Team

Headquartered in Charleston, SC, Sovereign is a technology and marketing company with capabilities deployed across a portfolio of businesses.

Sovereign is a team of strategic thinkers, software engineers, digital advertisers and proven performance marketers on a mission to uncover marketing ROI. We are driven by top of mind engagement of heavy tech and heavy marketing.

Senior Management

Christopher J. Mettler

CEO

Chris Mettler is Founder and CEO of Sovereign where he leads strategy and business development. Previously, he founded two marketing and financial technology businesses, CompareCards and SnapCap, both of which were acquired in separate transactions by LendingTree (Nasdaq: TREE). Prior to his work in marketing technology, Mettler held a senior business unit management position at Illinois Tool Works (NYSE: ITW), a Fortune Global 200 manufacturing company.

Mettler is also a minority owner of the Miami Marlins professional baseball club and serves on the board of directors of ServisFirst Bank (Nasdaq: SFBS). He is a graduate of Vanderbilt University and holds an MBA in Business Strategy from Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management.

Mettler resides in Charleston with his wife, Kate, and their four children.

Interests: Family, Landscaping, the SC Outdoors and Baseball.

Favorite Cause: MUSC Children's Hospital

Location: Charleston
Jon Yarian

President

Jon works with everyone at Sovereign to optimize performance. A longtime entrepreneur, he previously co-founded an award-winning brand studio and a boutique strategic communications consultancy. Prior to that, he served as a press secretary on Capitol Hill and led national accounts for a Washington, DC public relations firm.

Interests: Travel, sports, leisure, vague answers

Favorite Cause: Kids on Point

Location: Charleston
Michael Herrera

SVP of Growth and Partnerships

As SVP of Growth and Partnerships, Michael leads CompareCredit.com as well as strategic digital partnerships. He joins Sovereign from Dashlane, a Sequoia Capital-funded SaaS startup, where he launched an award-winning Super Bowl campaign that accelerated user and revenue growth. Before stepping into the startup world, Michael held several marketing leadership roles at Citi and Bank of America where over the course of 15 years, he helped shape the way people shop for credit cards online.

Michael spent his formative years in Quito, Ecuador, and moved to NYC for college where he earned a Bachelor of Science from St. Francis College and a Masters in Marketing from New York University.

Interests: Spending time with family, live music, using points/miles to travel, soccer

Favorite Cause: March of Dimes

Location: New York
Scott Sullivan

President of RateQuote

Scott Sullivan is responsible for the growth of all Insurance brands underneath Sovereign. A seasoned entrepreneur in the financial services space, he was one of the original employees at GoHealth and led Sales and Business Development for 16 years, helping the company to an exit of $1.5B in 2019. Since that time, he has successfully built two companies in the small business lending space, with one being acquired in 2020. Sullivan is a graduate from Miami University and currently resides in Charleston, SC with his wife and 4 children.

Interests: Sports, family, music

Favorite Cause: St Jude’s Children’s Hospital

Location: Charleston
Bryan Chappell

SVP of Technology

Bryan Chappell started his first company shortly after college and has spent the last decade building software solutions in Charleston, South Carolina. He started Lincs Software after being a part of the first cohort through the Accelerator program at the Harbor Entrepreneur Center.

In addition to building and mentoring local software companies, Bryan has been involved in several community efforts such as the Charleston Code for America Brigade, Nodebots Charleston, and Local Hackathons.

Bryan is also a co-founding partner at Citibot, a startup that evolved from Lincs Software. He later joined Tabula Rasa Healthcare building an API layer and applications for the healthcare industry. He now leverages his expertise in building scalable software and high velocity teams as VP of Technology and Operations for Sovereign.

Interests: Muay Thai and Soccer

Favorite Cause: Lowcountry Food Bank

Location: Charleston
Conor Keenan

SVP, Marketing & Product

Conor is responsible for overseeing the marketing & product functions for Sovereign. Prior to his career in digital marketing, Conor wanted to be a video game designer / engineer for Nintendo. He now designs digital marketing campaigns and experiences to help people get out of debt and to make more informed financial decisions. Conor holds a bachelor’s degree in Communications from Michigan State University and has been working on an MBA from the University of Michigan. When he is not behind a computer, you can find Conor on an adventure exploring the Rockies, spending quality time with his family, reading a stack of books or camping in one of America's National Parks.

