Walz: Company

Rod is the founder of The Walz Group and a visionary who has pioneered multiple award-winning enterprise software solutions and services that have significantly improved processes and reduced operational costs of educational, corporate and government entities in the United States.

In 1976, Rod developed and marketed the first financial aid eligibility software in the nation that transformed the approach to analyzing eligibility for loans and grants. He then introduced the first software program to fully automate the foreclosure process for mortgage lenders and title companies in California. During this time, he invented and patented the Walz Certified Mailer, the first automated form set for preparing USPS Certified Mail that has been marketed nationally to over 3,600 clients with sales of over 200 million certified mailers. In 1990, he pioneered and marketed the first software application used on large corporate receiving docks to process and track inbound/outbound accountable items such as UPS, FedEx and other shipments. In 2003, he developed the first, highly secure outsourcing service focused specifically on the full life-cycle processing of default and breach notices for mortgage servicers and for other consumer debt-related industries.

Rod holds degrees in both marketing and education from St. John's University including graduate studies at New York University (NYU) and City University in New York and has been a speaker at numerous national conventions.

Jim is a founding investor of The Walz Group and has had a long and diverse career in principal investing and trading in real estate, equities, bonds, currencies, commodities, derivatives, and other asset classes. Jim began his career in real estate and served as founding partner of the development firm Odmark Welch. By the 1980's Odmark Welch was one of the 12 largest homebuilders in California with developments specializing in condominiums as well as retail and office. In addition to California, Odmark Welch had successful development projects in Arizona, Washington and Guam. More recently Jim has focused his attention on a proprietary trading firm which he founded that specializes in the trading of derivatives and other commodities. An accomplished skier, golfer, master bridge player, and outdoor enthusiast, Jim and his wife Jeanne split their time between Palm Desert, California and Ketchum, Idaho.

Norman Zahler has thirty six years of experience in real estate, finance and entrepreneurial ventures. He specialized in real estate workouts for Citibank in New York, subsequently serving in both Asia and Europe. He then started the US operations for Brederso, one of the largest real estate firms in Europe at that time. Norman founded and served as the CEO of American Senior Inns, a chain of retirement communities that was taken public in 1988. He subsequently served on the board of Windrose Realty, a publicly traded Healthcare company that is now Health Care REIT (NYSE:HCN). Norman chaired the Audit Committe from 2003 through 2005. Norman has significant experience in capital markets, serving as a principal of and senior underwriter for Pacific Capital Investors in 1999 for the purchase of a $1.7 billion dollar pool of defaulted yen notes secured by real property in Japan. Norman also served as President of Zephyr Capital, LLC, developing properties in California, Oregon and Colorado.

Norman Zahler holds a Master's degree in Business from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) , and undergraduate degrees from both the University of Oregon (Economics) and the The Netherlands School of Business.

Mohan Tavorath
Chief Executive Officer

Mohan has over seventeen years of experience at large Fortune 100 corporations, premier Big 4 consulting firms and innovative and entrepreneurial startups, having held executive and management positions in North America and Asia. Prior to Walz, Mohan served as Director of Business Strategy and Technology Architecture at MetLife (#37 on the Fortune 100) where he was responsible for strategic planning, technology architecture and governance, aligning business and technology strategy with IT initiatives in the Institutional line of business. Prior to MetLife, he was the Chief Technology Architect of a Fortune 10 Financial Services National Account team at KPMG Consulting where he was responsible for client relationship management, business development, technology leadership, and solution definition and delivery. Mohan also served as Practice Manager at two software consulting firms where he led various technology, business process re-engineering and operations management initiatives for clients that spanned financial services, insurance, investment management, financial operations, public services, engineering and artificial intelligence. He has been published in technology publications from the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM) and spoken at various national conferences.

Mohan graduated from Columbia University in New York with a Master’s degree in Business Administration (Dean’s List) and holds Master’s and Bachelor’s degrees in Computer Science (with Distinction) from the University of Poona.

Prior to joining Walz, Charlie was involved in the management and operations of several service businesses. Most recently, he was involved in developing new business and strategic partnerships for a portable mini storage concept, a start-up company that had $75,000 in revenues and one location when he joined. Over an eighteen month period, he helped secure development agreements to open over 100 new franchisee locations and initiated bringing in financial investors who acquired the company. Before the portable mini storage concept, Charlie founded AwayMed, an informatics provider, which enabled physicians to track patients' recoveries remotely. During his tenure, AwayMed's Information PrescriptionSM was deployed and utilized by over 800 physicians in 12 states. Prior to AwayMed, he worked in Morgan Stanley's Investment Banking Division where he focused on opportunistic principal investments in the United States, Asia, and South America. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa as a Morehead Scholar from the University of North Carolina where he was a member of two Final Four basketball teams under Coach Dean Smith. He received his MBA from Harvard Business School.

Martin spent the last fifteen years operating and investing in technology and outsourcing companies. Prior to Walz, he served as President, NewRoads Direct Response and successfully turned around its product fulfillment and logistics division. Martin was also a Principal and founding Member of Accretive Technology Partners, a leading private equity firm focused on building world-class business process outsourcing (BPO) companies. Prior to joining Accretive, Martin was Vice President of Strategic Alliances at Chordiant Software (NASDAQ; CHRD), a leading provider of customer relationship management (CRM) software. Previously, Martin was Director of Research at General Atlantic Partners, one of the largest private equity firms focused on software and related IT investments and an analyst at the Gartner Group, where he launched Gartner’s CRM Practice.

Martin graduated from The Wharton School and the College of Arts & Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania with degrees in Economics, Multinational Management and Industrial Sociology.