Matthew “Donny” Donaldson – 2018 20 Under 40 Vendor Superstar

Career Highlights:

My career at Expensify has been a whirlwind! It dates back to 2014 when I was living in Arizona. I was convinced by my now-colleagues to fly up for an interview. Two weeks later, I was a San Francisco resident and I haven’t looked back since.

I joined Expensify when the ExpensifyApproved! program had just been launched, and growing it quickly became my main focus at the company. In the last four years, we’ve grown the program from a handful of enthusiastic accounting partners to thousands of accountants, become the only expense management partner of the AICPA, received the Best Partner Program award at Accountex, and celebrated the continued success of our partnerships in Maui and Bora Bora at ExpensiCon. It’s safe to say I’m incredibly proud to be leading the team building the most widely used expense software in the world.

Favorite Book: “To Sell Is Human” by Daniel H. Pink. When I first joined the tech world, and more specifically sales, I felt almost ashamed to tell people what I did for a living. I had grown up with the idea that salespeople were a bunch of slimeballs. This book helped remind me that 1. I’m not a used car salesman from 1995 and 2. Every one of us is a salesperson in our own right. I sell a piece of software just as an accountant sells services to small businesses.

Mentor: Most people at Expensify might say David Barrett because it’s awesome to have a leader that pushes you forward like he does. I’d like to go a different route and mention Daniel Vidal, another 20 under 40 recipient. I’ve known Daniel for the last decade, since our time at ASU. He convinced me to join Expensify and has been a guiding force in my professional life ever since. No matter how much he might disagree with an idea I have, he’ll encourage me to give it a try and is there to help me figure out what went wrong if I fail.

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See more of the 2018 40 Under 40 Honorees, and the 20 Under 40 Vendor Superstars.