Chief Product & Technology Officer (CPTO) - Aequitas Solutions

Banyan Software is the best permanent home for software businesses that serve specialized industries, their employees, and their customers. We are on a mission to acquire, build, and grow great companies worldwide, helping them modernize through shared AI expertise and operational discipline. The Banyan Software Foundation, endowed with $100 million in Banyan stock, leverages technology to build a greener and more equitable world. Banyan is Great Place to Work Certified, a five-time Inc. 5000 honoree, and a top 10 company on the Deloitte Technology Fast 500. Founded in 2016 and headquartered in Atlanta, Banyan operates more than 100 portfolio companies across North America, the UK, EU, and APAC. Chief Product and Technology Officer (CPTO) Location: Remote, United States (Pacific Time Zone preferred; Southern California a plus) About Aequitas Solutions Aequitas Solutions is a mission-critical Student Information System (SIS) provider serving K–12 public school districts, with its primary markets in California and Michigan. Its platform, Q, supports the core administrative operations districts rely on every day: enrollment, attendance, compliance reporting, and data governance. Aequitas competes on trust, customer responsiveness, and deployment flexibility. Unlike larger SIS vendors pushing districts toward centralized cloud hosting, Aequitas intentionally supports cloud, hybrid, and on-premise environments, giving districts genuine control over their data and infrastructure. That flexibility is a deliberate competitive differentiator in a market where data locality and procurement caution are facts of life. Aequitas was acquired by Banyan Software in 2022 and is actively expanding its product capabilities and customer footprint. The Opportunity Aequitas has a loyal, established customer base, a platform with strong underlying functionality, and a clear mandate to grow. The Chief Product and Technology Officer is the executive hire that activates that mandate: the person who takes full ownership of the product vision, technical strategy, and engineering execution, and drives the platform forward. This is a role for a builder. With respect for the team and customer commitments already in place, the CPTO will establish AI-first development as the operating standard, define the modernization roadmap for a platform with a significant legacy technology footprint, and build the team structure and discipline needed to deliver on a multi-year product vision. There is real work to do, with real scope for impact. The CEO operates as a genuine partner, not a day-to-day manager. The expectation is that the CPTO owns the function completely: how resources are deployed, how the team is structured, and how the product roadmap is executed. The CEO will communicate direction and flag when something is off course, but the decisions are yours. This is an environment that rewards entrepreneurial ownership and initiative. It is a good fit for someone who thrives with autonomy and wants to build something, not manage an established machine. The CPTO reports directly to the CEO and sits on the Aequitas leadership team alongside the Director of Customer Success, Director of Finance, and heads of Sales and Marketing. Why Aequitas You own the function. Full charter. Product vision, technical strategy, engineering execution, AI roadmap, deployment architecture. This role has genuine authority across all of it. The CEO relationship is collaborative. Autonomy with a real partner at the top. The CEO wants a peer at the table, not a line report waiting for direction. You will have the space to lead the function your way, with a leadership team that engages on outcomes, not process. Genuine competitive differentiation. A market position worth defending and extending. Aequitas’s multi-deployment model gives districts options that larger SIS vendors do not. The company is actively investing in its on-premise and hybrid capabilities as a growth lever, and the CPT