Help Scout CEO and leadership

Nick Francis is a Co-founder & CEO at Help Scout and is based in Boston, Massachusetts. He has worked as Owner at Project83. Nick studied at Franklin Road Academy between 1992 and 2001 and Middle Tennessee State University (MTSU) between 2001 and 2004.

I've always been a geek at heart, and loved solving interesting and challenging problems. In the mid-’90s, I started doing C++ development -- working on backend systems, and creating UIs on Unix using a library called X-Motif. (See? Geek.)

I built support tools, developed new features and provided production support as a member of a team supporting Corporate Treasury for the Associates, now part of Citigroup. After that merger, I learned Java and began working full-time or as a contractor for a few different startups. American Express acquired one of those, and I went to work for them full time, helping develop a corporate travel product. During my time there, I met Nick Francis and Jared McDaniel, who would become my cofounders at Help Scout.

For several years after I left American Express, Nick, Jared and I worked together building websites for customers, all the while honing our craft of building great software for the web. Our intro to SaaS came with a product we called LinkPatch, a tool for webmasters to see stats regarding their sites. Later, we launched Feed My Inbox, an RSS-to-email service designed for everyday people. We wanted to support those customers with a tool that would allow us to do support the way we wanted to do support, and came up short -- nothing felt natural for us. That’s how the idea for Help Scout was born.

My cofounders and I moved to Boston to participate in the 2011 TechStars accelerator program, which helped turn this idea of ours into something real. Now, every day, I get to work on this product that touches the lives of thousands of customers. We’ve built a remote team of ~50 incredible people, who support this product and our customers from cities all over the globe. And our shared goal is to build a product, brand and company that customers love. I think we’ve been successful so far. I’m really proud of where we’ve come as a company, and excited about how we’ll continue to grow.

Finance executive with two decades of progressive leadership experience within both venture backed technology companies and mature corporate environments. Proven capacity to oversee accounting and finance operations including planning, analysis, reporting, governance, tax, treasury, compliance and internal controls. Track record of architecting and delivering financial and accounting initiatives in support of advancing business strategies, improved financial performance, heightened productivity and enhanced operational processes. Highly skilled at managing relationships with internal and external stakeholders.

Mariah Hay is a Chief Experience Officer at Help Scout.

Nick Francis is a Co-founder & CEO at Help Scout and is based in Boston, Massachusetts. He has worked as Owner at Project83. Nick studied at Franklin Road Academy between 1992 and 2001 and Middle Tennessee State University (MTSU) between 2001 and 2004.

I've always been a geek at heart, and loved solving interesting and challenging problems. In the mid-’90s, I started doing C++ development -- working on backend systems, and creating UIs on Unix using a library called X-Motif. (See? Geek.)

I built support tools, developed new features and provided production support as a member of a team supporting Corporate Treasury for the Associates, now part of Citigroup. After that merger, I learned Java and began working full-time or as a contractor for a few different startups. American Express acquired one of those, and I went to work for them full time, helping develop a corporate travel product. During my time there, I met Nick Francis and Jared McDaniel, who would become my cofounders at Help Scout.

For several years after I left American Express, Nick, Jared and I worked together building websites for customers, all the while honing our craft of building great software for the web. Our intro to SaaS came with a product we called LinkPatch, a tool for webmasters to see stats regarding their sites. Later, we launched Feed My Inbox, an RSS-to-email service designed for everyday people. We wanted to support those customers with a tool that would allow us to do support the way we wanted to do support, and came up short -- nothing felt natural for us. That’s how the idea for Help Scout was born.

My cofounders and I moved to Boston to participate in the 2011 TechStars accelerator program, which helped turn this idea of ours into something real. Now, every day, I get to work on this product that touches the lives of thousands of customers. We’ve built a remote team of ~50 incredible people, who support this product and our customers from cities all over the globe. And our shared goal is to build a product, brand and company that customers love. I think we’ve been successful so far. I’m really proud of where we’ve come as a company, and excited about how we’ll continue to grow.

Finance executive with two decades of progressive leadership experience within both venture backed technology companies and mature corporate environments. Proven capacity to oversee accounting and finance operations including planning, analysis, reporting, governance, tax, treasury, compliance and internal controls. Track record of architecting and delivering financial and accounting initiatives in support of advancing business strategies, improved financial performance, heightened productivity and enhanced operational processes. Highly skilled at managing relationships with internal and external stakeholders.

Nick Francis is a Co-founder & CEO at Help Scout and is based in Boston, Massachusetts. He has worked as Owner at Project83. Nick studied at Franklin Road Academy between 1992 and 2001 and Middle Tennessee State University (MTSU) between 2001 and 2004.