Rheaply's Leadership Team
Garry Cooper, Jr., PhD
Chief Executive Officer/Co-Founder
Dr. Garry Cooper is CEO and Co-founder of Rheaply, a climate technology company working to scale reuse and the circular economy by bringing better visibility and utilization of physical resources; therefore reducing waste, costs, and carbon emissions. He also serves as a founding General Partner at LongJump, the most active pre-seed venture fund based in Chicago, designed to invest in the next generation of underrepresented founders and overlooked ideas.
Previously, Dr. Cooper was an Adjunct Assistant Professor at Northwestern, helping trainees, faculty, and staff more seamlessly connect to the Chicago business community. Prior to his faculty position, Dr. Cooper facilitated supply chain and performance improvement for leading biotechnology enterprises at Ernst & Young. Before this, he began his career as a Postdoctoral Fellow and Visiting Scholar at Northwestern’s Feinberg School of Medicine, where he led the drug discovery effort to find a selective L-type calcium channel inhibitor for the treatment of Parkinson’s disease, for which he holds a US patent. In addition to Vice-Chair of P33 Chicago, he also serves as a board member of 1871, Northwestern’s Master of Product Design and Management program, and startups Mycocycle and Improovy.
Dr. Cooper is the Chairman of the Board of Rheaply. He has been twice recognized as a Goldman Sachs’ 100 Most Intriguing Entrepreneurs 2021 & 2022, an Emerson Collective Dial Fellow, one of Crain’s 40 Under 40 Chicago, Chicago Power 30, and Forbes Next 1000. He is a former Google for Entrepreneurs Fellow and a member of YPO Chicago Chapter, the Forbes Chicago Business Council, and The Economic Club of Chicago. Dr. Cooper is a member of the 2023 Class of Henry Crown Fellows at the Aspen Institute.
Watch the TED Talk
What if we could harness the power and value of all that we discard? Circular economy builder Garry Cooper presents a compelling vision for transforming cities into sustainable, circular economies.
Dr. Garry Cooper
Founder & CEO
Rheaply
Connie Kim
Chief Operating Officer/Chief Financial Officer
Connie Kim is the Chief Operating Officer (COO) and Chief Financial Officer (CFO) for Rheaply. Connie has spent the whole of her career focusing on operational excellence starting from McKinsey & Co. to Google and most recently at Unilever where she was the Vice President of Technology Operations for their prestige eCommerce beauty brands. She brings with her expertise on building out scalable and lean operations, utilization of technology as a digital driver, and familiarity with the importance of B2B SaaS platforms for company growth. Connie is acutely familiar with Rheaply’s value proposition to businesses as she was involved in one of the very early enterprise contracts during her days at Google.
Tyler Skelton
VP, Design/Co-Founder
Tyler Skelton is a Co-Founder and the VP of Design at Rheaply. He is a very accomplished front-web designer with over 10 years of formal experience in environments such as: HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and multiple other design suites. Before Rheaply, Tyler was a Senior User Experience and User Interface Designer at Guaranteed Rate where he led all front-end architecture product development. Prior to joining Guaranteed Rate, he held similar positions in both established and startup web development firms, including Analyte Health, Palantir, The Nines, and Alloy Education. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in Telecommunications, Design and Production from Indiana University.
Sushma Kittali-Weidner
Chief Product Officer
Sushma Kittali-Weidner is the Chief Product Officer at Rheaply where she has responsibility for all product related functions. Sushma has 15+ years of experience building B2B SaaS and platform products for enterprises in automotive, electronics, med-tech, aerospace and apparel industries. She has deep domain knowledge in environmental compliance, social compliance, supply chain data management, sustainability, digital product passports and circularity principles. Her alma mater is University of Michigan. She lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan with her husband and two sons. During her free time, Sushma enjoys cooking, hiking, kayaking and art.
Tom Fecarotta
Chief Marketing Officer
Tom Fecarotta is the Chief Marketing Officer. Tom’s leadership responsibilities include RevOps marketing & event strategy, and development of Rheaply’s channel partner marketing program. Prior to joining Rheaply, Tom worked for 10+ years as a content marketer for various life science brands & technologies, developing event campaigns and launch strategies for leading biotech/biopharma and healthcare organizations.
Jared von Halle
VP, Engineering
Jared von Halle is the VP of Engineering at Rheaply. Prior to Rheaply, Jared worked in a variety of industries including healthcare, consulting, and industrial supplies. He has experience managing teams across web development, data, and architecture, with a deep expertise in cloud, devops, and security. Jared graduated from Northwestern University with a degree in economics, but quickly found a new passion in software development, later completing a masters degree in computer science at DePaul. He currently lives in Denver, Colorado and enjoys taking advantage of the local mountains through hiking, camping, and skiing.
Nizar Hasan
VP, Operations
Nizar Hasan is the vice president of operations at Rheaply where he leverages his background in sales, career coaching, and education to define and drive the vision for all things business ops – HR, finance, administration, cross-functional alignment, and revenue. A steadfast champion of people-centric processes and an intrepid leader of teams, Nizar spends his days rallying colleagues around shared business goals and Rheaply’s mission to open up the circular economy for every business. When he’s not presenting webinars or speaking at conferences, you’re likely to find Nizar reading up on the latest sustainability report and climate news article or dreaming of his next world travel adventure (he’s visited 41 countries and counting!)
