The Summit Circle advisors are Montana-based leaders that believe passionately in the development of globally competitive growth companies and high-quality jobs based in Montana. Advisors are committed to leveraging their experiences, expertise, and networks to assist local visionaries and innovators transform their ideas into professionally managed, high-growth, high-quality companies.
Greg Gianforte is a serial software entrepreneur. He founded RightNow, his 5th successful software start-up, in Bozeman in 1997. The business grew to over $225M in annual revenue and 1,100 employees. It was Bozeman’s largest commercial employer and Montana’s only publicly-traded technology company before being sold to Oracle in 2012.
Greg was named Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year for the Pacific Northwest and has lectured about Bootstrapping at Harvard Business School, Cornell School of Business, Stanford, Stevens Institute of Technology, MSU, U of M, Berkeley, Marquette, London School of Business, and many other venues.
David Vap is Group Vice President, Oracle Applications at Oracle. A 20-year veteran of the technology industry, Mr. Vap joined Oracle through the acquisition of RightNow in 2012. At RightNow he was the Chief Solution Officer, where he led product strategy, product management and product marketing.
Prior to RightNow, Mr. Vap served as Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Software AG. He also spent time at content management vendor Artesia Technologies as the Vice President of Products, where he was responsible for product management, development and quality assurance. Before joining Artesia, he founded and ultimately sold a professional services company that focused on packaging solution offerings built using a CASE tool environment.