Interests: Philosophy, Philanthropy, Psychology, Finance, Travel

Favorite Cause: The Tiverton Foundation, Camp Kesem, Denver Mission

Location: Denver
Gray Anderson

President of Nice Companies

For the last 10 years, Gray has been helping eCommerce brands of all shapes and sizes (including a few of his own) become more efficient, grow, and, ultimately, more profitable. Fuelled by bad experience after bad experience with 3PL partners, Gray started Nice Commerce, an eCommerce 4PL company, that goes further to help D2C brands grow through first-class fulfillment and operations support. His goal is to share the resources that his brands have established with partnering brands of all shapes and sizes.

Interests: Dive bars, portmanteaus, dad jokes and exploring the world with his wife and dog.

Favorite Cause: One World Health

Location: Charleston

Travis Nesland

Head of Technology

Travis Nesland likes to make things. He decided to trade the West Coast for the East and landed in Charleston, SC some years ago. Since then he as been playing with data and writing software for the likes of research institutions and startups sized both large and small. Travis spent time working in neuro-imaging research before switching his focus to web and application development.

He is excited about the process of building software for everyday users, but retains his desire to glean insights from data.

Interests: Sports, music, and hanging with family

Favorite Cause: We Love Long Beach

Location: Charleston
John Chanthana

Director of UX

John received his Film/Video degree from Columbia College of Chicago and has worked as a video game artist prior to becoming a designer and front end developer. As an illustrator and fine artist at heart, John uses those skills to help him create engaging and informative user interfaces and designs.

Prior to Sovereign, John, was a manager of front end development and design.

Interests: Fine arts, sports, and spending time with his family

Favorite Cause: Jai Lao Foundation

Location: Chicago
Anna Fulton

Software Developer

Anna Fulton spent the first part of her career as a public health researcher, where her focus was in data management, statistical analysis, and using geographic information systems (GIS) for data visualization. During that time, she managed malaria elimination studies while living in Thailand and Cambodia, and worked on the Zika Virus Outbreak Emergency Response in the US and Colombia.

Anna attended JRS Coding School after moving from Atlanta to Charleston, and she now applies her background and expertise to build innovative software and data-driven solutions as a software developer at Sovereign.

Interests: Hiking, gardening, and traveling

Favorite Cause: Charleston Waterkeeper

Location: Charleston
Alex Boquist

Software Developer

Alex is a software developer that has worked in a variety of fields ranging from music to healthcare. He enjoys staying up to date with the latest tech trends and in his free time enjoys spending time with his two french bulldogs, Bessy and Wilbur.

Interests: Gardening, learning Tibetan language, and reading

Favorite Cause: Habit for Humanity

Location: Charleston
Jessica Greulich

Software Developer

Jessica Greulich is creative at heart. She studied Art History at the University of South Carolina, has run a food blog, designs cross-stitch patterns, and now builds software at Sovereign. Jessica has a passion for design and creating beautiful, as well as functional, user interfaces.

Interests: Puzzles, Organizing, Cozy Mysteries, and building things with her husband

Favorite Cause: Humane Society

Location: Charleston
Sam Waller

Software Developer

Sam Waller attended The Iron Yard Charleston and has since worked in an array of companies from start ups to corporations utilizing different programming languages such as Ruby on Rails, Node, React, and Golang. Outside of programming languages, Sam also applied his love for learning new things and learned Korean and Digital Art.

Interests: Games, Sports, Music, and hanging with his wife and cat

Favorite Cause: Ronald McDonald House Charleston, Charleston Animal Society

Location: Charleston
Aaron Son

Software Developer

Aaron has a strong excitement for building applications. Originally from Los Angeles, he found his love for software development studying Computer Science and Engineering at UC Merced. With his interest in working in fast paced environments, he landed in Charleston to develop software in the subscription e-commerce space for numerous clients where he became versed in scaling applications in the Shopify ecosystem.

Aaron is also Co-founder of Tastebase, a start up curating taste profiles across all existing eCommerce brands in the CPG industry. He utilizes his entrepreneurial spirit and technical expertise to build software at Sovereign.

Interests: Building custom mechanical keyboards, learning Spanish, and teaching his cat tricks

Favorite Cause: up to us, Humane Society

Location: Charleston
Suzanne Blair

Software Developer

Suzanne began her career as an environmental engineer, collecting and evaluating data to determine acceptable levels of air pollution control for various segments of industry, and using the findings to write EPA regulations. Her path to software development is more recent as she discovered an interest in coding after moving to Charleston, SC. Suzanne has worked as a software developer building powerful applications for the healthcare field. She uses this background knowledge and skill set to develop effective software solutions at Sovereign.

