Software firm RingLead quadruples staff to 60 employees

RingLead Inc., the data-management software company backed by CA Technologies co-founder Russell Artzt, has quadrupled its staff to 60 and doubled the space at its Melville headquarters to 10,000 square feet, executives said Wednesday.

Early last year, Artzt, RingLead’s executive chairman, outlined a plan to bring nearly all the company’s jobs to Long Island. Previously, the company’s workforce was scattered in locations including Huntington, Ukraine, Israel and Las Vegas.

“We think we get the most productivity when we get our people together,” he said in a telephone interview. “It reminds me of the early days at [CA]. There was a sense of urgency. That’s what we’re building here.”

Chief executive Christopher Hickey said that as of Jan. 1, 2017, the company had 15 employees, but RingLead has recruited heavily from Stony Brook University, Farmingdale State College, St. Joseph’s College, which has a campus in Patchogue, and Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, New Jersey.

“We created an Apple store environment,” Hickey said of the Melville offices, with interactive display panels, a 60-foot wooden table and an Amazon Alexa device that helps schedule meetings.

Hickey, a former sales executive at CA Technologies, said ongoing training is part of the regimen for RingLead employees and all of them earn performance-based equity in the company from their first day on the job.

“If you pass your annual review, your stock instantly vests,” he said.

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CA Technologies, formerly known as Computer Associates International Inc., moved to Manhattan in 2014, but retains more than 1,000 employees at its former headquarters in Islandia.

Artzt co-founded CA with Charles Wang, the company’s former chief executive and former majority owner of the New York Islanders.

RingLead’s software cleans and verifies sales contact data used by companies and enhances it with information from social media and other sources.

By Ken Schachter

kenneth.schachter@newsday.comkschach

Ken Schachter covers corporate news, including technology and aerospace, and other business topics for Newsday. He has also worked at The Miami Herald and The Jerusalem Post.