LEADERSHIP TEAM
Lance Simpson
President and CEO
Lance is a proven executive with an excellent track record across multiple companies in the industrial distribution sector. Prior to joining American Direct, he served as Chief Operating Officer of Cook & Boardman, where he helped triple revenue over four years through both organic initiatives and acquisitions. Over his 30+ year career, Mr. Simpson has held various leadership positions at several businesses with over $1 billion in revenue, including Crescent Electric Supply, HD Supply Waterworks, and Hughes Supply.
Martin Cortes
Chief Financial Officer
Martin has over 20 years of executive management experience in finance and operations in public and private companies. These companies were privately-held (ranging from $45M-$1 billion; family and private equity), and a publicly-traded international multi-brand company with over $3.5 billion in annual revenue.
Martin has held various executive positions including CFO and COO, and VP of Finance and Strategic Planning. In these positions Martin had oversight of finance, accounting, technology, legal, purchasing, operations, risk management, loss prevention, marketing, human resources and distribution functions. Martin has proven success in leading organizations through critical phases of growth, or in adverse situations. Martin has expertise in turnarounds, capital restructures, mergers & acquisition (buy & sell), systems development and integration, process re-engineering, and cultural transitions. Throughout his career Martin has participated, negotiated and closed on over $2 billion in debt and equity offerings, and mergers & acquisitions transactions exceeding $2.5 billion in value.
Jerry Pennington
Senior Vice President – Projects & Engineering
Jerry is a 42 year veteran of the openings industry, and has been with American Direct for over 18 years in both sales and operations roles. Jerry earned his Bachelors of Arts from the University of Missouri – Kansas City.
Brian Ashley
Vice President of Sales
Brian brings more than 26 years experience in integration, security, and the life-safety field. Throughout his career, he has provided consulting and system engineering for schools, industry, government and businesses in design/build security and surveillance solutions. As Vice President of Sales, Ashley is responsible for the design, deployment, and implementation of life safety and security systems for the enterprise market, more specifically the merger of Electronic Physical Security (Division 28) and Physical/Architectural Door Systems (Division 8).
Kate Jones
Vice President – Project Management
Kate joined the D/F/H industry in 2006, primarily focused on construction billing. She quickly progressed onto project management, operations, and finally senior management. Kate’s experience is rooted in earning her Accounting Degree from Nichols College in Massachusetts.
After helping to implement cERP over a 10 year period at her previous employer, she joined the AccessIT team to support clients across the United States as they worked to implement cERP systems of their own. Kate joined American Direct in June of 2021, working with various parts of the operations teams, always maintaining a primary focus on the Project Management team.
Christina Mallory
Vice President – Human Resources
Christina brings more than 25 years of experience in a variety of Human Resources roles in the construction and manufacturing industries. The variety of Human Resource roles, industries and organizational sizes contributes to her vast knowledge and expertise. As Vice President of Human Resources, Christina is responsible for managing and providing oversight in all areas of Human Resources, including employee relations, benefits, talent acquisition, performance management, compensation, and human resources strategy for the American Direct Procurement team.
