PayIt rings in new year with expanded executive team, repeat GovTech 100 honors 

January 13, 2020  |  Startland News Staff

PayIt, Kansas City

GovTech leader PayIt continues its rapid growth after a massive 2019 funding year, thanks to the hiring of another key C-suite executive — a 20-year veteran in enterprise software sales and leadership.

Neil Graham, PayIt

Neil Graham, PayIt

The move puts Neil Graham in the role of PayIt’s first chief revenue officer, and brings the executive team of the industry award-winning Kansas City startup to six. Graham began work Monday, arriving most recently from San Diego-based Tealium, where he served as vice president of Americas, helping scale and grow company revenue from $18 million to more than $100 million.

“As we got to know those that have worked for and with Neil, we grew more confident that Neil was someone of high aptitude, high integrity, highly competitive, and a leader that excels at delivering highly-valuable, digital transformation solutions to clients,” said John Thomson, PayIt CEO and co-founder.

Graham is expected to drive PayIt’s continued scaling and expansion of digital government solutions within the U.S. and abroad throughout 2020 and beyond. The startup already has doubled in size since December of 2018, according to Thomson.

Before his five years at Tealium, Graham ran the western sales territories for Jive Software and spent nine years with Salesforce, both in a sales leadership role and as a top performer in the enterprise sales space.

Alexandru Otrezov, John Thomson, and Mike Plunkett, PayIt

Alexandru Otrezov, John Thomson, and Mike Plunkett, PayIt

In addition to Thomson and Graham, PayIt’s leadership also includes Mike Plunkett, COO and CFO; Richard Garbi, chief technical officer; Alex Otrezov, chief marketing officer; and Mike Wons, chief client officer.

Otrezov, a former Uber marketing head, was hired in 2019, a few months after PayIt secured a more than $100 million investment from New York-based Insight Partners.

Click here to read more about PayIt’s 2019 investment news.

Graham’s hiring comes on the heels of PayIt earning a fourth-consecutive spot on the GovTech 100 list — “a compendium of 100 companies focused on, making a difference in, and selling to state and local government agencies across the United States.”

Click here to check out the full GovTech 100 list.

“The PayIt platform brings the potential to transform how government delivers secure, omni-channel, and easy-to-use experiences to hundreds of millions of citizens like you and me every day,” said Graham. “After spending time evaluating new market opportunities, PayIt became clearly differentiated for me due to its rock solid technology, rapid disruptive growth, and it’s world-class team. I’m elated to join the company and help significantly build, scale and grow the go-to-market operations.”

startland-tip-jar

TIP JAR

Did you enjoy this post? Show your support by becoming a member or buying us a coffee.

2020 Startups to Watch

    stats here

    Related Posts on Startland News

    Frustrated by the fit, this traveler-turned-swimwear founder crafted 10 pairs himself; now his trunk show is going global

    By Tommy Felts | December 3, 2025

    Opening a popup swimwear store in one of Atlanta’s most upscale malls represented a surge of momentum for Tristan Davis’ high-end brand that began not on a beach or a runway, but in Kansas City’s tight-knit startup community. “We’ve gone from an idea in a handmade bathing suit to a high fashion mall in less…

    Harvesting opportunity: How a KC chicken chain turned a strip of parking lot into its latest ingredient

    By Tommy Felts | December 2, 2025

    Months before snow blanketed Kansas City this week, Todd Johnson transformed a weed-filled, unusable portion of parking lot at his Lenexa restaurant into a flourishing garden that serves up fresh produce used in kitchens at all three of his Strips Chicken and Brewing locations in Johnson County. In its first season, Moonglow Gardens — as…

    AI evolved faster than rules to protect people; this founder wants to code ethics back into the tech

    By Tommy Felts | December 2, 2025

    Amber Stewart sees what many overlook in artificial intelligence, she said: the human cost of unregulated technology that can manifest as anything from sexist and racist outcomes to outright theft from willing and unwilling members of the public. “I’m not afraid of the tech,” said Stewart, founder and CEO of GuardianSync. “I’m afraid of unfettered…

    A romantic hideaway (for you and a book): Entrepreneur’s heart for reading opens store on Independence Square

    By Tommy Felts | December 2, 2025

    America Fontenot didn’t plan to launch her new Independence bookstore on national Small Business Saturday — the busiest shopping weekend of the year — but renovation delays just kept pushing back the opening, she said. So while many small shops were offering Black Friday-adjacent deals to get customers in the front door, Fontenot’s The Littlest…