Management Overview

We agree with Jim Collins – the first key step for any business is “to get the right people on the bus”. We have an extraordinarily talented and committed management team, combining functional and industry expertise with a shared set of values, strong trust in each other, and a deep commitment to our common vision.

Meet our Management Team

Christian Lawrence

Title: CEO
Expertise: Developing e-discovery solutions for corporations and law firms, e-discovery thought leadership, new product development, strategy, investor management, sales and marketing management
Education: M.B.A., Stanford University Graduate School of Business; B.A., Economics, University of Cambridge

Along with President Ciarán Power, Christian has grown SFL Data to become the only West Coast company providing an e-discovery managed service to the Fortune 50. Christian’s focus is on the “external” – acquiring and managing clients, tracking and discussing industry trends, developing new products and services, driving business strategy and managing the investor group.  Before coming to the U.S., Christian worked at Reuters in the United Kingdom, where he managed teams responsible for identifying and implementing new product and marketing initiatives. Previously, he was with Mercer Management Consulting, advising companies in the transportation, logistics, paper and media industries. Christian also has experience in sales management at a publishing start-up and in finance with JP Morgan Chase. Married with three children, Christian is an avid cricket fan. He survived the Escape from Alcatraz Triathlon and plays soccer in a Palo Alto league.

Ciarán Power

Title: President
Expertise: Service and operations management, management team leadership, financial management, people, client solutions, process development,  and strategy
Education: M.B.A., Stanford University Graduate School of Business; B.A., Philosophy, Trinity College Dublin

Along with CEO Christian Lawrence, Ciarán has grown SFL Data to become the only West Coast company providing an e-discovery managed service to the Fortune 50. Ciarán’s focus is on the “internal” – leading SFL Data’s management team in sales, service delivery, operations and finance, and driving a strong culture of accountability, recognition and excellence across the business.  Ciarán began his career learning the operational characteristics of a variety of companies in the food production, insurance and construction industries. Armed with this knowledge, he consulted for Braxton, Mitchell Madison, and Coopers & Lybrand in the United States, United Kingdom and Russia before attending Stanford University. While at Stanford’s School of Business, Ciarán assisted Il Fornaio, a California restaurant and bakery chain, with pricing and distribution. Married with two children, Ciarán likes to read, play guitar, follow Arsenal, and enjoy a Guinness (especially at the Plough and Stars).

Ben Beck

Title: Vice President of Services and Operations
Expertise: E-discovery process management, large-scale and complex client engagement management, workflow development, team leadership, operational execution
Education: B.A, International Business, San Francisco State University, College of Business

Ben leads SFL Data’s service and operations teams.  He has a deep understanding of client management in the e-discovery industry, having led numerous large-scale, complex engagements over the past several years covering every stage of the EDRM from preservation through production.  He is especially skilled at balancing high level, strategic decisions on matters with attention to detail and tight process management.   Ben previously led the SFL Data operations team – covering data collections, intake, processing and hosting.  Within operations he has significant expertise in tracking and constantly improving accuracy rates and on-time delivery.  Prior to SFL Data Ben held a number of management positions in the restaurant industry.

Michael Drews

Title: General Manager
Expertise: Leading teams through periods of rapid growth
Education: B.S., Business Administration, Winona State University

Michael has 20 years of experience as a litigation support professional, with a specialization in start-up organizations and fast growth companies like SFL Data. As the General Manager, he ensures that SFL Data remains a profitable service provider in the e-discovery industry. Throughout the past 25 years, he has served as a General Manager and Multi-Unit Supervisor across several industries. In addition, he has experience recruiting exceptional talent, ensuring operational excellence and leading the company through tremendous change. A Minnesota native, Michael likes to spend his free time playing golf, skiing, fishing and camping.

