Noah Glass

Founder & Chief Executive Officer Olo

Last Reviewed: September 19, 2026

Executive Summary

Noah Glass is the founder and chief executive of Olo, the restaurant technology company he started in 2005 and has run ever since, through a period in which digital ordering went from a curiosity to the core of how American restaurants take business. Olo supplies the ordering, delivery-dispatch and guest-engagement infrastructure that sits behind restaurant brands’ own apps and websites, so that a chain can take orders directly rather than surrendering the customer relationship and the margin to a third-party marketplace. Glass took the company public on the New York Stock Exchange in 2021 and then, in 2025, sold it to the private equity firm Thoma Bravo for $10.25 a share in cash, valuing it at about $2.0 billion. The deal closed on 12 September 2025, Olo was delisted and deregistered, and he stayed on as chief executive of the now privately held company while stepping off its board along with the rest of the public-company directors. His interest in the problem is not abstract: he worked as a cashier, server, bartender and delivery driver before founding the company.

Career Highlights

• Founded Olo in 2005 and remains Founder and Chief Executive Officer, a role stated in Portillo’s Inc.’s SEC proxy statement filed 17 April 2026 and on Olo’s own leadership page.
• Built mobile ordering technology that, by his own account, predates the iPhone.
• Led Olo through its initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange in 2021.
• Agreed the sale of Olo to Thoma Bravo at $10.25 per share in cash, an equity value of approximately $2.0 billion, announced 3 July 2025 and completed 12 September 2025.
• Continued as chief executive of Olo after the take-private, under the new ownership structure.
• Grew the platform to the point where, as Yale’s own event listing put it, more than 700 restaurant brands rely on Olo.
• Director of Portillo’s Inc. since 2017, serving on its audit committee, and a nominee for re-election at its 2026 annual meeting.
• Served as International Expansion Manager at Endeavor Global, Inc., the non-profit supporting high-impact entrepreneurs in emerging markets, where he is credited with launching its first African affiliate.
• Yale University, class of 2003.

Professional Journey

Glass’s route into restaurant technology began on the floor rather than in the office. He worked in foodservice for years before founding anything, as a cashier, a server, a bartender and a delivery driver, and that experience is the stated origin of his interest in the operational problems restaurants face. Before Olo he worked at Endeavor Global, Inc., the non-profit that identifies and supports high-impact entrepreneurs in emerging markets, as International Expansion Manager, a role in which he is credited with launching the organisation’s first African affiliate.

He founded Olo in 2005, originally as a text-message-based ordering service, at a point when ordering food from a phone meant a phone call. The company’s timing is the interesting part of the story: he was building mobile ordering before the iPhone existed and before app stores gave restaurants a way to distribute software. The eventual product became infrastructure rather than a consumer brand, providing the ordering, payment and delivery-dispatch layer that restaurant chains run beneath their own apps and websites, plus the data and guest-engagement tools built on top.

That positioning turned out to be strategically important as third-party delivery marketplaces grew. A restaurant that takes orders through a marketplace pays a substantial commission and does not learn who its customers are; a restaurant running on Olo keeps the relationship and the data, and can still dispatch a delivery through a marketplace’s courier network. The pitch to large chains was direct digital ordering at scale without building it themselves, and it won a large share of the enterprise restaurant market.

Olo listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2021, in the wave of software IPOs that followed the pandemic acceleration of digital ordering. The subsequent years were harder for the whole category, as growth normalised and public market valuations of restaurant and commerce software compressed. On 3 July 2025 Olo announced a merger agreement with Thoma Bravo, the technology-focused private equity firm, at $10.25 per share in cash, an equity value of roughly $2.0 billion. Glass said at the time that partnering with Thoma Bravo would let the company build on its success.

The transaction closed on 12 September 2025. Olo’s Class A common stock was delisted from the New York Stock Exchange, its registration was terminated later that month, and the entire public-company board, including Glass, resigned at the effective time, replaced by the acquirer’s designees. The company’s officers continued in their roles, so Glass remains chief executive, now running a private company answerable to a single owner rather than to public shareholders.

Alongside Olo he has been a director of Portillo’s Inc., the Chicago-founded restaurant chain, since 2017, and serves on its audit committee. He also holds two positions in the food world outside the commercial sector, on the board of Share Our Strength, which campaigns to end childhood hunger in the United States, and as a trustee of the Culinary Institute of America.

Education

Yale University

B.A., Political Science (International Relations), class of 2003