NetVendor has new leaders at the head of its technology and product teams. Jay Mallison became Chief Technology Officer on September 1, 2026, and Tommi Forsstrom joined as Chief Product Officer on September 14, 2026. Together, they lead NetVendor's newly unified R&D organization, which brings product and engineering together as one team.

We sat down with both of them to talk about why NetVendor made this change, how it affects the way the company builds, where AI actually helps customers, and what property managers and vendors can expect next.

Curious what a more connected R&D team means for your vendor program? Schedule a Demo to see how NetVendor works today.

Who Are NetVendor's New CTO and CPO?

Jay Mallison is NetVendor's Chief Technology Officer. He leads R&D and Engineering, including product development, QA, and IT, after more than five years driving engineering on NetVendor's core compliance solution.

Tommi Forsstrom is NetVendor's Chief Product Officer, and NetVendor's product managers report to him. He brings more than 25 years of experience in high-growth software, from engineer to CPO, and advised NetVendor for over a year through its lead investor, Five Arrows.

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What Jay Mallison and Tommi Forsstrom Bring to Their Roles

Jay, what did more than five years building the core compliance product teach you?

Jay's time on the core compliance solution, the foundation NetVendor built on as it expanded into bidding and contracts and toward vendor management that goes beyond compliance alone, taught him to value people first.

"I think probably the biggest thing for me that I've seen in the last five years is how important the people are," he said. NetVendor's team holds deep industry knowledge about serving both vendors and property managers, which he described as "something that you can't easily replicate." In his words, "We have a wealth of knowledge here through our people."

What separates software companies that scale from the ones that stall?

For Tommi, it comes down to one thing: "The shortest version I can say is focus."

Early success creates momentum that can push a company to spread out too fast, Tommi explained, and "the ones that make it don't let themselves get over their skis in terms of expanding too early." The goal is to "know where you're strongest and lean on that for as long as you can."

Tommi, why come on board with NetVendor?

Tommi had worked in and around NetVendor for over a year before joining, so "it felt almost like we had done a very prolonged version of a dating period." At the same time, "the inner engineer in me had gotten really excited about the possibilities of this new era."

Rather than an early-stage AI startup, he wanted a company where "there's an infinity of prior art to build on and existing success. There's an interesting market, great customers."

Why Did NetVendor Combine Product and Engineering Into One R&D Team?

NetVendor combined product and engineering into a single R&D organization so both functions work toward the same outcome: the most valuable product for its customers. Engineers still report to engineering leaders and product managers to product leaders, but the whole team is measured by its impact on the company and its success in the market.

How would you describe the split between what you build and how you build it?

"It's not the product and engineering team anymore; it's the R&D team," said Jay Mallison, NetVendor's CTO. "So we're running it as one unit, and we'll all succeed or fail together." Success, he explained, will be measured by the team's impact on the company and its success in the market, not simply by what it ships. "So it's a mindset shift. It's a how-we-work shift."

Tommi sees the two as inseparable: "you don't get partial credit for nailing one and not the other." He compared the partnership to a football team, with Jay as the defensive coordinator and himself as the offensive coordinator. One side succeeding doesn't matter if the team loses.

The bottom line is the customer. "If our customers don't get the product that they need, that's built in a way that services them today, tomorrow, and into the future, none of the other stuff matters."

Product and engineering used to run as separate teams. Why bring them together now?

For Tommi, the goal is to remove "any systemic reason for these two things to diverge." As he put it, "Ultimately... they're targeting the same outcome."

The change doesn't erase functional expertise. "Engineers are going to report into engineering leaders, product people are going to report into product leaders," Tommi said, because the people matter too: "this is a stop in their careers, and they need to leave here better than they were coming in."

How Will the R&D Shift Change the Way NetVendor Builds Product?

The biggest change is a more deliberate process up front, so NetVendor's growing capacity goes toward what customers need most.

What benefits do you expect from a more tightly connected team?

Jay wants every meaningful piece of work to go through "proper discovery for that work before we do it, before we commit to timelines." That way, when NetVendor commits to a timeline, it's grounded in a clear understanding of the problem being solved.

AI makes that discipline more important, not less, because engineers can now move on several major initiatives at once. "We have a lot of firepower that we can point at things that we want to do as a company. I want to make sure that we're pointing it in the right direction." Getting that process right, Jay said, will "enable us to build a much more competitive product in the market."

It also means being thoughtful about what goes into the product in the first place. Tommi pointed out that "almost everything you put into the product, it's another toe in your product footprint," and every addition has to be maintained over time. As a self-described '90s kid, he summed it up with a line from Fight Club: "the things you own end up owning you."

How will this change affect how quickly NetVendor can innovate or pivot as customer needs shift?

Tommi described it as "slow is steady, steady is fast." When everyone can plow through a backlog, "the alpha has rapidly shifted to not just who can build the most product, but who can build the right product."

That starts with the customer. "We have to understand their problems. We have to understand the context of their problems. We have to understand the problems adjacent to their problems before we even talk about what the solution to that is."

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Where Does AI Actually Change the Outcome for Customers?

