Kevin Warner

Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer Leadium

Last Reviewed: September 19, 2026

Executive Summary

Kevin Warner co-founded Leadium in 2015 with Sergey Olexa and has run it as chief executive since. Leadium is a fully managed outbound sales development agency — not software, and deliberately so. Its pitch is that it is the team a company hires to actually execute multi-channel outbound: appointment setting, data sourcing, cold calling, email prospecting, social selling and gifting, delivered by trained sales development representatives rather than by a tool the client has to staff themselves. The pair had founded CIENCE in 2014, exited it, and started again the following year with a narrower focus on high-performance prospecting. What makes Leadium’s trajectory unusual is that it ran the standard offshore playbook and then abandoned it. Having built a Kyiv hub in 2016 and a 10,000 square foot sales headquarters in the Dominican Republic, the company sold its international operations in 2022 to run an entirely US-based SDR team, explicitly trading scale for quality, and opened a Las Vegas headquarters in 2023. Over a decade it reports more than 1,500 clients across 45 industries, 500-plus SDRs trained, and over $250m in pipeline generated.

Career Highlights

• Co-founded CIENCE in 2014 with Sergey Olexa, an early data-driven outbound sales business.
• Exited CIENCE and co-founded Leadium in 2015 as a boutique sales development agency focused on prospecting and appointment setting.
• Opened a Kyiv delivery hub in 2016.
• Partnered with Outreach.io in 2017 and expanded with US offices in Irvine, California and Alexandria, Virginia.
• Built a 10,000 square foot sales headquarters in the Dominican Republic.
• Ran a hiring blitz of more than 100 sales development representatives in 2020, with intensive multi-channel cold calling training behind a phone-first approach.
• Surpassed 175 active clients in 2021.
• Sold Leadium’s international operations in 2022 to move to an entirely US-based SDR team.
• Opened the Las Vegas headquarters in 2023 and expanded the US team.
• Served more than 1,500 clients across 45 industries over the decade.
• Generated more than $250m in client pipeline, with 50,000-plus meetings booked and 150,000-plus appointments secured.
• Trained and developed more than 500 sales development representatives.
• Supported clients through a combined $6.7bn-plus in funding and acquisitions, by the company’s own account.
• Appeared as a guest on the Transform Sales podcast discussing outbound sales strategy.

Professional Journey

Warner’s career in outbound sales began in earnest in 2014, when he and Sergey Olexa founded CIENCE, a business built on applying data to outbound prospecting at a point when most B2B sales development was still improvised. They exited the following year.

Leadium followed in 2015, and the framing was deliberately narrower: a boutique sales development agency with what the company describes as a laser focus on high-performance prospecting and appointment setting. The distinction that has defined it since is that Leadium sells execution rather than tooling. In a market crowded with sales engagement software, its proposition is that most companies do not lack tools; they lack trained people who will make the calls and send the sequences consistently.

Scaling that meant scaling people, and the first decade divides cleanly in two. The first half built capacity internationally: a Kyiv hub in 2016, a partnership with Outreach.io in 2017 alongside US offices in Irvine, California and Alexandria, Virginia, a 10,000 square foot sales headquarters in the Dominican Republic, and in 2020 a hiring blitz of more than a hundred SDRs paired with intensive multi-channel cold calling training behind an explicitly phone-first method. By 2021 the firm had passed 175 active clients.

Then it reversed. In 2022 Leadium sold off its international operations entirely and rebuilt around a wholly US-based SDR team — a decision the company frames as doubling down on quality rather than scale. For an agency whose unit economics depend on labour cost, this is an expensive choice, and it only makes sense if the buyer is paying for conversation quality rather than for dial volume. The company opened its Las Vegas headquarters in 2023 and has since expanded the US team to meet demand.

The cumulative record Leadium publishes for its first decade is more than 1,500 clients across 45 industries, over 50,000 meetings booked and 150,000 appointments secured, more than $250m in pipeline generated, over 500 SDRs trained and developed, and clients who have collectively gone on to raise or transact more than $6.7bn. Warner works alongside Olexa, now Chief Strategy Officer, with an advisory group including Michael Hines, Amir Reiter, Mike MacDonald, Juan Ortiz and Amir Marmar. He speaks publicly on outbound strategy, including as a guest on the Transform Sales podcast.

Education

George Washington University

Attendance is recorded by Crunchbase only. No degree, field of study or year appears in any source, including Leadium’s own site, and none is asserted.