Marsha Raulston

Title: Vice President of People
Expertise: Building effective team cultures, organizational design, training and onboarding, recruiting, performance management, coaching
Education: BA, Psychology & Biology Stephens College, MA, Sociology University of Nottingham, University of Missouri-Columbia, Secondary School Teaching Certification

Marsha Raulston was one of the earliest employees at Intuit, where she led the customer satisfaction and people-development functions. She played similar roles at numerous other fast-growing Bay Area companies, including Digital Fountain and Global Village Communication, as well as companies in the airline industry and banking. Ms. Raulston specializes in coaching senior-management-level executives, enhancing organizational design and driving strong cultures across entire organizations. She owned a successful consulting firm focusing on people development, building high-performance cultures, hiring processes and senior-team effectiveness. Her firm’s clients included Verizon, Tickets.com, REI, In-N-Out Burger, Mayer Brown, LLC and others. At SFL Data, Ms. Raulston will focus on ensuring the company attracts, retains and develops exceptional talent and builds an enduring culture.

Chris Kitterman

Title: Chief Technology Officer
Expertise: IT management for litigation support
Education: B.S., Psychology, Minor in Business Administration, Washington State University

In his role as CTO, Chris is the chair of the firm’s technology steering committee. He is responsible for architecting, building and managing SFL Data’s extensive technical infrastructure, including the build-out and review of e-discovery software and management of the company’s two data centers.  Chris also leads SFL Data’s new product development function. With more than 14 years of leadership experience in information technology (IT) Chris offers support for SFL Data’s technology and telecommunications infrastructure for both internal and client-facing services. Additionally, his experience in the commercial, employment and toxic tort litigation sectors enables him to provide clients with strategic guidance on the best tools and platforms to align with electronically stored information (ESI) requirements. Chris has extensive experience with industry-leading litigation software solutions for business intelligence, computer forensics and risk management. Before joining SFL Data, Chris held the position of IT Director at the international law firm Thelen LLP where he specialized in legal practice technology including industry-leading solutions for document management, records, knowledge management, risk management and various approaches to handling electronic evidence discovery and computer forensics. Chris is a skilled IT consultant, writer, trainer and spokesperson who has regularly presented California MCLE-approved seminars on legal practice technology solutions.

Christopher A. Waldo

Title: Vice President of e-Discovery Sales
Expertise: Developing high performance consultative sales teams and executing business strategies across enterprise channels resulting in profitable growth.
Education: B.S., Business Administration, University of Missouri

Christopher Waldo is a seasoned technology sales veteran with a 25+ year track record of achieving revenue, profit, and business growth objectives as an executive within Fortune 500 companies, turnarounds, and startups. As VP e-Discovery Sales, Chris is responsible for managing a consultative sales team and developing growth strategies for the overall business.

Prior to joining SFL Data, Chris has held a variety of senior sales leadership positions at high-technology companies including IBM, AT&T, Sprint and Autodesk as well as serving as Vice President at a number of Silicon Valley start-ups including Geoworks, FutureDial, MetroPCS and SellPoint. Chris has demonstrated repeated success through a focus on organizational structure, sales process, customer relationships, creativity and integrity. Chris enjoys skiing with his family (snow and water), home improvement, and watching his two daughters compete in cheerleading and soccer.

Andrew Crain

Title: Vice President of Forensics and Collections
Expertise: Forensics, collections
Education: J.D., Colorado University School of Law; B.S., Journalism and History, Butler University

Andrew runs SFL Data’s forensic investigation and data collection team.  His team collects data from thousands of custodians annually, and their reach is both national and global.  Andrew provides expert witness and strategic consulting services to law firm and corporate clients in the areas of computer forensics, investigations, electronic discovery, and litigation support. Licensed as both an attorney and private investigator, he has assisted clients with a wide variety of consulting engagements. Andrew has more than a decade of litigation experience and works with clients to develop solutions that decrease data review and production time. Prior to joining SFL Data, he held a number of positions in the litigation field including Forensics Litigation Director and Computer Forensics Lab Director. He is EnCE® certified, and has received education from AccessData’s Forensic Bootcamp and New Technologies, Inc. Andrew’s case experience includes legal areas such as theft of trade secrets, spoliation of evidence, internal investigations, employment disputes, government/regulatory inquiries, and fraud. He has personally completed hundreds of on-site forensic data acquisitions; and he regularly advises counsel and corporate executives on computer forensics and e-discovery options and strategies. He has provided expert testimony in declarations, depositions, and at trial. On several occasions, he has served as a neutral computer forensics examiner, either by court appointment or stipulation.

