Meet the new faces driving Verusen's AI-powered MRO innovation and expansion into new sectors.

Driving the future forward with artificial intelligence-powered maintenance, repair, and operations (MRO) materials optimization and collaboration, Atlanta-based Verusen is expanding into new specialized sectors that include oil and gas, mining, and power generation and utilities.

Founded in 2015, Verusen is a supply chain intelligence company that has capitalized on the AI boom to bring machine learning to one of the more essential yet overlooked aspects of manufacturing and productivity: managing logistics and inventory, which is fundamental for operational efficiency and supply chain optimization.

In response to the pressing need for better MRO efficiency, traditional inventory methods have begun to quickly evolve.

Large asset-intensive industries like oil and gas, mining, energy, utilities, resources, and heavy manufacturing remain at the forefront, seeking advanced solutions to balance budgets, mitigate risks, and walk away with a profit.

Verusen's innovative approach to MRO materials optimization leverages purpose-built AI and deep learning and offers a new comprehensive solution that continuously optimizes data, inventory, procurement, and risk across global networks.

This shift reflects a growing demand for improved MRO software and data science solutions worldwide, driven by the staggering scale of the global oil and gas industry's parts stockpiles and the burgeoning market for mining equipment spare parts, which alone reached $140 billion in 2023, according to Grand View Research.

"We are seeing significant growth in the market for MRO materials optimization, especially in select vertical markets," said Verusen CEO Scott Matthews.

Growing the Verusen team

To meet this growing need, Verusen has appointed MRO industry veteran Jeremiah Woodford as chief revenue officer (CRO), tasked with leading sales operations, revenue generation, and market development.

With over two decades of sales leadership experience in asset-intensive industries, MRO, and supply chains, Woodford's previous roles include CRO at IFS Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) and Partner & Global Practice Leader of MRO Inventory Optimization at IBM Consulting.

"This is an exciting time to be joining the company. Verusen's purpose-built AI technology is welcomed to a market burdened by poor data quality, inefficient processes, and outdated solutions," said Woodford. "Legacy software and consulting firms have long promised improvements but often fail to deliver substantial change. After participating in a supermajor Exploration and Production (E&P) company's AI adoption initiative using Verusen's large language models and probabilistic AI models, we are confident that our innovative technology will revolutionize how asset-intensive companies manage their MRO inventory. Gone are the days of configuring legacy software; at Verusen, we are training AI models to support material managers' daily jobs."

Verusen has also appointed Jeromy Risner as director of pre-sales engineering.

Risner is a maintenance and reliability professional whose career started with turning wrenches and quickly evolved to reliability specialist, then implementing and teaching maintenance best practices in asset-intensive industries. He has successfully leveraged this experience to transform sales processes and effectiveness in the EAM and MRO inventory optimization software space at IFS Ultimo and IBM Oniqua.

And finally, Jim Combs, formerly the Worldwide Senior Sales Leader of IBM MRO Inventory Optimization, has been appointed sales director.

Beginning his career as a test engineer for nuclear power plants, Combs ascended to roles such as project manager and county sales manager for Mexico. With over three decades of experience, his expertise spans various heavy asset industries, including mining, utilities, manufacturing, and consumer packaged goods (CPG). Over the years, Jim has served as an enterprise sales leader for clients such as Vale, Duke Power, FPL, Goldcorp, Cenovus, General Mills, ThyssenKrupp, Griffith Lab, and IMERYS, driving transformation in Maintenance and Spares Parts Management programs to ensure production uptime and cost savings.

"Our explosive growth is aligned with the transformative impact of Verusen's AI-driven solutions on MRO inventory operations," said Matthews. "With the addition of these deeply experienced executives, who are nuanced in specific growth industries such as mining and oil and gas, we are well positioned to expand our reach and address customer challenges while scaling for new opportunities globally."

With experienced industry veterans now part of the team, Verusen is poised for future success in transforming MRO efficiency and supply chain optimization.

"Having Jeremiah, Jeromy, and Jim join Verusen at this time is pivotal to our ability to expand rapidly within asset-intensive vertical markets where traditional inventory optimization software no longer meets the needs of these complex global organizations," said Verusen Chief Strategy Officer Paul Noble. "Their combined and deep understanding of the changing landscape of MRO is essential to our trajectory for global sales growth and vertical expansion in 2024."