Leadership
Simona Rollinson
President, Follett Software Company
Simona Rollinson, who most recently served as Vice President of Services & Operations for Follett Software, was named President of the company in spring 2011. She joined Follett Software in 1996 and has since held several positions, including Developer, Manager of Software Services, Director of Engineering and Vice President of Services and Operations.
Prior to joining Follett, Simona worked for EDS in Charlotte, N.C. and as a Software Development Consultant at BASF in her native country of Bulgaria.
Simona holds a Bachelor of Science in Computer Technology from Technical University-Sofia in Bulgaria; a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, IL (SIU); a Master of Science in Computer Science, also from SIU; and has pursued her Ph.D. in Engineering from SIU. She is a graduate of Chicago Executive Institute at University of Chicago Business School.
David Zasada
Vice President, Product Management and Marketing
Promoted to his current position in spring 2011, David Zasada joined Follett Software in June 2009 as business director. He was responsible for top- and bottom-line growth for multiple strategic product lines—specifically, Destiny Textbook Manager and Destiny Asset Manager—including full accountability for product development, sales and marketing. Soon after his arrival, he was given additional product management leadership for the direction and growth of the company’s digital content, hardware and e-commerce offerings.
Previously, David was president of its digital media and private label business units with Appleton, Wisc.-based School Specialty Inc., and earlier served in senior-level positions for Sunburst Visual Media (Hawthorn, N.Y.); Learning Resources (Vernon Hills, Ill.); Forest Educational Technologies Inc. (Cary, Ill.); ElekTek Inc. (Skokie, Ill.); and Educational Resources (Elgin, Ill.). He holds a degree in management from Illinois State University.
Mike Gedzyk
Vice President, Services and Operations
Promoted to his current position in spring 2011, Mike Gedzyk oversees the company’s customer and tech support, and professional learning and service functions. For the past two years, he served as the company’s director of professional services and, prior to that, director of data and online services.
Mike joined Follett Software as a developer in the software development department, and went on to serve as a project leader for the Circulation Plus® and Catalog Plus® product lines, and played a key role in the development of the Schools Interoperability Framework initiative. For more than three years, he served as project manager responsible for the initial development of the Destiny® product line. Mike studied computer programming and network administration at the Illinois Institute of Technology.
Jerry Perez
Vice President, Sales
Jerry Perez, with 27 years of sales and business management experience, joined Follett Software Company in 2007 as a sales director for a newly created small district sales region that caters to the business needs of K-12 districts with four to nine sites. Under his direction, the region achieved $26 million in sales first year.
Prior to joining Follett Software, Jerry was a managing partner and owner of a mid-level packaging company, Thatcher Tubes, whose clientele was Fortune 500 companies; vice president of sales and marketing for two divisions of Courtaulds plc; and a district sales manager for Frito Lay,Inc.
Tim Rogers
Vice President, Software Development
Tim Rogers joins Follett Software Company as the vice president of software development, after having spent the past 10 years with Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Most recently, he served as that company’s senior director of software product development. During his career, Tim has helped launch multiple software products in new and existing markets, and has authored and negotiated core products technology road maps. He has guided large departments, and also has managed satellite offices as well as offshore resources.
Tim earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Iowa, and a master’s degree from DePaul University.
