Our Leaders

Shawn Boom is the Chief Executive Officer of Vanco, bringing deep experience building and scaling mission-driven companies across education, healthcare, and technology.

Throughout his career, Shawn has led organizations focused on improving lives—whether preparing future scientists, supporting the next generation of healthcare professionals, or helping parents and educators stay engaged and connected within their communities. He works closely with investors, teams, and partners to design growth strategies that are durable, scalable, and built to endure through periods of change.

Prior to joining Vanco, Shawn served as CEO of Labster and UbiSim, where he helped redefine immersive learning through AI-powered science and healthcare simulations. Backed by leading investors including a16z, Owl Ventures, and Balderton Capital, these platforms served millions of learners and thousands of institutions, companies, and education professionals worldwide.

As a leader, Shawn is a builder who leads from the front. He values clarity, ownership, and outcomes, and is known for assembling and empowering high-performing teams that share those values. His leadership style emphasizes resilience, focus, and long-term value creation.

Jennifer Dorris joined Vanco in early 2016 as the Chief Financial Officer.

Jennifer has over 20 years of experience in executive management with building effective teams in high-growth environments. She is highly skilled at closing and integrating acquisitions, as well as driving strategic goals to maximize a company’s value.

Prior to joining Vanco, Jennifer held senior positions at several private equity-backed, start-up ventures serving as CEO of Ameriflight, President and CFO of Prommis Solutions, CFO of SmartMail and VP of Finance at WebMD.

Jennifer has an MBA in Finance and is an honors graduate of Georgia State University with a BBA in Accounting.

Jennifer resides in Atlanta with her family.

Oliver Chang is an experienced Chief Product & Technology Officer with a strong background in product, innovation and payments and over 30 years of experience in the payments and technology industry.

Prior to joining Vanco as our Chief Product & Technology Officer in May 2023, Oliver held leadership positions at several leading payments companies, including TSYS, First Data, FleetCor, Diebold Nixdorf and FICO. At these companies, he was responsible for developing and launching innovative products and driving technology modernization and optimization, which helped businesses to deliver products faster, streamline operations, and improve customer experience.

Oliver holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science from De La Salle University in the Philippines and resides in Hilton Head Island, South Carolina.

Steve Joos, a seasoned leader with 15+ years of experience in product management, is now Vanco's new Senior VP, Head of Product Management. Previously, Steve drove growth and success and led strategic product initiatives at several healthcare and educational technology companies. His expertise will drive Vanco in the financial technology industry. 

Jennifer Hoitsma brings extensive go-to-market expertise and marketing leadership to Vanco, with a proven track record of driving growth in the K-12 education technology sector. As former Chief Growth Officer at SmartPass, she aligned marketing, sales and customer success functions to accelerate business outcomes through strategic planning and cross-functional execution.

Throughout her career at leading edtech companies including BookNook, Curriculum Associates and Mentoring Minds, Jennifer has delivered sustainable, scalable growth by spearheading brand transformations, building demand generation engines and optimizing revenue operations. Her approach combines strategic vision with tactical execution, transforming ambitious goals into measurable results through cross-functional collaboration and data-driven decision making.

She remains deeply connected to the broader business community through her active participation in RevGenius and GTMfund.

A champion of high-performance cultures, Jennifer leads with a commitment to mentorship and continuous innovation. She empowers teams to challenge conventional thinking while maintaining an unwavering focus on delivering exceptional value to customers and stakeholders alike.

Ed joined the Vanco team as Senior Vice President of Education Sales and Partnerships in January 2024. He is a highly experienced go-to-market leader with a remarkable 24+ year history of crafting high-performing, purpose-driven teams. Throughout his career, Ed has been instrumental in transforming various sales organizations and driving significant growth. He resides in Pittsburgh, PA, with his wife of 17 years, their two children, and a pair of enjoyable (most of the time) dogs. An outdoor enthusiast, Ed looks forward to moments spent with his family engaging in activities like fly fishing, camping, skiing, and exploring new places.

Deb joined Vanco in the summer of 2018.

Previously, Deb spent more than 14 years at Cargill working in various capacities, including HR business partnering, project management, process design and organizational change management roles across multiple businesses and functions.

Deb has a BA in psychology from The George Washington University and a master’s degree in human resources and industrial relations from the University of Minnesota’s Carlson School of Management. Deb is a hiker and enjoys travel and cheering on the Minnesota Twins. She lives in Eden Prairie, Minnesota with her husband and daughter.

Hillary Shaw, the company's General Counsel, is responsible for all legal matters. Hillary counsels companies not just as an attorney, but as a partner who works to find practical business solutions. She has overseen numerous acquisitions and dispositions, and has structured and implemented strategic partnerships and customer relationships. Hillary began her career as a mergers and acquisitions attorney at Kirkland & Ellis LLP. She later served as general counsel for a private-equity backed technology services platform and as an associate general counsel for the Smiths Group.

Hillary obtained her law degree from the University of Virginia, and has a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from Dartmouth College.

Jeff has held numerous successful posts throughout an accomplished professional career. After leaving Perth for London, he experienced the .com bubble before he went on to join Betfair, which has grown into a $5.5 billion company. While working at Betfair, he attained an MBA. He gained valuable experience while at Joost (founded by Skype founders). He then returned to Australia where he joined POLi Payments which was successfully sold years later to Australia Post. As the managing director at Trybooking, a Vanco company, Jeff enjoys seeing how active the community is and seeing the extremely broad range of events that actually occur.

Outside of work, Jeff is an avid cyclist. Aside from cycling, he enjoys spending time at home with his family and gardening (aquaponics) and has trekked across much of the globe—he’s been to 63 countries.