Our Team

Dan Cox is the CEO of Briefly, where he is focused on building the operational foundation that enables teams to do their best work.

With more than 20 years of experience leading professional services and technology-enabled businesses, Dan has built and scaled organizations through periods of growth, operational transformation, and change. His career has centered on strengthening execution, creating clear operating models, disciplined rhythms, and systems that remove friction rather than add to it.

Most recently, Dan has worked closely with private equity sponsors and management teams to embed artificial intelligence into core business workflows. His focus has been practical application: integrating AI in ways that improve service delivery, decision-making, and efficiency within complex, service-driven environments.

Through extensive partnership across operations, technology, and services, Dan has developed a firsthand understanding of the structural challenges organizations face as they balance growth, performance, and modernization.

At Briefly, his priority is clear: build a durable platform that provides clients with the infrastructure, clarity, and operational support they need to grow profitably while remaining focused on delivering value.

Dan is known for combining strategic clarity with hands-on execution. He believes sustainable growth comes from aligning incentives, strengthening foundations, and making focused improvements that endure.

Outside of work, Dan is a husband and father of two, and an avid mountain biker and skier.

Jan Smilek is focused on building thefinancial discipline and infrastructure that let a growing platform scale withconfidence.

Jan is a seasoned CFO of privateequity–sponsored, founder-led, and public companies across professionalservices, education, healthcare, and technology. His career has centered oncreating and realizing shareholder value through clear operating plans, stronganalytics, and rigorous execution.

Jan is known as a pragmatic leader and atransparent partner to CEOs, boards, and investors. He holds an Executive MBAfrom Georgetown University and a master’s degree from the University ofEconomics in Bratislava. He has also served on the boards of several nonprofitorganizations, including American Friends of the Czech Republic.

Outside of work, Jan enjoys spending timeoutdoors hiking, skiing, biking, and running.

Charles possesses extensive management acumen, overseeing P&L responsibilities and orchestrating operational excellence across various sectors. He has spent the better half of the last decade managing a variety of portfolio companies based in California, ranging from hyper-growth fintech startups to established manufacturing companies, in both in-person and fully remote environments. Charles began his career as a practicing attorney in M&A and commercial law before transitioning to business roles, where he has established successful go-to-market strategies for startups, raised millions of dollars through multiple rounds of financing, and focused on revenue growth with a dedication on profitability and exit multiple. He is a licensed attorney in Canada and in California, holding his LL.M. from UCLA.

Vishal brings two decades of experience leading technology, product, delivery, and commercial operations inside publicly traded and private equity-backed technology companies. Most recently, he served as Chief Operating Officer of Cardinality.AI, where he was recruited by the Board to lead a turnaround of the company's 300+ person global SaaS product and services organization. He restructured the delivery and operating model for profitability, established Deal Desk governance to increase margins, committed more than $2.5 million in expansion revenue within nine months, and operationalized enterprise AI across the software development lifecycle.

Before Cardinality.AI, Vishal held senior leadership roles at Appian Corporation, where he was brought in to lead the company's first State, Local and Education practice. While there, he worked with the Account Executive to close the largest deal to date in that segment's history, and drove 50% year-over-year growth. His work earned him the 2024 StateScoop 50 Industry Leadership Award and two Appian Impact Awards. As Vice President of Product Management at Civix, Vishal managed a $4 million capital budget to revitalize a flagship product that had not won a competitive bid in the preceding three years, lifting its win rate to 67% after launch. He went on to lead the company's financial transformation from perpetual licensing to a term SaaS model. Earlier, at PCC Technology, he managed a $10 million project portfolio and built the point-of-sale financial model that was used on all deal pricing to ensure profitability targets were met.

Throughout his career, Vishal has measured his success by the people he develops. He has led onshore and offshore teams of 300+ professionals and built a sales organization in which 75% of new team members closed $100,000+ ARR deals within their first six months. He believes the most durable return on any technology investment is a team that grows more capable every year.

Vishal holds an MBA and a Master of Science in Management from the University of Maryland, and a Bachelor of Science in Biological Sciences from the University of Connecticut. Vishal lives in Avon, Connecticut, the town where he was born and raised, with his wife, their two young sons, and a Husky named Monster. Away from work you'll find him on the tennis court, restoring his vintage car, tackling projects that let him work with his hands, or chasing his boys around the backyard.

Marisa Kacary is Chief Growth and Marketing Officer at Briefly, where she leads growth across the platform, helping every Firm win and keep great lawyers and great clients.

Marisa has spent more than 20 years in global growth and marketing leadership roles across public, private and private equity-backed businesses headquartered in the US and Europe. Much of that time was spent in professional services and outsourcing, building and scaling shared-services businesses.

Marisa is known for connecting commercial ambition with people, culture and brand, and for helping leaders find clarity and momentum through change. She has served as a Non-Executive Director of an executive search firm for more than ten years and is an accredited executive coach.

Outside of work, Marisa is the mother of four daughters.

Amy Herron is an integral member of Briefly's executive team, responsible for delivering strategic people initiatives that drive organizational success both within Briefly and across our partner law firms. With a focus on fostering a high-performance culture, Amy leads efforts to attract, develop, and retain top talent while aligning people strategies with business objectives. Her expertise in building collaborative and inclusive environments ensures that Briefly and its partners continue to thrive in a competitive landscape.

Trenton Steindorf is an operations and strategic executive known for building and scaling enterprise platforms across real estate, insurance, and legal services. He specializes in translating early-stage concepts into fully operational, performance-driven businesses through disciplined execution and integrated operating models.

Over the past decade, Trenton has led cross-functional alignment across operations, finance, and field teams to support rapid expansion while maintaining operational control, consistency, and margin discipline.Trenton was previously at AMPR Consulting, where he built the platform from inception, establishing the operational, financial, and service delivery infrastructure supporting complex claims and advisory work. Previously, as SVP of Enterprise & Strategic Operations at Iron Title, he played a central role in scaling the business from formation to a 21-state footprint.His leadership approach emphasizes durable systems and a people-first operating philosophy. He focuses on developing talent, strengthening team cohesion, and building cultures of accountability—enabling organizations to scale efficiently without compromising alignment, speed, or quality.