AI matters most when it saves customers time and speeds vendor approval, not when it's added for its own sake.

Which AI implementations actually change the outcome for customers?

One example is NetVendor's new intelligent document processing, powered by an AI-driven decision engine. Document processing helps determine how quickly a vendor gets approved in NetVendor, and the engine reads, maps, and classifies certificates of insurance (COIs) as they come in, so they route through the approval process faster. It can handle higher volumes of COIs in different formats, populate the right fields during intake, and recommend approve or reject decisions for human review.

The outcome shows up on both sides. Property managers can get vendors to compliance faster, reducing compliance-related delays in bidding, contracting, and payment. Vendors spend less time waiting for review and approval, and less time checking their compliance status. "The less friction involved, the better," said Jay Mallison, NetVendor's CTO, noting that it "helps the entire business end to end." Intelligent document processing builds on the AI enhancements NetVendor introduced across the full vendor lifecycle in June 2026, spanning sourcing, bidding, contracts, and compliance.

NetVendor also built the platform, giving the R&D team full control over how it evolves. "It's completely built by us. We own every line of code."

That ownership includes protecting customer data. NetVendor is both SOC 1 Type 2 and SOC 2 Type 2 compliant, meaning an independent auditor has verified its financial reporting controls (SOC 1) and data protection controls (SOC 2). Type 2 is the more rigorous report, because it tests that those controls work consistently over months, not just at a single point in time.

For customers, it's verified assurance they can point to in their own audits and security reviews.

What's overhyped about AI in PropTech right now?

Both leaders pointed to the same thing: chatbots added just to say a product has AI. Too many companies "just slap a chatbot on it," said Tommi Forsstrom, NetVendor's CPO. "All you end up creating is kind of a clunky chat version of their UI." Jay agreed that "they demo well, they look shiny," but often don't hold up in daily use. Tommi put it bluntly: "there's a fine line between very exciting and valuable chatbot and a chatbot that's dumb as a bag of hammers."

That doesn't mean the interface is the problem. "I think natural language UIs are here to stay," Tommi said. The test is simpler: "what really matters ultimately is, like, what is the value driven to customers?"

Tommi, you like to say this is the best time in a generation to build software. Why?

"The feedback cycle between an idea and seeing it in action is shorter than it's ever been," Tommi said. Teams can now test ideas and put them in front of customers far faster than before.

That speed matters because of what NetVendor is ultimately for. "At the end of the day, we buy you time," he said. The goal, he explained, is to keep finding ways to "create more value for you with NetVendor" while customers spend less time on vendor busywork.

Want to see where AI fits into your vendor compliance workflow today? Schedule a Demo and walk through it with our team.

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What Can Customers and Vendors Expect From NetVendor Next?

Over the next year, customers can expect more communication, a sharper focus on their needs, and a broader view of vendor management.

What's the first thing customers will notice with this shift?

"There'll be a lot more communication about where we're going and what we're releasing," Jay said. That includes capabilities that already exist. "There's functionality in the system already that many clients should have, and they probably don't." The team plans to "make loud noises to let people know that we're winning, you know, that we're delivering, that we're providing value."

What should customers, vendors, and partners expect from NetVendor over the next year?

For Tommi, it comes down to customer centricity. "We're going to anchor everything to knowing our customers and our market and the general space of property management companies leveraging vendors better than anybody else."

Is there a problem in vendor management you want to solve that nobody has cracked yet?

"Historically we've been strongest at vendor compliance, and that's what we're known for," Tommi said, and "we've already expanded to bidding and contracts, which are two very logical next steps." The bigger shift is "going from a strict point solution, just dealing with compliance of vendors," to a place where "the whole concept of vendor management can be done with one partner that understands the whole ballgame better than anybody else."

Compliance-Led Vendor Management is built on a simple principle: compliance should govern critical vendor decisions across sourcing, bidding, contracts and payment, not operate as a downstream check.

Jay wants to make getting started easier for property management companies. "I'd really like to see some breakthroughs in how complex it is to onboard," he said, because "the sooner you get a customer in and winning with NetVendor, the better."

Vendors will see changes too. Looking ahead, Jay described a reimagined enrollment experience that's "dramatically simplified" and "will be a much, much better experience for the vendors." The payoff is practical: vendors will get enrolled faster, and the workflow improvements will reduce their time to compliance.

Why NetVendor's New R&D Leadership Matters for Customers

Tommi sees NetVendor's next stage as a progression. "I know we know how to build software today," he said. Next comes learning to build products tied directly to customer needs, and then building a business around them, when R&D works seamlessly with sales, marketing, customer success, and support. "When all of that stuff locks in together, that's when that momentum thing starts happening."

NetVendor built its reputation in vendor compliance, and both leaders see an opportunity to use that foundation to reshape the broader vendor management market. "If somebody is going to disrupt this market, it really should be us," Tommi said.

Asked what customers should take away, Jay kept it simple: "that we're listening, that we're here to serve them." 

If you'd like to see what that looks like for your portfolio today and where it's headed next, schedule a demo with our team.

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