Meet the Leadership Team

A proven business leader with a background in technology, sales, and marketing, Bruce Hanavan founded Direct Commerce in 2000. A series of in-depth customer interviews laid the groundwork for the uniquely flexible Direct Commerce platform, which remains one of the easiest-to-use S2P automation platforms for global organizations. 

Before Direct Commerce, Bruce was President and Founder of Cohesive Systems, which he sold in 1996. 

Bruce is an avid tournament golfer and a member of the oldest athletic club west of the Mississippi, The Olympic Club. He enjoys Ashtanga yoga and spending time with his wife Emily and two children, Grace and Henry.

As the driver of the original development team, Billy L. Williams, Jr. has intimate knowledge of the Direct Commerce platform and its ability to adapt to the specific needs of each client. Billy is dedicated to advancing the S2P industry, and has participated in and led initiatives to develop new XML standards for business-to-business electronic commerce.

Before joining Direct Commerce, Billy served as chief technical architect for Sage IT Partners.

In his free time, Billy enjoys bicycling and learning to sail on San Francisco Bay.

A proven leader, Robb has over 22 years of experience in enterprise software sales, marketing and management, specializing in B2B and B2B2C marketing, financial and consumer technologies. Robb has helped companies raise seed and Series A to C venture capital and assisted in the acquisition of five startups and the IPO of a sixth.

Robb previously led a global sales team at RichRelevance, logging 6 straight quarters of growth prior to its merger. At Stackla, he helped to build a client base of over 500 enterprises, tripling revenues. At Livefyre (acquired by Adobe), Robb drove revenue, leading the startup as it grew 3000% in bookings and in 19 foreign territories.

Robb loves to cycle, make craft wine and surf. He lives in Marin County, California.

Smart, perceptive, and easygoing, Chris Simpson excels at building trust and developing relationships by aligning products and solutions to clients’ business objectives. 

Prior to joining Direct Commerce, Chris held leadership positions at Demandbase, Skillsoft, IBM, InsideTrack, and Embark Corp, where he developed specialties in Software as a Service (SaaS), Enterprise Software Sales, Customer Success, Account Based Marketing (ABM), and portal technology.

When he’s not helping clients achieve greatness, Chris enjoys cheering on the United States Naval Academy water polo team where his son Connor is a Midshipmen, watching his younger son Ben perform musical theater, and hiking with his wife Amy and two Portuguese Water Dogs. He’s also an avid music and movie collector and a long-time homebrewer.