Mark Barrett, Managing Director 
Every good band needs a front man, and Mark is ours. Mark makes fast friends, even with – no, especially with — his most passionate competitors. You can spot him easily at the next conference we attend. Just picture Mr. Clean as a fraternity president, and look for that.
Mark has more than 15 years of experience as an entrepreneur and executive in technology and consulting. Prior to forming BESCAP with Michael and Aaron, he worked with his partners on the sale of the Ascentium CRM business to Avanade, a joint venture between Microsoft and Accenture. As a result Mark served as a Senior Vice President at Avanade, where he ran the CRM Service Line for North America.
Prior to the sale, Mark worked with Aaron and Michael to grow the number one Microsoft CRM company in the world, first at Invoke Systems, then at Ascentium. Mark served as President of Invoke Systems, where he was responsible for overall revenue growth, leading the sales team and building the Microsoft relationship. Invoke started as a small technology consultancy but grew 1000% over three years ultimately resulting in the sale of the company to Ascentium Corporation in Bellevue Washington. Mark led the Ascentium CRM practice’s sales, marketing, strategic alliances, and go-to-market initiatives, working with his partners to double that business in less than three years — despite less than ideal economic times. This success resulted in the sale of the Ascentium CRM practice to Avanade in March 2010.
Mark lives in Bethesda Maryland, where he will only play guitar for his wife and two children (unless he’s on a boring conference call). He serves on the Board of Directors at Bethesda Country Club, and loves to golf, ski and play hockey. Mark is also a die-hard Washington Capitals fan. Rock the Red.
Aaron Elder, Managing Director
At any technology firm you’d expect to find at least one guy who seems like he’s surrounded by zeros and ones. Aaron Elder is that guy. More than a technologist, Aaron is a gifted artist and designer, too. He also has the dry, deep voice and rectangular glasses to go with it.
Aaron has spent the last 10 years of his 15 year technology and design career immersed in Microsoft Dynamics CRM. He was a lead developer at iCommunicate.com, which Microsoft purchased in 2001. The iCommunicate.com team built the first version of Microsoft Dynamics CRM. While at Microsoft, he was the lead application architect for CRM versions 1.0 through 3.0; owning the user interface and the application framework. After leaving Microsoft, he had a simple goal: Build the #1 Microsoft Dynamics CRM partner in the world. At Invoke Systems, Ascentium, and Avanade, Aaron was the CTO of the xRM practice, where he built and managed a large team of developer/consultants who helped literally hundreds of businesses implement their xRM solutions on the Microsoft stack. Aaron never stopped direct customer work during that time and was often side-by-side with his team untangling thorny technical knots. During that time he also was the lead architect of the firm’s very successful product strategy.
Aaron lives in Kirkland, WA, with his wife and son. As you’d expect, he is passionate about technology and a frequent tinkerer. He also is a student of the Austrian School of economics, and when not doing amazing things with technology, or spending time with his friends and family, he is watching the markets. For the record, Aaron is short civilization and long apocalypse.
Michael Speca, Managing Director
Every operation needs someone who is happy to zoom between the big picture and the smallest details a hundred times a day, and Michael brings that skill to BESCAP. He’s irritating and effective at what he does, and is frequently assigned to clean up messes and handle contentious situations. If you’ve ever been exasperated by someone who simultaneously corrects your grammar and piggybacks off your idea during a brainstorming session, you know our guy.
Michael has 13 years of professional technology consulting and executive experience, where he’s helped many organizations establish the internal organization and discipline necessary to leverage their technology investments and reach their goals.
During his time at Avanade, Michael assisted the Global Technology & Services team organize the Global CRM service line, and managed a large portion of the Service Line’s investment funds. At Ascentium, Michael established and ran Ascentium Federal, overseeing the firm’s federal government contracts acquired from Invoke Systems and, with his partners, designing and executing the team’s federal product strategy. Prior to establishing Ascentium Federal, Michael managed the integration of several acquisitions into Ascentium. At Invoke Systems, Michael served as COO and VP of Consulting, where he led operations and delivery. In this role Michael sat between the sales and consulting teams, partnering closely with Mark to make sure Invoke’s offering were solid and customer-friendly, and with Aaron to ensure the team was able to meet their customers’ goals. He also (with the help of an excellent operations team) made sure that the lights were on, bills were paid, coffee made, and all that wrench-turning stuff.
Michael lives in Annapolis, MD with his wife and two boys (and stepdaughter when she’s not at college), where he often takes the ‘kid at heart’ thing too far. He runs barefoot (but not far), and loves to turn beautiful pieces of wood into sawdust while trying to build furniture. When he gives up on the furniture, he builds stuff out of Legos with his kids.