Leigh Michl

Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Ultimus

Last Reviewed: September 28, 2026

Executive Summary

Leigh Michl is Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Ultimus, the business process management software company Rashid Khan founded in 1994. He came to the job from investing rather than operating. He spent 24 years in venture capital and private equity, as a Partner at Advent International and as a founder and Managing Director of Ascent Venture Partners, focusing on information technology and technology-enabled business services. He joined the Ultimus board in 2007 and became chief executive in 2009. He has since led the company’s shift from classic BPM toward low-code digital process automation and, more recently, AI agent orchestration.

Career Highlights

• Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Ultimus; CEO since 2009 and a director since 2007.
• Founder and Managing Director of Ascent Venture Partners.
• Partner at Advent International, the private equity firm.
• Held audit and business analysis positions at The Pioneer Group, Inc. and completed General Electric’s Financial Management Program.
• Former Chairman of the Mad River Glen Cooperative and former member of the President’s Advisory Committee and Investment Committee of the Berklee College of Music.

Professional Journey

Michl trained in finance. After a bachelor’s degree in economics from Bates College and a master’s in finance from Boston College, he completed General Electric’s Financial Management Program and held audit and business analysis positions at The Pioneer Group, Inc.

He then spent 24 years in venture capital and private equity, concentrating on information technology and technology-enabled business services. He was a Partner at Advent International and a founder and Managing Director of Ascent Venture Partners.

He joined the board of Ultimus in 2007 and became chief executive in 2009. Ultimus was already well established by then. Rashid Khan founded it in 1994 in Cary, North Carolina, with the idea that anyone who could use a spreadsheet should be able to build a workflow, and the company helped pioneer the concept of the Business Process Management Suite. It now reports more than 2,000 customers in over 80 countries, software supported in 20 languages, and customers including Sanofi, Bristol-Myers Squibb, DHL, Lockheed Martin, Sony and Pfizer. Its headquarters is in New York.

Under Michl, Ultimus has repositioned its product line around digital process automation and low-code development. Its core product is now the Ultimus Digital Process Automation Suite, and it has added a Composed Process Solutions environment for building reusable digital assets, a low-code governance module announced in 2024, and generative AI features. When 451 Research began covering the company in 2022, Michl said the report captured “how the Ultimus DPA Suite technologies help us deliver on our digital business automation vision.” In a December 2024 interview on Analysis.tech’s “Low Down on Low-Code” podcast, he discussed the evolution of process automation, the difficulties of integrating AI into existing processes and the risk of chasing hype cycles. The company released annual 2025 and 2026 versions of its suite and has promoted agentic AI orchestration since 2025.

Outside Ultimus, he has chaired the Mad River Glen Cooperative and served on the President’s Advisory Committee and Investment Committee of the Berklee College of Music.

Education

Bates College

Bachelor’s degree, Economics

Boston College

Master’s degree, Finance