Executive Leadership

GAP was co-founded in 2007 by CEO Joyce Durst, who has over 30 years of experience in the technology industry. The company's rapid growth and its technical excellence are attributed to Joyce's vision for prioritizing people, and creating more opportunities for women and other under-represented communities in technology. Over the last year, Joyce has led GAP to achieve new company milestones and successfully steered the company through the pandemic without loss of jobs or revenue.

Joyce is a sought-after speaker on leadership and women in business, and is active with the Women Presidents Organization and Special Olympics. She mentors women CEOs and first-time entrepreneurs, and has won several prestigious industry awards, including the Executive Leadership award from the Greater Austin Chamber; Profiles in Power award from the Austin Business Journal, and Stevie Award for Achievement in Developing and Promoting Women.

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As Chief Technology Officer Paul is responsible for GAP’s software lifecycle delivery processes, from concept through execution and maintenance. He advises clients on product strategy, technical requirements, and network architecture, continuously calibrating GAP’s service offerings to reflect changing industry conditions and client needs.

In the early 2000's, while working in product management for BMC Software, Paul unexpectedly inherited two international teams due to an acquisition; one in England, and one in Israel. Shortly thereafter he was asked to build an offshore team in India. This formative experience took Paul through the challenges and rewards of building and managing distributed global Agile teams. It helped him develop a lifelong appreciation for working across different cultures and geographies. Paul is an Agile evangelist, focused on Agile transformation, Agile environments, and scaling distributed teams in accordance with the Agile SAFe framework.

Paul’s favorite pastimes are skydiving and building high-performance PCs. Sadly, he has yet to find a good way to combine the two.

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Michelle manages the financial side of the business, focusing on forecasting, international business management, reporting and analysis. She was instrumental in opening GAP’s state-of-the-art Centers of Excellence in LATAM, as well as working with Costa Rican and Colombian governments on securing Free Trade Zone designations for GAP’s Latin American operations. Michelle enjoys the challenges and intricacies of steering a multinational operation, and her success is due in part to a passion for working with people across all disciplines and backgrounds. She loves that at GAP people are encouraged to stretch beyond their perceived limitations, and are fully supported while doing it.

Michelle is a CPA with more than 22 years of experience. Prior to joining GAP in 2006, she worked for several software companies in the Austin area. Outside of work she is an avid gardener, a mom of three kids, one of whom is adopted, and is involved with Project Care Case - a non-profit that donates suitcases with clothes, toys, and personal items to kids moving around the foster care system.

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Andrea is GAP’s Vice President of Operations and People. She is passionate about creating a company culture that is welcoming, inclusive, and collegial. Since joining GAP in 2010, Andrea has focused on building and scaling our unique culture as GAP grew from 10 to over 300 employees, extending its geographic footprint to six locations throughout Costa Rica and Colombia.

Andrea leads a team responsible for human resources, candidate marketing, learning and development, and facilities for all of GAP’s Latin American operations. Her superpower is making things happen. She excels at translating abstract concepts into actionable plans and making sure they are successfully implemented. As a psychologist, Andrea’s favorite thing about working at GAP is getting treated like a real person; being heard, understood and supported in a way that promotes sustainable, long-term growth for both the company and employee.

Andrea has a degree in Psychology, as well as an MBA from the University of Costa Rica. She also holds a Six Sigma Green Belt certification through the American Society for Quality (ASQ). A quote you are most likely to hear from Andrea at work is: “do we have coffee?”

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Erika joined GAP as a web developer in 2009 and led for seven years as VP of Delivery before being named VP of Information Services. Erika’s core mission is to ensure that each project team delivers on GAP’s commitment to providing quality, transparency, value, and an exceptional client experience from ideation to launch. She and her team act as client advocates and advisors, and work on creating loyal customers for life. To that end, Erika has helped establish several Software Centers of Excellence across Costa Rica and Colombia. She is passionate about promoting an Agile mindset throughout the company, and empowering teams to exceed client expectations through mentorship, coaching, and developing strategies for continuous improvement. She revels in the collaborative environment at GAP, where you can always build something together as a team, be it a new initiative, strategy, department, or product. Her motto is: If you win, we all win. If you lose, we all lose.

Erika is a software engineer with more than 10 years of experience in developing and managing complex projects for a diverse clientele. She holds several certifications from recognized organizations such as the Scrum Alliance. She is also an active member of her local community, enjoys movie nights with her family, and doing giant jigsaw puzzles over wine and cheese.

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Milagro joined GAP in 2023 as GAP's Vice President of Delivery. Since she was a kid, she has focused on positively impacting the lives of the people around her, which drives her to encourage her teams to bring out the best in themselves. Mila leads the team responsible for acting as client advocates and advisors, and working on creating loyal customers for life. She ensures the team delivers from start to finish on each project with the value, quality, transparency and excellent customer experience that characterizes GAP.

She has a degree in economics and business. Mila has built a career with more than 20 years of expertise in people management and delivery processes in digital agencies and technology environments. She specializes in project management, LEAN and Six Sigma applications, paired with strong leadership skills. Mila loves American football and is a big fan of the Pittsburgh Steelers. She has been the only woman on an NFL fan team in Costa Rica for 16 years, and she loves celebrating her birthday with chicken lasagna (and has a no-cake policy).

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