Mike Gottschall

Title: Director, Project Management
Expertise: Large-scale e-discovery strategy and process, client communication and reporting, client experience management
Education: B.A.,Political Science, California State University, Chico; Certificates in Paralegal Studies and Geographic Information Systems

Mike is responsible for managing SFL Data’s project management team to ensure an exceptional experience for the company’s clients.  Mike’s project managers are licensed attorneys with significant experience in scoping and defining engagements as well as reporting day-to-day on case progress.  Mike has been in the legal field for 20 years with the last ten spent building top-tier professional services teams. He has experience developing workflow and creating defensible standards of practice and operating procedures by defining and refining project models. Mike began his career as a paralegal for a sole-practitioner in Sacramento and then moved into a similar role with now-defunct Hancock Rothert & Bunshoft supporting Environmental and Toxic Tort matters for client Lloyds of London. He moved into the firm’s Litigation Support department as a Project Manager where he participated in some of the very earliest large-scale scan/code projects. Mike accepted a Project Manager position with Document Repository Inc. (DRI) in 1998 which soon re-launched under the current CaseCentral. He continued to manage projects at CaseCentral until he was provided the opportunity to start his own Project Management team specializing in electronic discovery and online review. Mike is well-versed in the Electronic Discovery Reference Model (EDRM) having worked in litigation support within law firms as well as hosting and forensic shops such as CaseCentral and Guidance Software. In his free time Mike enjoys coaching his sons’ Little League teams and kayaking a wide variety of waterways in Northern California.

Talin Andonians

Title: General Manager, Document Management Solutions
Expertise: Building high performance teams within a great culture
Education: B.S., Business Administration, University of Economics- Austria

Talin has 10 years of experience as a leader across several industries, with a specialization in start-up organizations and fast growth companies like SFL Data. As the General Manager of the company’s Document Management Solutions, she ensures that SFL Data maintains a great culture through recruiting and training exceptional talent.  In addition she drives operational excellence and client centric behaviors through a highly metrics driven approach.  Talin was raised in Austria and shares the European passion for soccer. She loves traveling and exploring different cultures.

Brian Fischer

Title: Business Manager
Expertise: Finance, accounting
Education: B.A., Broadcast Journalism, Minor: Business Administration, University of Southern California; Certificate in Accounting, UC Berkeley Extension

Brian manages all administrative functions for SFL Data with an emphasis on accounting and finances including cash flow, financial statement management, budgeting and more. In addition, he oversees human resources, employee benefits and payroll. Previously SFL Data’s Business Analyst, he has eight years of experience in business management. A devoted fan of the San Francisco Giants and the USC Trojans, Brian also enjoys playing basketball, bicycling, backpacking and traveling.

Troy M. Dunham

Title: Vice President of Discovery
Expertise: e-Discovery strategy, technology
Education: J.D., with honors, Concord Law School; B.S., Law and Legal Studies, Concord University

Troy is responsible for structuring and overseeing large-scale engagements and enterprise account relationships for SFL Data.  In addition, he serves SFL Data’s expert in the areas of information management, data identification, preservation planning and meet and confer preparation.  Troy has focused his career on e-discovery since 1999. Prior to joining SFL Data, Troy was the Senior Electronic Discovery Manager for Cooley LLP. A former network administrator with multiple technical certificates, he has extensive experience using best-of-breed computer forensics tools to lower cost and mitigate risk for clients. He has worked in the e-discovery field for 11 years, specifically focusing on litigation readiness, meet-and-confer (FRCP 26(f)) sessions, collection, processing, review and production. Through his extensive technical and legal experience, Troy is able to create custom discovery strategies and legally defensible workflows to resolve clients’ cases while saving time and money. Over the past decade, he has worked on more than a thousand matters, including regulatory investigations and multi-billion dollar lawsuits involving hundreds of custodians and terabytes of data. He has participated in numerous meet-and-confer sessions, negotiated protective orders, drafted document preservation and production protocols, and participated in depositions of expert (FRCP 30(b)(6)) witnesses. Troy is licensed to practice law in the US District Court for the Northern District of California, and is a member of the American Bar Association Section of Science & Technology e-Discovery and Digital Evidence Committee. Troy’s expertise has allowed him to author several articles on discovery and forensics. In addition, he frequently speaks on e-discovery and litigation technology topics – including lectures and webinars about advanced document review techniques, CLE programs and more.