Interests: Time with family, running, exploring the outdoors, travel, learning/practicing languages, cooking foods from different cultures, reading

Favorite Cause: Palmetto Conservation, WakeUp Carolina

Location: Charleston
Jenny Schutzman

Software Developer

Jenny can't sit still if she isn't actively challenging herself and learning something new. Originally from Kentucky, she has lived in Uganda, Colombia, Sudan, South Sudan, Washington DC, and now the Mount Pleasant area of Charleston. After 10 years working with international non-profit data systems (and 5 years based overseas), Jenny made the switch to software development in 2018 and has never looked back.

In her freetime she runs the Charleston Women Devs meetup she started for female software engineers, aiming for 1 technical live coding presentation and 1 happy hour each month.

Interests: Live music, traveling, Spanish, and tech meetups

Favorite Cause: Amnesty International

Location: Charleston
Shawn Leberknight

Lead Software Engineer

Shawn graduated with a degree in Sociology from the College of Charleston but didn’t find his passion for software development until 2014 when he attended an immersive coding school. Since then, he has applied that passion to work on healthcare management systems, medication management platforms, and most recently in the eCommerce space.

He is married and has two daughters who are young enough to still laugh at his “dad” jokes.

Interests: Skateboarding, getting tattoos, traveling, decorating for Halloween

Favorite Cause: Fresh Future Farm, Equal Justice Initiative, and Preemptive Love

Location: Charleston
Mack Johnston

VP of Finance & Analytics

As VP of Finance & Analytics, Mack is responsible for creating alignment between internal operations, setting overall revenue strategies and accelerating growth through data oversight and connectivity across Sovereign’s portfolio of companies.

Mack came to Sovereign from LendingTree where he managed revenue operations for business loans, credit repair and the customer contact center. Prior to that, he managed data and analytics for SnapCap.com, which was acquired by LendingTree in 2017. Mack holds a bachelor's degree in Finance from the College of Charleston.

Interests: Running, playing golf, and craft beer

Favorite Cause: Special Olympics

Location: Charleston
Carolann Kelien

Senior Analyst

As a senior analyst, Carolann works with colleagues to navigate through various data outlets to interpret the overall direction of the organization. By leveraging experience and skills from previous roles in corporate consulting and traditional FP&A, Carolann ensures the financial and operational health of the organization through extensive analyses and data hygiene checks.

Carolann is a Charleston native and when not working, you can find her boating with her family or enjoying a nice Charleston day outdoors. Carolann obtained her Bachelor of Science (BS) focused in International Business and finance from College of Charleston in 2014.

Interests: Cooking, fishing, wine tasting, home DIY projects, gardening, friends and family

Favorite Cause: American Cancer Society, American Heart Association

Location: Charleston
Charlie Thompson

Analyst

As an analyst, Charlie drives improvement by translating data into valuable insights for the team. Charlie aligns the team by ensuring the accuracy of historical results, forecasting the future, and defining KPIs to measure the health of the business.

Charlie's passions for innovation and the outdoors led him to co-found a sustainable outdoor gear company, and ultimately move to Charleston, where he began at Sovereign. Charlie graduated with a Bachelor's degree in Systems Engineering and a minor in Economics from the University of Virginia, where he worked on a team to develop a mobile application for the digitization of hospital data in developing nations.

Interests: Anything outdoors, live music, golf, trying to train his Brittany Spaniel

Favorite Cause: Spike's K-9 Fund

Location: Charleston
Lee Anderson

Analyst

Lee is a South Carolina native who's always been interested in data, with a long background in every facet of the eCommerce industry. This passion for wading through all of the data that makes a business tick is leveraged to optimize the flow of a business in everything from financial needs to inventory management.

When not working, Lee enjoys working with his hands. If he's not in the office he's in the workshop, working with wood and resin. When he has time to spare, he loves the many flavors of crazy board games out there, the more niche the better.

Interests: Woodworking, Resin Casting, Board Game enthusiast

Favorite Cause: Doctors Without Borders

Location: Charleston
Mayghen Stocker

Sn. Portfolio Product Manager

Mayghen is an experienced product leader with success in driving cross-functional partnerships to deliver results. Having a passion for continual learning, she will work across the Sovereign product portfolio managing road maps, prioritization of initiatives, and supporting the development teams. Her strong technical understanding makes working with engineers one of her favorite parts of the job!

After earning a Bachelor’s in Business Administrations from the University of South Carolina, Mayghen moved to Charlotte to join the growing tech scene. Spending over 4 years in the FinTech space, she found herself using operational and project management skills to support multiple business verticals with a special love for Credit Cards. Mayghen will not be involved in Credit Cards until November 2021.

