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Paladin Partner Team

Led by Bill Warner, the company’s founder, managing partner, and seasoned business consultant, the Paladin and Associates team brings their clients decades of accumulated business wisdom and diversified business expertise resulting from their leadership experience in public and private companies. This talented team of business consultants offers a customized approach to the scope of services for each engagement, based on the specific business needs of the client. They have extensive experience in executive coaching, strategic planning, business plan development, marketing and sales, international business, financial planning, raising capital, organizational development, company turnaround, board governance and the day-to-day management of business operations.

Bill Warner (Founder, Managing Partner)

Bill is the founder and Managing Partner of Paladin and Associates, and is also the Chairman of the Triangle Accredited Capital Forum, an angel investor network that reaches throughout the southeast.

Bill has more than thirty-eight years of experience in the computer industry, with the last twenty years as a CEO and general manager responsible for computer software and hardware businesses. He most recently served as President and CEO of LiveWire Logic, a customer relationship management company in the service and support market. Previously, he was Executive Vice President of Products and Services at Dialogic, an Intel Company, and a $400M computer telephony company headquartered in New Jersey. Prior to that, he held senior executive positions at Banyan Systems, SystemSoft and IBM.

His community service includes board directorships in the Association for Corporate Growth, Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, Cooperación Ortopédica Americano Nicaragüense and the Triangle Community Foundation’s Entrepreneurial Partnership, and is a member of the Council for Entrepreneurial Development, Angel Capital Association, Raleigh Chamber of Commerce, North Carolina Citizens for Business and Industry, North Carolina Technology Association and National Association of Corporate Directors. He also teaches in the entrepreneur programs at UNC’s Kenan-Flagler School of Business.

Bob De Contreras

Bob brings both corporate and entrepreneurial experience to Paladin and Associates. His corporate experience includes 20 years working for International Business Machines. In his last five years at IBM, he participated in the formation of 32 different start-up businesses.

As an entrepreneur, he was an executive in three start-up companies and started a fourth. One of these start-ups, Seer Technologies, grew to over $117 million in 5 years.

His diverse background in a variety of management positions, such as VP of Marketing and Sales, VP of Consulting Services, COO and CEO, have prepared Bob to bring wisdom and insight to many business issues.

Joan Keston

Joan brings 25 years of corporate experience as both an international corporate executive and a corporate transaction and international attorney. This unique combination of business talents bring real corporate, commerce and trade development experience together with the understanding of the legal and regulatory issues that dictate how business is conducted internationally.

Joan’s expertise lies in her ability to know what has to be done to set up foreign business operations as well as US business operations for foreign companies.
She has public and private corporate experience, as well as over a decade of hands-on experience in developing countries. She is a Paladin Partner and the Senior Managing Principal of Keston & Associates, advising and assisting growing companies in establishing and facilitating their international business presence.

Rich Kramarik

Rich is a leader and innovator as a sales and marketing executive. With a successful career in producing rapid and lasting sales results, he has developed effective marketing and sales programs, coupled with building effective sales organizations.
He has also been successful as a General Manager of Operations supporting start-up business models, which required strategic and tactical planning and execution, for all facets of the business.

In the data center hosting market, Rich led the start-up of new data centers, by effectively building and managing regional sales and marketing. He has also led the strategic assessment of market and business growth opportunities for leading data center hosting companies.