ON Partners Recruits CEO for Occupier
January 14, 2026 – ON Partners’ Daniel Bolger, Jake Espenlaub, and Bailey Thomas have helped to recruit David Axler as the new CEO of Occupier, a commercial lease management and accounting software platform based in New York City. The announcement comes alongside strategic leadership moves that position the company for its next phase of growth, with co-founders Matt Giffune and Andrew Flint transitioning to chief product officer and chief strategy officer, respectively.
“Matt and Andrew have built a platform that customers genuinely love – one rooted in deep industry knowledge that addresses critical customer needs,” said Shane Skiffington, Partner at Unbundled Capital, which led Occupier’s $16 million growth investment last year. “David brings the operational excellence and scaling expertise that enable companies to evolve from strong customer traction to sustainable market leadership. As the de facto standard for modern lease management, Occupier is uniquely positioned to lead the next wave of innovation in the industry. With David’s leadership, we will continue to set the bar for innovation across the industry to deliver exceptional customer outcomes.”
“David’s deep understanding of both product strategy and go-to-market execution gives us tremendous confidence in where we’re headed,” said Mr. Flint . “Our customers can expect a platform that doesn’t just keep pace with the market, but defines where commercial real estate technology is going. We’re building the infrastructure that will power how companies manage real estate for the next decade.”
Mr. Axler brings 15+ years of experience scaling product-led SaaS businesses in the SMB and mid-market segments. Most recently, as chief strategy and operations officer at Wave Financial, he led the team through a strategic shift from a single-product to a multi-product business model, accelerating growth and margin expansion. H&R Block acquired Wave for $405 million, one of the largest Canadian tech acquisitions at the time. His expertise spans product-led growth strategy, cross-functional team leadership, and building customer-centric go-to-market engines in complex, underserved markets.
“Real estate is the second-largest expense for most companies, yet it’s managed with spreadsheets and email,” said Mr. Axler . “I’ve seen this story before at Wave, markets dominated by spreadsheets and legacy tools are ready for disruption. Matt and Andrew lived this problem as brokers. They know what great looks like in commercial real estate. My job is to accelerate how we deliver that value to customers and ensure we’re building infrastructure that scales as the industry digitizes.”
Related: ON Partners Recruits Chief Revenue Officer for StarCompliance
Purpose-built specifically for tenants, Occupier delivers AI-powered automation, intuitive experiences, and architecture designed from the ground up to serve both real estate and finance teams as equals, one platform where strategic portfolio insights and audit-ready compliance work seamlessly together. Backed by Unbundled Capital, Occupier serves innovative companies across North America.
Serving Clients Since 2006
With a primary focus on technology, consumer, industrial, and the life science sectors, ON Partners recruits C-level and board talent for public and private companies, as well as venture capital and private equity firms. Founded in 2006, the firm’s consultants work from offices in Atlanta; Boston; Chicago; Cleveland; Dallas; Menlo Park, CA; Minneapolis, MN; San Francisco; and New York. ON Partners was named one of the fastest growing search firms this year by Hunt Scanlon Media. The firm is now ranked as one of the 20 largest search firms in the nation.
ON Partners Recruits Chief Business Officer for CytomX Therapeutics
Partner Suzanne Zebedee of ON Partners recently placed Rachael Lester as senior vice president and chief business officer of NASDAQ-traded CytomX Therapeutics, Inc. in South San Francisco, CA. “Rachael brings a wealth of experience in strategic planning and business development across the biopharmaceutical industry and joins CytomX at a time when our platform and pipeline are well positioned to deliver meaningful advances in the treatment of many cancers,” said Sean McCarthy, president, CEO, and chairman of CytomX Therapeutics. “Rachael’s expertise and leadership in delivering strategic, value-enhancing partnerships will be pivotal as we continue to prosecute our integrated business model and expand the reach of our PROBODY platform. With her proven track record, Rachael strengthens our leadership team at a critical time for the Company. My colleagues and I look forward to working with Rachael in our collective mission to urgently advance innovative cancer therapies for patients.”
Mr. Bolger partners with established organizations to modernize and transform their technology infrastructure and collaborates with growth companies across multiple functions to build executive leadership teams. For larger, established organizations, such as Fiserv, Allscripts, and Digital Realty, he has placed CTO, CIO, and senior-level executives. With growth companies, Mr. Bolger has placed executive leaders across a range of functions including sales, marketing, technology, finance, and engineering. He previously served as talent acquisition manager at PepsiCo.
Mr. Espenlaub’s focus is on the software, E-commerce, consumer, digital, and retail industries. Organizations he serves include public, private equity, and growth equity organizations with a focus on digital transformation. The functions he serves include go-to-market, product, technology, digital, and customer experience. Previously, he ran the technology practice at the Benefits Advisory Group.
Ms. Thomas concentrated on the software, consumer tech, AI & emerging tech and services. She works with Venture, Growth and Private Equity firms. Ms. Thomas fills positions within CEO, go-to-market, product, data & engineering, finance, operations, and technology & AI spaces. She joined ON from Pegasystems, a provider of BPM and CRM software solutions where she was an enterprise account executive.
Related: ON Partners Assists Unison Software in Chief Technology Officer Search
Contributed by Scott A. Scanlon, Editor-in-Chief and Dale M. Zupsansky, Executive Editor – Hunt Scanlon Media