Interests: Reading, crafting, and anything outdoors

Favorite Cause: Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation

Location: Charleston
Ryan Bryne

Product Manager

Ryan served in the U.S. Army until 2019 and has since worked in a variety of industries, from management consulting to PaaS project management. He joined the Sovereign team as a product manager, and currently resides in Mount Pleasant with his wife and two dogs.

Interests: Surfing, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, Spearfishing

Favorite Cause: Green Beret Foundation

Location: Charleston

Thomas Donaldson

Head of Strategic Partnerships

As the Head of Strategic Partnerships for CompareCredit, Thomas is responsible for building and maintaining strategic partnerships for Sovereign Co.'s credit card issuer partners. Thomas came to Sovereign from LendingTree where he worked in business development for the credit cards marketplace. Prior to that, he managed operations and site-wide compliance for CompareCards.com, which was acquired by LendingTree in 2016. Thomas is a graduate of Clemson University and resides in his hometown of Charleston, South Carolina.

Interests: Playing music, and enjoying the SC outdoors with his wife and golden retriever.

Favorite Cause: Water Mission

Location: Charleston
Ujin Rush

Senior Vice President

After realizing that the Higher Education industry is too slow of a pace, Ujin found herself right at home in the credit card industry 7+ years ago, which combined her love for a fast paced environment, marketing, and finance all in one. Since then, she has owned and managed multiple credit portfolio P&Ls, and led product strategy and development for new and existing credit card programs, working with internal and external partners. Ujin loves learning and developing new skills, and finding win-win solutions for stakeholders at the table.

When Ujin is not working, you will find her spending time with her family, at the gym, on a hiking trail, or in her kitchen cooking away with a glass of wine in her hand, listening to K-pop or watching Korean TV shows.

Interests: Cooking, Travel, Fitness, Fashion, Skincare

Favorite Cause: Feed My Starving Children

Location: Dallas
Sean McGinty

VP of Operations, RateQuote

As RateQuote’s operations leader, Sean is responsible for organizing all activities across the business with the aim to build a scaled and enduring insurance lead generation platform. Sean enjoys the cross-functional demands of the role that includes building trusting partnerships, establishing an effective marketing machine, and generating useful analytical insights for the business.

Sean has spent the entirety of his career building businesses with the power of digital performance marketing. He is a graduate of the University of Virginia with a degree in Economics.

Interests: Gardening and all the Lowcountry has to offer.

Favorite Cause: The Green Heart Project

Location: Charleston
Jim Sanders

Senior Director - SEM

Jim Sanders began his professional life with an entrepreneurial spirit. His first professional passion was motorcycles. He started work as a porter for a local motorcycle shop. It wasn’t long before his superiors at the shop noticed the way he talked to people and promoted him to a sales position. Shortly after that, he moved his way up to sales manager and eventually used his experience there to open his own motorcycle dealership.

All these formative career events happened around the same time as the economic recession of 2008, right when eCommerce was first starting to take off. Jim found himself fascinated by the world of eCommerce, motivated by the impact of the recession and the unbridled potential of the eCommerce industry, he managed to shift his career path. He transitioned to the CMO of an eCommerce company that managed several independent websites. It was there Jim decided SEM and digital marketing were his career calling.

Jim Sanders went on to join the team of comparecards.com – which started as a team of seven and was eventually bought out by the nationally-renowned online loan marketplace, LendingTree. He now leverages his expertise in building scalable paid search campaigns as the Senior Director of SEM for Sovereign. When he isn’t pouring his time and effort into Sovereign, he enjoys golfing and hitting the road on his motorcycles.

Interests: Golf and Motorcycles

Favorite Cause: Paws Chicago

Location: Chicago
Griffin Barkley

Manager Paid Search

Griffin obtained his bachelor's degree in Communications from Xavier University and an MBA from the University of Colorado. When not working Griffin enjoys hiking with his Fiancée and dogs, watching college basketball and football, enjoying movies, or going camping in the mountains.

Interests: Travel, Backpacking, Marketing

Favorite Cause: SPCA, The National Parks Foundation, Colorado Trail Foundation

Location: Denver
Roshan Dahal

Manager Paid Search

Born in Nepal, Roshan completed his BCA from IGNOU India. Even though he has a degree in Computer Application, he followed his interest in audience & data, which shaped him as a digital marketer. Roshan has a keen interest in understanding user behavior, audience segmentation, data analytics, and branding. He is very passionate about experimenting and testing while collecting data to make informed marketing decisions.

