John Watson to Join ContactRelief as CEO

RICHMOND, Texas -- ContactRelief, provider of the Disaster Decision Engine, today announced John Watson has joined the company as its chief executive officer. Watson will replace existing CEO and Co-Founder Mike Chandler, who will become the company’s chairman. Current Chairman and Co-Founder Doug Schultz will join the company’s board of advisors.

Watson brings more than 15 years of leadership experience, most recently serving as chief executive officer of ARS National Services, a national leader in the accounts receivable management industry. Watson is also board chair of KIPP San Diego, a public middle school focused on getting children from low-income neighborhoods in Southeast San Diego to and through college.

During his 14-year tenure with ARS, Watson held multiple leadership roles, including chief financial officer, chief operating officer and president. Prior to ARS National Services, Watson held senior roles in the strategic consulting, transaction advisory, and assurance groups of Ernst & Young in Silicon Valley.

“With the increasing threats of natural and man-made disasters and the need for contact centers to optimize inbound and outbound contact strategies, we recognized the value of adding new talent to the team,” Chandler said. “In harnessing John’s years of industry experience, we plan to drive adoption of ContactRelief's Disaster Decision Engine in the financial industry and beyond."

In the role of CEO, Watson will be responsible for ContactRelief ‘s overall strategy, focusing on innovative growth initiatives through fostering new partnerships, while utilizing his years of contact center industry experience to ensure ContactRelief continues to exceed customer expectations.

“I’m excited to join the exceptionally talented team at ContactRelief, who is focused on leveraging technology and data in innovative ways," said Watson. "The company’s first product, the Disaster Decision Engine, serves as a major proof point that doing what’s right while simultaneously meeting organizational goals are, in fact, complementary business imperatives and not competing objectives.”

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An industry pioneer, ContactRelief uses hyper-localized, real-time data to help contact centers optimize their efficiencies during disasters. Their innovative Disaster Decision Engine helps guide user’s contact suspension activities, ultimately making operations 5x more efficient during disasters, protecting collection revenue streams and ensuring consistency of actions across collection networks.  

About ContactRelief

ContactRelief is a Houston, Texas based information service company founded in 2017 by Doug Schultz, Mike Chandler and other owners and executives formerly with United Recovery Systems, then one of the largest privately held account receivables management companies in the United States. In 2008, Mr. Schultz started the Schultz Family Foundation. The foundation's focus is to provide funding to disaster relief charities as quickly as possible after a major disaster. For more information visit: www.contactrelief.com.