The Founders

Scott McFarlane
Founder, President and Chief Executive Officer, Avalara

 

Founder Scott McFarlane assumed the roles of president and chief executive officer of Avalara in 2006. Prior to joining Avalara, Scott spent six years with Check Point Software Technologies, Inc. where he was vice president of solutions and strategies. In this capacity, he oversaw business development, emerging markets, OPSEC partner alliances, product management and worldwide market segments.

 

Prior to Check Point, Scott held a wide variety of other positions within the company from vice president, sales & strategic products to vice president of worldwide sales operations. He was involved in all areas of partner alliance, channel sales, product management and marketing. While at Check Point, the company grew from $100 million to almost $500 million in sales and 1,100 employees worldwide. In April of 1998, Check Point acquired MetaInfo, Inc., where Scott was one of its original employees.

 

During his time at MetaInfo, Scott was the chief operating officer and program manager at Community Sector Systems, where he was instrumental in restructuring the company in addition to delivering PsychAccess, an electronic patient record system for the mental health industry.

 

Before work at Meta Info, Scott held the role as vice president of development for AIRCOA, the largest independent hotel company in the U.S.   In this role, Scott was responsible for projects worth more than $750 million. He also served as president of one of the AIRCO subsidiaries, where he created the 10th largest design and purchasing company in the U.S. During his tenure, AIRCOA grew from 25 to 250 people at a corporate level and 20,000 employees nationwide. Scott was also a key member of the company's successful IPO and financing strategy that raised more than $50 million.

 

Scott oversaw daily operations, development and the worldwide sales operation at Meta IP Group. Under his direction and leadership, the Meta IP Group grew from a staff of four to 70 and successfully released three award-winning products. Scott earned a degree in economics from Claremont McKenna College in southern California where he co-founded NAS Fitness with his roommate, and introduced and distributed Lifecycle, the most popular computerized bike in history.

 

Scott is highly passionate about team building and the importance of core values throughout the organization. Today, Scott sits on several boards in a variety of fields.
 

 

 

Rory Rawlings is the founder and chief tax automation officer of Avalara. Currently, Rory holds four patents related to sales tax technology and leads all development efforts for Avalara. Earlier in his career as an accountant and CPA, he gained extensive experience in financial planning, business planning, profit analysis and tax research.

 

Before joining Avalara, Rory joined BDO Seidman as the Senior Manager of Packaged Solutions where he was responsible for system selection and implementation. He designed and developed a data warehousing and reporting application that integrated with Crystal Reports and included incorporated repository, multi-language capabilities and financial report structures in the database design. He was certified as a PowerBuilder Developer and instructor in Object Oriented Analysis and Design (OOAD).

 

Preceding his career at Package Solutions, Rory was Director of IT at PhotoDisc (now Getty Images). He spearheaded enterprise architecture, business planning and completed a customized implementation of an ERP system. He also designed several sales tax engines, which included full lifecycle design, development and implementation.

Rory was also a senior software developer and director of professional services for the west region at The Boeing Company where he was responsible for writing custom applications.   Prior to Boeing, Rory was part of PowerCerv who specializes in resource planning (ERP) within the mid-size business market.

 

Rory resides on Bainbridge Island, Washington, with his wife, Patricia Rawlings, and their two children, Matthew and Christina.

Jared Vogt
Founder and Chairman of the Board, Avalara

 

Founder Jared Vogt assumed the role of chairman of the board in 2007 and has been a pioneer in the technology industry for well over a decade.

Prior to Avalara, Jared founded Trillium Lane in an effort to be part of several technology start-ups in areas such as digital media production, audio software and health care systems. 

 

Jared co-founded MetaInfo, Inc., a successful software developer in Seattle in 1994. The MetaInfo products provided core networking functionality for Internet systems and grew on the functionality of the increasingly popular Microsoft Windows NT technology as well as the World Wide Web.

 

With his team, Jared grew the business to more than 20,000 customers worldwide, selling exclusively over the Internet. Although mainstream today, the "go to market" strategy was in its infancy in 1994. MetaInfo employed some of the brightest minds in the world for IP addressing, was profitable within one month of opening its doors, and was ultimately sold to Check Point Software.

 

MetaInfo was pursued by many large companies such as Cisco, Nortel and Lucent. However, Jared ultimately selected Check Point because he believed Internet security was the key enabler of the Internet itself.