Leadership Team
Jay Whitchurch
Chief Executive Officer
Jay Whitchurch is the Chief Executive Officer at CCS. Jay has over 25 years of experience driving business growth and successfully leading organizations through change. His career has been defined by his work helping clients through digital/technology change, creating and managing SaaS-based products and technology services, and empowering teams to grow.
Before CCS, Jay was the President of Scantron and drove growth across the Scantron business through acquisitions, alliances, and new products/services. An accomplished entrepreneur, he founded and led campus2careers, an innovative Education Technology company focused on college and career readiness. After driving substantial growth and winning various awards, campus2careers was acquired in 2013. He previously led other organizations, serving in senior executive roles, including Senior Vice President for Pearson’s Educational Assessment business and Senior Vice President & CIO with Harcourt Assessment.
Before embarking on his work in education technology and technology services, Jay was a senior leader with Booz & Company as part of a long and successful career in strategy consulting, advising global organizations and C-level executives on key strategic initiatives. He has an MBA from the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin, graduating with honors and a bachelor’s in business administration from McCombs. He has served as a board member and advisor on various organizations, including CTB McGraw-Hill’s Innovation Board, Edfolio, GYLO, Moolah U., Circular Energy (chair), AlertMedia, and the Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce Ed Tech Committee. Jay enjoys coaching youth sports, golfing, basketball, and traveling in his free time.
John Lundy
Chief Financial Officer
John Lundy is a seasoned executive with over ten years of experience leading Finance, HR, and IT functions. As the CFO of CCS, John oversees the company’s financial, people, and internal IT operations and strategy.
Before joining CCS, John held several executive roles, contributing to his expertise in reporting, corporate taxation, government compliance, and process improvement. He is knowledgeable about emerging accounting and compliance issues and prides himself on transforming complex business concepts into understandable, actionable information.
As CFO, he is committed to ensuring CCS’ financial health and growth while maintaining the highest standards of integrity and transparency. John is a Certified Public Accountant with a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from Northeastern University.
Suzanne McLaughlin
Executive Vice President, Sales & Marketing
Suzanne McLaughlin is the Executive Vice President for Sales and Marketing. Her passion for technology is second only to her compassionate approach. She understands our customers’ unique challenges; many see her as their solution provider and, more importantly, as their trusted advisor. With over 25 years of technology consulting and management experience, Suzanne focuses on infrastructure design, networking and collaboration technologies.
Suzanne works closely with CCS’ education, government, and corporate clients to map technology solutions to improve their operational processes and develop strategies to produce high-impact technology solutions. She leads CCS’ E-Rate program for the Northeast and has been instrumental in working with school districts and libraries to maximize their E-Rate funding.
Suzanne holds a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science and a Bachelor of Arts in Scientific Mathematics. She is Cisco Systems, Intel and Comp-TIA certified in Network Design and Solution Architecture and a member of the Cisco Technical Leadership Council and Tech-Collective. Suzanne is a sought-after speaker, frequently presenting on E-Rate, networking, and security topics at industry seminars and conferences.
Tom Franson
Executive Vice President, Service Operations
Tom Franson joined CCS in 2006 as a Technical Project Manager. He began his career at Aon Consulting as a business analyst and went on to lead a consulting group providing services to American Express and the financial services industry. From Aon, Tom moved to Bloomberg Financial Markets, where he managed a support operation for Bloomberg terminal installations and led a team of Regional Operations Managers.
At CCS, Tom has held many leadership roles, including Project Manager, Senior Manager, Associate Director, and Director. He serves as Executive Vice President of Service Operations and is responsible for CCS’ Managed Services, Project Services and Consulting Services operating units. These responsibilities include our Service Delivery teams, Quality of Services, Customer Satisfaction, and Service Development.
Tom earned a master’s in statistics and organizational development from Columbia University and a bachelor’s in psychology from Saint Joseph’s College. He has served as the President of the Long Island Chapter of the Help Desk Institute since 2007. He is a frequent speaker about building and managing high-performing IT support teams, managing with metrics-based KPIs and quality management systems.
Kyriakos Kaimis
Executive Vice President, National Accounts
Kyriakos Kaimis is an accomplished technology executive with over 25 years of experience identifying best-in-class technology solutions for CCS’ clients. Kyriakos understands the importance of technology in helping clients improve outcomes and is committed to being a life-long learner to ensure the best results.
As a strategist and accessible leader, Kyriakos’s strong client management skills have been directly attributed to improving client communications and shortening customer resolution times. He specializes in designing security solutions, disaster recovery and network architecture for public and private sectors. Under his leadership, “Custom Academy” was born – an internal training program designed to keep CCS engineers and sales teams informed on emerging technologies and solutions.
Kyriakos earned his Master of Science and Bachelor of Science degrees from the New York Institute of Technology. He frequently speaks and participates in panel discussions at industry conferences, seminars, and webinars on cyber security, disaster recovery, and cloud migration.
JP Nel
Executive Vice President, K12 Software Solutions
JP Nel joined Custom Computer Specialists in May 2001 as an experienced systems and network administrator, software developer, and project manager. JP brought more than 15 years of diverse information technology and industry experience. Before working for CCS, JP worked at Goodyear in South Africa and Philip Morris in New York City.
While at CCS, JP was involved in multiple large technology projects at Philip Morris before joining the Infinite Campus team as a project manager. JP was instrumental in establishing implementation methodologies and ensuring high-quality service standards for clients and educational partners. Since 2004, JP has filled many key roles on the Infinite Campus team.
JP holds a Bachelor of Science in Physics and Computer Science from Nelson Mandela University in Port Elizabeth, South Africa. An avid sailor, JP is a Masthead Cove Yacht Club member in Huntington, New York.