Management Team

Steve Chahal, CEO & President of Fairfax Software, founded the company in 1994 with Tony Cristofano in Fairfax, Virginia, the city from which they took the company name. Steve is a leader in the image-processing software industry. His strategic vision for Fairfax Software guides the marketing and sales efforts for the firm and he is very involved with new business development.

Steve brings his years of experience in image processing to the firm, along with his passion for excellence from his team so they provide Fairfax Software’s customers with service that is second to none. His international background results in Steve being fluent in six languages.

He holds a Master of Science degree in Systems Engineering Management from George Washington University and a Master of Science in Electrical Engineering from Wayne State University in Detroit. Steve’s B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering, with a major in Computer Engineering, is also from Wayne State University. Prior to founding Fairfax Software, Steve held a senior leadership role with Grumman Data Systems.

Stephen Fry, Chief Financial Officer, is responsible for all day-to-day financial and accounting activities, including continual evaluation of internal controls, interfaces with external auditors in planning the annual audit, manages the banking relationship for cash operations and the lines of credit.

Stephen Fry has over 20 years in various accounting/finance leadership roles in diverse industries plus project management experience on such projects as implementation of Dynamics AX and GP, and SOX s404. He holds a CPA certificate from the State of Michigan (passed on the first sitting), a Bachelor’s degree in Accounting from the University of Michigan-Dearborn, and an MBA from Eastern Michigan University. He is also a Marine Corps veteran.

Nadine Chahal, General Counsel, addresses the growing demand to handle data security and privacy concerns, Nadine also oversees Fairfax’s third-party audits to ensure that Fairfax Software is able to provide customers with products and solutions that comply with the PCI data security standards and SOC 2 guidelines.

Nadine became the General Counsel for Fairfax Software in September 2015 after graduating from the University of Florida Levin College of Law. Nadine is responsible for Fairfax Software’s legal, security, privacy, and compliance activities and policies.
Nadine received a B.S. in Finance from the University of Florida; an M.S. in Finance from the University of Tampa; and a J.D. from the University of Florida. She is admitted to the bar in the State of Florida.

LeAnn Stout, Vice President of Professional Services, is responsible for the delivery of all customer projects.  This division encompasses a team of project managers, business analysts, software engineers, forms designers, and report writers. LeAnn is responsible for directing project planning and management as well as providing hands-on support of end-to-end system integration from system design to installation.

LeAnn graduated from the University of Northern Iowa with a Bachelor of Science’s degree in Accounting and holds a Certificate of Public Management from Drake University. Prior to joining the Fairfax Software team, LeAnn managed end-users of the Quick Modules product.

Francesco Leising, Vice President of Quality Assurance, is responsible for ensuring that all software and/or hardware products are fully tested and meet or exceed all set requirements. The Quality Assurance Team conducts extensive, and detailed testing on all products evaluates product performance, and offers recommendations to improve existing methods of operation. 

Francesco Leising has been in the SDLC space for the past 15+ years, holding various positions performing testing activities. He has worked for large corporations driving both manual and automated environments, to the next level, while ensuring the delivery of a quality software product. He is qualified to lead Scaled Agile implementation for a project to complete delivery.

Francesco continues his career with Fairfax, ensuring every customer benefits from the experience of a large corporate employee, on a small scale where every client feels like family.

Robert Appelbaum, Vice President of Product Strategy, is responsible for guiding and overseeing Fairfax Software’s technology strategy and execution.

Robert’s career of over 30 years has been devoted to information management and leveraging technology to improve business practices. For the last eighteen years, Robert has worked in the capture industry assisting clients with their digital transformation projects. His experience covers responsibilities in product marketing, pre-sales, business development, and product innovation. Prior to joining Fairfax Software, Robert served in executive positions at IBML centered around solution and market development. Prior to ibml, Robert held sales roles at IBM and EMC.

He holds a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from the University of Alabama at Birmingham, attended Kellogg’s School of Management for Business Marketing Strategy, and is a certified Information Capture Professional (ICP)

Joseph Bruno (“Bruno”), Technical Director of Support, is responsible for managing the day-to-day technical aspects of the Support Services (SSD) Department. Bruno focuses on developing and implementing strategies and procedures needed to enhance the growth of the engineers within the Support Services Department. Additionally, Bruno continually seeks opportunities to increase client satisfaction and deepen client relationships. As Technical Director, Bruno mentors our support engineers and teaches them best practices, ensuring that our Support Services Department is always responsive to our clients’ mission-critical needs and requirements.

Bruno holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science from the University of Florida. Prior to being promoted to Technical Director, Bruno was a Project Engineer in the Professional Services Department (PSD) at Fairfax Software for the past six years.

Alex Umansky, Director of Core Software Development, oversees many customer implementations of Fairfax Software software. Alex also manages customer-requested system changes. Alex has been with Fairfax Software for over 15 years and is one of the original programmers who designed the Quick Modules software system. He is extremely proficient in setting up customer systems in a timely and efficient manner.   

Alex holds a Master of Science degree in Applied Mathematics and Computer Science from Karazin Kharkiv National University in Ukraine.

Robert Castello, Director of Documentation and Training, is responsible for directing Fairfax Software’s Training and Documentation Departments. The Training Department offers troubleshooting, understanding of system-level logic, and overall system concepts classes. The Training Department also creates learning sessions that enhance employee performance, boost employee productivity, reduce employee turnover, and improve company culture. While the Documentation Department creates user-friendly documents based on extremely complex subject matters. It also is responsible for preparing, reviewing, revising, and maintaining technical documents, including software and systems engineering, system operations, testing, and user documentation. Robert’s teams are critical to the structure and organization of Fairfax and provide the internal training and documentation needed to understand, analyze, and evolve, Fairfax’s suite of software applications.

Robert is a Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA), and a Certified Netware Engineer (CNE). He was previously employed by Tangent Fastnet and Nokia Corporation before coming to Fairfax Software.

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