Global Leadership Team
CloudFactory’s global senior leadership team combines decades of experience to deliver innovative human-in-the-loop AI solutions for our clients.
Mark Sears
Founder and Executive Chairman
Mark Sears
Founder and Executive Chairman
Mark began his career as a software developer, working for Sun Microsystems and later growing and leading tech startups in Canada and the United States. On a visit to Nepal, he saw firsthand that talent is equally distributed but opportunity is not.
In 2010, he founded CloudFactory to connect one million talented people to meaningful work so that together we can earn, learn, and serve our way to become leaders worth following. Mark has led CloudFactory from startup to growth, including $78 million in venture capital investment and expansion across four continents.
Mark is a speaker on artificial intelligence, workforce strategy, the future of work, scaling corporate culture, and entrepreneurship.
Kevin Johnston
Chief Executive Officer
Kevin Johnston
Chief Executive Officer
Kevin joined CloudFactory in October 2023 and was appointed CEO in January 2024. He brings over 30 years of experience in leading and scaling technology companies, along with a passion for technology and its potential to transform the world.
Prior to CloudFactory, Kevin was the Chief Operating Officer of AgileThought, a digital transformation and consulting firm, where he oversaw the company’s growth, operations, and culture. He also served as their Chief Revenue Officer prior to becoming COO. Under his leadership, AgileThought achieved record revenue and profitability, expanded its global presence, and launched new service offerings.
Before joining AgileThought, Kevin held various senior positions at DXC Technology, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, HP, EDS, and Capgemini, leading teams across sales, marketing, services, and engineering. He also has extensive experience in mergers and acquisitions, having been involved in several major deals in the technology sector.
Kevin holds a bachelor's degree in agricultural business from Iowa State University and has been recognized as one of the Top 100 Global Sales Leaders by The Modern Sale. He lives in Simpsonville, South Carolina, with his wife.
Cary Smith
Chief Financial Officer
Cary Smith
Chief Financial Officer
Cary has 30 years of experience in finance and accounting and a love for fast-paced, high-growth, international technology companies. He was CFO for JBoss, a technology startup with a distributed workforce spanning the globe. He raised capital and led finance to grow the company from USD $1M in sales to $17M in 30 months, culminating in an acquisition by Red Hat for $370 million.
Prior to that, Cary was Chief Accounting Officer for EarthLink, where he helped grow the company to $1.4+B in annual sales. He held roles at PaySys, a global enterprise systems provider, and began his career with Ernst & Young. Not your average certified public accountant, Cary is an explorer who finds adventure and creates it where it can’t be found.
Morgan Gebhardt
Chief Revenue Officer
Morgan Gebhardt
Chief Revenue Officer
Morgan has 30 years of experience in the technology world, mainly leading go-to-market teams and strategies for high-growth startups. He was previously a Vice President & Principal Executive at IPsoft (Amelia Corp.), where he led strategic revenue initiatives and business lines across the globe. Before that, he spent seven years as a Divisional Technology Head at Macy's.
At the age of 20, Morgan co-founded a Fintech company that provided real-time stock quotes and a news platform for individual investors and small broker-dealers.
Morgan is a customer-first, "people-over-everything" leader. He believes that the greatest joy comes from celebrating the success of others. He's also a classically-trained percussionist and a certified logger aka lumberjack.
Pieter Nel
Chief Technology Officer
Pieter Nel
Chief Technology Officer
Pieter leads the product and technology teams in building CloudFactory's human-in-the-loop AI platform supporting clients' AI training data needs. He has more than 20 years of experience, across three continents, in technology strategy and software engineering management.
Previously, Pieter was CTO at Ocrolus, responsible for scaling its human-in-the-loop AI document processing product. Prior, he was at McKinsey & Co, advising clients on AI strategy and co-authoring many of the firm's AI research studies. He has also served as COO of mobile live streaming company YouNow, advised Tencent on the launch and growth of its mobile products in Africa, and was CTO at MXit, the world's first mobile instant messaging company, where he oversaw a team that grew the company to 40 million users.
Pieter holds an MBA from MIT, where he was a Sloan Fellow, as well as a M.Sc.Eng and B.Eng., both in Electrical and Electronics Engineering, from the University of Stellenbosch, South Africa, where his research was on machine learning, and artificial intelligence applied to speech recognition. He is a Senior Member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and draws leadership inspiration from his time as a technical mountain rescue volunteer, yacht skipper, and pilot.