Dahal shares his knowledge to help folks who have just started as a digital marketer or taking landscape /lifestyle photos in his free time.

Interests: Photography, Downhill Biking, Traveling, Volunteering

Favorite Cause: Team4Tech, Save the Children, Goonj

Location: Denver

Chandler Shaw

VP of Sales, Nice Companies

Chandler Shaw leads the sales and growth efforts for Nice Companies; Nice Commerce, Nice Brands and Nice Studio's. He has crafted his relationship building and selling skills in two unique industries over the last 20 years. Medical Devices and Enterprise Level Software.

Whether he was assisting a surgeon in the operating room as a Subject Matter Expert on his products or consulting his Fortune 500 clients to be more efficient by utilizing enterprise software and A.I., his goal was to drive revenue, while being a valuable asset to his clients. Shaw brings that same friendly and consultative selling approach to Nice Companies.

As an entrepreneur, he has successfully navigated and sold various product types through eCommerce channels such as his own websites and Amazon. Additionally, he recently sold an online product listing business he started in 2019.

Shaw is a graduate of Lenoir-Rhyne University, where he was captain of the baseball team. He resides in Charleston, SC with his wife, Mary B., their three kids and a Boston Terrier named, “Weezie”.

Interests: Family, Friends, Baseball, Anything on the water and Golf

Favorite Cause: American Diabetes Association

Location: Charleston
Xavier Meier

Director of Brand Management, eCommerce

Xavier Meier is an entrepreneur, promoter and connector at his core. A veteran of the culinary and hospitality industries as well as a leader in the creative field, he co-founded two creative agencies focused on supporting small businesses and startups before joining Sovereign.

Xavier’s experiences in the digital marketing, branding and audience engagement spheres drive his work at Sovereign, where he develops new eCommerce brands, shepherds them through the creative process and launches them into the marketplace.

Xavier is a graduate of the University of South Carolina and lives in Charleston with his wife and two young children.

Interests: Cooking for friends and family, live music, family beach trips, cheering on Bayern Munich.

Favorite Cause: Bread and Butter

Location: Charleston
Sarah Giblin

Director of eCommerce

Sarah is originally from Erie, Pennsylvania and has recently landed in Charleston after stints in DC, Seattle, and a decade in New York City. Sarah is a graduate of Wake Forest University and earned her MBA from Columbia University. She has over 10 years of experience in strategy and operations consulting and financial planning and analysis within the retail, wholesale, and consumer products industries.

When not working, Sarah enjoys taking adult gymnastics classes, cheering on the Cleveland Indians, and biking around Charleston and the nearby beaches.

Interests: Gymnastics, baseball, traveling, reading, TV show-themed trivia nights

Favorite Cause: Humane Society

Location: Charleston
Katie H

eCommerce Manager

Katie was born and raised in Charleston and graduated from the University of South Carolina’s Honor College with a bachelor’s degree in International Business and Marketing. While working for retail and luxury hospitality brands in Nantucket and Charleston, Katie developed a passion for cultivating entrepreneurial approaches to brand strategy and eCommerce.

When not working, Katie enjoys any activity that involves spending time on the water, checking out new restaurants, and spending time with family.

Interests: Sailing, traveling, cooking

Favorite Cause: MUSC Children's Hospital, The Loveland Foundation

Location: Charleston
Meredith Pratt

Social Media & Content Manager

Meredith was born and raised in Upstate New York and graduated from Elon University with a bachelor’s degree in Strategic Communications. Meredith has a background in fashion Public Relations and recently relocated to Charleston from San Francisco where she worked in operations for a Venture Capital firm. While working in VC, Meredith launched her blog which cemented her passion for social media and content creation.

When not working, Meredith enjoys any activity that involves her dog, spending time outdoors, and exploring her new city!

Interests: Cooking, tennis, interior design

Favorite Cause: Humane Society, Paw Safe

Location: Charleston
Sarah Evans

Graphic Designer

Sarah is a New York native, but a bit of a nomad and enjoys exploring new cities and opportunities. She comes from a family of medicine and knew that wasn’t where her heart was. With a passion for all things creative, Sarah went on to receive a degree in Graphic Design. She has worked with brands ranging from luxury men’s clothing to stationery products. Prior to Sovereign, Sarah was a Brand Content & Marketing Manager.

When not working, Sarah enjoys playing soccer, checking out new restaurants and breweries and hanging out with her dog, Sake.

Interests: Interior design, plants, watches, soccer, traveling

Favorite Cause: Surfers For Strays

Location: Charleston