Michael Flaherty

With over 15 years of international enterprise software development experience, Michael Flaherty founded Urbana Software in August 2000 with the goal of bringing technical innovation to the community.

Michael was born in 1962, son of James Patrick Flaherty and Maria Yepiz (also know as Doctora Maria). He grew up as the eldest of five in Los Gatos, California.

He graduated from Los Gatos High School and received a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. He later attended the MBA program at Schiller International University in Heidelberg, Germany.

Michael left the Silicon Valley in 1987 to live in Germany and to become one of SAP AG’s first American employees. He was system analyst and developer for a new General Ledger module of SAP’s integrated real-time ERP systems. He later left SAP to become an independent consultant and a recognized expert in SAP systems and traveled throughout Germany working for global corporate clients.

After returning to the U.S. in 1993, he founded The Amber Group in New Jersey as a premier SAP consultancy and sold it 1999 after growing the company to more then 75 employees with annual revenues of more than $11 million.

In 1999 he founded Simian Investments to assist small business entrepreneurs, and is now a founder and partner in Urbana Software, Kydos Consulting, Hinkin & Associates, and the restaurant 231 Ellsworth in San Mateo, California.