands-on leadership team. There is an emphasis on individual and team accountability supported by a robust system of metrics.

Q. You’ve recently had some success in finding the right candidates — Invoice Cloud just hired six new software developers. How did you find that number of quality individuals?

A. Lots of screening of resumes and interviewing, but we’re fortunate to be a highly attractive employer of technology talent, so that helps a lot. We’re considered one of the leading technology software firms in the area and we also have a reputation as being a great place to work.

Q. Could you describe what these developers will be doing?

A. They will be helping us expand the products we offer by adding exciting new features. They will also be working on enhancements to the platform, which will take full advantage of the Microsoft Azure cloud eco-system.

Q. Since being at Invoice Cloud for two months, what has been your biggest surprise so far?

A. The biggest surprise has definitely been the commitment of the employees to doing anything and everything it takes to help our customers be successful.