About > Leadership

Clarity's leaders are trusted business intelligence advisors and implementers with uncommon dedication.

More than just practitioners, we are the partners who put ourselves on the line for your BI initiatives.

Clarity’s founders and principals have a legacy of meeting clients' information needs with requirements-driven, results-focused BI solutions that stand and scale over time. Our roots are with Knightsbridge, the Gartner-ranked BI leader for nearly two decades.

We offer everything that companies need to create sustainable BI environments that deliver business value: the breadth and depth of business domain knowledge and technical skill; expertise with the all the required BI structures and processes; and a portfolio of proven project experiences across a variety of Fortune 1000 organizations.

We are confident that we can help you make better use of your data to produce business results—so much so that we back every client project with an executive presence.

Our leaders are:

 

John Papadia, CEO and BI Practice Lead
With more than 17 years of data and analytics experience at industry frontrunners PricewaterhouseCoopers, IBM, and HP, which acquired Knightsbridge Solutions, John leads Clarity across every aspect, including driving the company's strategic vision and providing executive level support and guidance across Clarity's client base.  At HP/Knightsbridge, John founded the Communications, Media, and Entertainment practice, building it from initial launch to a business unit that successfully delivered enterprise solutions for companies including Time Warner Cable, Cablevision, AOL, Hyatt, and Microsoft.

 

John left HP/Knightsbridge in 2008 to launch Clarity's Business Intelligence Practice to complement the company's existing expertise in Application Development and e-Commerce.  He rapidly established and implemented delivery, sales, recruiting and marketing processes, which allowed the organization to grow from 40 to more than 175 billable consultants.

 

In 2010, John assumed the role of Chief Executive.  During John's tenure,  Clarity has more than tripled its revenue base, launched the Clarity Innovation Center in Reston, Virginia, and delivered enterprise solutions for companies including American Family Insurance, Bluefly.com, Nike, Travelers, U.S. Cellular, and Walmart.  Clarity has received continuous industry recognition, including being named to the Inc. 5000 Fastest Growing Companies three years in a row.

 

Jim Urhausen, Founder, COO and E-commerce Practice Lead
Jim founded Clarity in 2004 with the goal of supporting and partnering with clients to improve business and technology teams through the delivery of the most qualified talent on the market. By insisting on excellence and speed to market for every client, every time, Jim built a world-class client base that includes American Airlines, ATG, Bluefly, Nike, Dell, HP, Sapient and Walmart.  Jim shaped Clarity into what it is today—a team that comes to play hard no matter the size or scope of the project at hand.

In Jim's earlier career, as part of Arthur Andersen's business consulting practice, he discovered a passion for professional services and resource management and moved on to leadership positions at Robert Half in Chicago and then KForce in Austin.

Jim graduated from Miami University of Ohio with a BS in business administration, a concentration in finance, and a minor in both real estate and management. His passion for startups extends to non-profits as well: he recently launched and serves as VP of the Board of Directors for Imagine A Way, an organization in support of children with autism.

 

Mike Fahey, Chief Strategy Officer
With nearly two decades of experience in technology and product strategy and development, Mike is a key member of the executive team.  He is responsible for working with Clarity's senior business and technology leaders to help shape the future of Clarity and ensure its leadership role as both a service and solution company.  Mike has a keen ability to take complex problems, boil them down into their basic elements, develop elegant and simple ways to solve them, and communicate that with both business users and technologists.  As a delivery-focused leader, his impressive portfolio of work, including solutions for Andersen Consulting, Knightsbridge Solutions, and as CTO for HP BI Solutions Group, has led to industry-leading solutions for some of the largest companies in the world.

 

Mike has a passion for changing the status quo, an uncanny ability to keep the pulse on emerging technology trends, and strong opinion about the future of data and analytics.  His straightforward, no nonsense approach challenges companies to think differently about what provides competitive advantage in this constantly-evolving environment.

Mike has a B.A. in Computer Science from Columbia University in New York City.

 

Kevin Schulhof, CPA, Chief Financial Officer

As CFO, Kevin is responsible for managing Clarity’s financial and operational processes. Prior to joining Clarity, he held a variety of senior leadership positions within Hewlett-Packard's Professional Services business  subsequent to HP’s acquisition of Knightsbridge Solutions where he was Controller.

 

Kevin brings technology and entrepreneurial experience as well as hands-on international accounting, tax, acquisition/integration, audit, and management experience from his roles as Vice President of Finance or Controller for both domestic and multi-national companies subsequent to his consulting career at Ernst & Young.

 

Kevin is a graduate of Purdue University’s Krannert School of Management with majors in both Accounting and Industrial Management and is active in his community as a member of the Board of Director's Technology Committee that provides direction to the Aurora Public Library.

 

Andy Souders, Chief Technology Officer
With over 20 years of experience, half as a consultant and half as the client, Andy brings great perspective to Clarity and the data and analytics industry.  As CTO, Andy is responsible for evolving the technology vision, establishing the Innovation Center, and driving creation and management of solutions and capabilities.  Andy has an impressive background as a technology leader.  AS CTO at EZShield, a company that pioneered identity theft protection over a decade ago, he led product innovation, systems development, client integration, analytics, security, back-office systems and IT infrastructure. In 2010, at NEW Interactive, he was part of a team that earned the International CES Innovations Design and Engineering Award.

 

Lakshmi Parmeswaran, Chief People Officer
Lakshmi is the force behind Clarity’s top talent. Her work enables Clarity to identify and attract senior BI professionals and link them to projects that fit—and to clients that reap the resulting ROI.

 

Lakshmi joined Clarity with more than 10 years of field experience in BI. As a consultant herself, she designed, developed, and implemented BI solutions for clients like Aetna, Allstate, BP, Premier, and Tyco. She was also Operations Manager for HP's Business Intelligence Solutions group, and Director of Contractor Operations at Knightsbridge.

Lakshmi holds a degree in Computer Science from The University of Mumbai in India. She is also the founder of Ankur Foundation, a not-for-profit organization aimed at helping disadvantaged children in developing countries.

 

 

Learn more about Clarity:

   How we’re different
   Where we’ve been
   The BI technologies we work with
   What we're up to
   Places we've worked