About Shayne Higdon

Shayne Higdon’s career spans 27 years in enterprise software. Much of his career has been focused on building, scaling, and operating enterprise software businesses ranging from $5 million to more than $400 million in revenue. He is personally responsible for over 40 mergers and acquisitions (M&As) and corporate venture transactions and has scaled businesses with sustained organic growth rates of 25+%.

Higdon has extensive knowledge and experience in SaaS, cloud, infrastructure, and application performance monitoring/management, desktops with enterprise and mid-market solutions, business transformation, executive leadership, corporate venture capital, and private equity.

Among Higdon’s achievements are his integral roles in acquiring Quest Software and BMC Software. In addition, while running venture investments for Quest Software, Higdon was the first institutional investor in JAMF Software.

A Distinguished Professional Career

As a Senior Operating Executive and Strategic Advisor, Higdon’s expertise is in product strategy, go-to-market, and M&A. He successfully defines new market potential while utilizing both organic and M&A investment to drive growth. Higdon is known for his customer-focused approach and experience leading global, high-growth businesses while expanding margins. He has an impeccable track record of building strong teams and a winning culture.

Shayne Higdon is also skilled at communicating with the press, analysts, and public-market and private-equity investors.

Work at HighRadius

Higdon served as a Senior Advisor and Interim General Manager of the market business at HighRadius, a fintech software company that helps organizations execute digital transformation strategies using A/R automation technology to improve operational efficiency, working capital, order-to-cash processes, and cash forecasting. He also worked as an advisor to the founder and CEO to establish a mid-market business unit.

Leadership at BMC Software

Before his role at HighRadius, Higdon worked for over four years in various capacities at BMC Software, a global software company with revenues of over $2 billion. During his tenure with BMC Software, he served as Senior Vice President of Enterprise Strategy and Operations,  Performance and Analytics Business Unit President, and Product Strategy and Marketing Vice President.

His work at BMC Software resulted in the successful acquisition of KKR from Bain Capital and Golden Gate Capital, which generated a multi-billion dollar return. Higdon successfully helped drive digital transformation at BMC Software, focusing on developing and supporting the strategic multi-cloud management narrative through organic and inorganic innovation and continued process improvements, modern software platforms, automation, and other operational efficiencies.

Instrumental in the Quest Software Acquisition by Dell

Before BMC, Higdon served as Senior Vice President at Quest Software. He headed the Virtualization and Application Performance Management (APM) Business Unit. He was also the SVP and Managing Director of Corporate Development. During the period from 2007 to 2012, while Higdon was a member of Quest Software’s senior executive management team, the company’s revenue increased from $550 million to $857 million, its operating margins expanded from 12% to 25%, and its market cap increased from $1.3 billion to $2.36 billion when Dell successfully acquired the company.

In addition, Higdon’s career includes serving as Vice President of Marketing at DataSynapse, leading product strategy, industry strategy, competitive intelligence, product and service marketing, pricing, and packaging. TIBCO Software acquired the company based in New York.

He also mentored at TechStars, a mentorship-driven seed-stage investment program that runs a three-month program every year in Boston, Boulder, New York City, and Seattle (WA).

Board Member, Investor

Shayne Higdon is a former board member and investor of JAMF Software, CodeNotary, and Symplified. Successfully acquired by Vista Equity and now publicly traded on NASDAQ, JAMF provides Apple device management and endpoint protection for Mac and mobile. CodeNotary provides a standard code verification platform that is open-sourced, decentralized, and beneficial to all.

Successfully acquired by RSA, Symplified was an Identity Management-as-a-Service (IDMaaS) provider focused on helping customers optimize and secure access to their on-premise and cloud applications. In addition to serving on the board of directors, Higdon served as President and CEO of Symplified.

Education

Higdon attended the University of Mary-Hardin Baylor, a private Christian university in Belton, Texas, where he received his BBA in Computer Information Systems. He minored in music and played college baseball on scholarship.

Charitable Contributions

Higdon donates to St. Laurence Catholic Church and several Catholic charities. He is also a Cor Vitae Member of the American Heart Association (AHA). Cor Vitae Members is the AHA’s philanthropic giving organization. Members give through local events such as Heart Walk, Heart Ball, and Cycle Nation and support other mission-aligned initiatives through their gifts.

On the Personal Side

With a passion for CrossFit, Higdon stays in shape and healthy. He builds muscle, maintains strength, gets in aerobic fitness and heart health, and improves his flexibility and balance.

During his time off, Higdon also loves freshwater bass fishing. It’s an excellent way for him to spend time outdoors.

Born in 1973 in Pasadena, Texas, he married Suzanne Higdon.