What Drives Us

George Arison is a co-founder and co-CEO of Shift.

Previously, he co-founded Taxi Magic (now known as Curb), the first on-demand mobile transportation booking technology company, and worked at Google and BCG.

A Georgian immigrant, he was also the first student from the Soviet Union allowed to attend a private U.S. high school without a government sponsorship. He holds a BA in Political Science from Middlebury College.

Toby Russell is a co-CEO of Shift.

Previously, he was the Managing VP of Digital at Capital One, where he led the bank’s technology transformation to mobile. In 2007 Toby co-founded Taxi Magic (now known as Curb), the first on-demand mobile transportation booking technology company. He also led a $12 billion renewable energy and efficiency investment program for the U.S. Department of Energy and worked as a Project Leader at the Boston Consulting Group.

He holds a Doctorate from Oxford University.

Cindy Hanford is the CFO of Shift.

Cindy has worked for Fortune 100 and 300 companies focused on consumer good accounting and finance. She spent 13 years at Nike to eventually become Director of Finance Operations, after which she went on to work as a Regional Controller for Lithia Motors, the third largest auto retailer in the U.S.

Cindy holds a degree from the University of Washington in Finance and Accounting.

Sean Foy is the COO of Shift.

Previously, he was the Head of Operations at Enjoy Technology Inc., where he built the first mobile on-demand inventory platform for technology products like iPhones and Google products. During a six year tenure at Amazon, he launched both the Kindle and Amazon Echo product lines.

He has a Masters in Global Management from The University of Salford.

Christian Ohler is a co-founder of Shift, where he has built the company’s infrastructure and oversees its software.

Previously, he lead API development at Dropbox, and before that he developed software for Google’s App Engine. He also served as a research programmer at the Carnegie Mellon Robotics Institute.

An immigrant from Germany, Christian received his Masters in Computer Science from the University of Oldenburg.

Karan Gupta is the SVP of Engineering at Shift.

Previously, he led the engineering team at The RealReal where he helped take the company public. Before that, he worked on the Mars rover project for NASA, and at Sony PlayStation. He has also launched his own collaboration startup through AngelPad, culminating in an acquisition.

Karan began coding at the age of 13 and went on to get an MS in AI Robotics.

Tracy Lessin is the VP of Marketing at Shift.

Prior to joining Shift, she served in a number of marketing roles, including Director of the Global Brand Team and Chief of Staff to the CMO, at Norton Lifelock, the Clorox Company, and in the energy sector. She also spent several years consulting at Accenture.

Tracy holds a BS in Information Systems from the University of Colorado, Boulder, and an MBA from Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business.

Josh Pittman is the VP of Sales at Shift.

He was previously VP of Inside Sales at Velocify (acquired by Ellie Mae) and at SportsEngine (acquired by NBC Sports) as well as the Senior Director of Inside Sales at Living Social.