LawnStarter adds VP of engineering, additional leaders

Silveira previously was head of engineering at Schoology; senior director of software engineering at OnDeck; technical leader at Amplify; technical leader at Kaplan; and senior software engineer architect and team lead at Montefiore Information Technology.

In nearly all of those roles, Silveira has led distributed teams — teams with members working together across time zones and around the world. That experience led Silveira to write a book about how to lead team members who aren’t together in one office or headquarters.

“For the past four years we have operated predominantly remotely enabling us to attract top level talent focused on our mission from across the world,” said Lawnstarter Co-Founder Steve Corcoran. “Alberto has been able to take us to the next level when it comes to the effectiveness and culture of distributed teams, allowing us to more than double our engineering team at a rapid pace.”

Silveira, a native of Brazil, is based in New York, but he is looking forward to moving to Austin, where LawnStarter is based.

Samaan brings more than 10 years of experience with internet companies including Groupon. 

Samaan’s most recent experience was as director of accounting for Luminary Media in Chicago. At Luminary, Samaan led all accounting operations, and he worked closely with various leaders in launching one of the first exclusive subscription-based podcasting platforms. 

Prior to Luminary, Samaan was an accounting manager at Groupon; a revenue accountant at TravelClick; and an accountant with Infor Global Solutions, all based in greater Chicago. 

Zhu comes to LawnStarter from Mailchimp, where he was senior marketing manager, advanced marketing analytics. 

Previously, Zhu was manager, marketing optimization, for Autotrader. Before that, Zhu held a variety of roles, including market research consultant, at Verizon Telematics.

Specific skills Zhu brings to LawnStarter: At Mailchimp, he focused on reducing customer churn and increasing customer lifetime value. At Autotrader, Zhu led analysis to improve marketing campaign effectiveness.

LawnStarter is also adding call center, web and product team members, engineers and others to keep up with the demand for lawn care and other outdoor services. 

To learn more about the new hires, click here.