We spent 35 years building Jira and Microsoft Project. Empwr is the project tool we always wanted to build.

We know how projects work and why tools fall behind. Every plan, tracker and status report depends on someone remembering to update it, and that's usually someone's fourth priority. Empwr removes that step. It builds the project plan from your team's meetings, tickets and documents, and keeps it current without anyone typing it in.

The Team

We're a small, fully remote team who love building software people enjoy using. We started Empwr because keeping a project on track should take far less effort than it does.

Ludovic Hauduc

Ludovic Hauduc

Co-founder, CEO

18 years working on Microsoft Project. Ludo was also Corporate VP of Platform Engineering at Microsoft and VP of AI Infrastructure at Meta, and brings deep experience in project management software, AI and leading engineering at scale.

Chris Pirich

Chris Pirich

Co-founder, CTO

Ex Partner Director of Development at Xbox and Microsoft. Chris is an accomplished startup advisor for companies like Pioneer Square Labs, Mighty AI (acq Uber) Hulu, Kevala, TeamSense, Convoy, Rover, TraceMe (acq Nike), and Code.org.

Keshav Puttaswamy

Keshav Puttaswamy

Co-founder, CPO

17 years working on Microsoft Project. Keshav was Director of Product at Microsoft across Project, Yammer and Windows ES, and has led product at Atlassian (Server and Data Center) and Meta (Messaging Platform). He has spent his career building the tools teams use to plan and track their work.

Matthew Gilk

Matthew Gilk

Sr. Software Engineer

Former startup CTO and senior software engineer at early stage startups and breakthrough unicorns including Avant and Groupon. Matt is a talented full stack engineer with a talent for design.

Jonas Erthal

Jonas Erthal

Sr. Software Engineer

Ex Microsoft and JPMorgan Chase. Founder of an AI based sales simulation tool sold to University of Washington. Jonas is an AI software engineer who has been programming since the age of 11.

Chris Rodde

Chris Rodde

CMO

20+ years leading growth and marketing teams at Microsoft and startups. Chris led growth and lifecycle marketing for Microsoft 365 Consumer, led growth at Marco Polo, and co-founded & grew SeniorHomes.com, which sold to Bankrate.

Chris Schnaidt

Chris Schnaidt

Enterprise Account Executive

Enterprise and strategic sales leader across CPG and SaaS. Chris has guided multiple sales organizations through growth and IPO, and before joining Empwr he worked closely with early-stage Y Combinator founders, helping them land their first revenue and plan their first sales hire.

Gregg Kearney

Gregg Kearney

Founding Regional Account Executive

Ex SAP sales executive and Arthur Andersen. Gregg brings 15 years of SaaS sales experience and decades of enterprise relationships across consulting, media and technology, helping organizations drive real business value with AI.