Natalie Lemke has spent her career helping small and mid-sized businesses untangle operational challenges. From ERP implementations in family-run manufacturing companies to digital transformations in professional services orgs, Natalie knows how to instill order in resource planning chaos. Now, as the founding CEO of Project Evolve – soon to be known as Rux and powered by Juxtapose’s platform build model – she and her team are building ERP software specifically designed for operationally-intense sectors like specialty manufacturing, construction, and equipment rental.
These businesses face the same operational challenges as enterprise companies, but they’re underserved by ERP software that fits their size, workflows, and operational specificity. The company is focused on high-opportunity specialty niche industries with more than $1 billion in software spend (more “mass” than “niche”).“
Project Evolve is delivering accessible, high-impact tools for SMBs, built on Microsoft's powerful platform and supported by its unrivaled ecosystem,” said Natalie. “The opportunity to drive meaningful change for business owners, operators, and their teams is what motivates me.”
Natalie launched her career at SPS Commerce, where she helped lead a digital transformation that contributed to growing ARR from $50 million to $225 million. She then built and scaled Stoneridge Software’s Microsoft Business Central practice, growing it into a 100-person team generating $35 million in revenue. In 2022, she was recognized as a Microsoft Partner of the Year.
Most recently, she served as the Chief Professional Services Officer at Net-at-Work, a PE-backed software publisher in the Sage, NetSuite, and Acumatica ecosystems, and led teams that produced $100 million in annual professional services revenue across 12 business units. (Her life accomplishments go back further than her career. In high school, she lettered in the science olympiad, track, and marching band.)
In the context of Project Evolve, Natalie gets to pair her operational expertise with Juxtapose’s platform strategy to create a full-stack transformation engine for SMBs. Built on Microsoft’s Dynamics ecosystem, Project Evolve will combine product development with selective acquisitions of underutilized IP in the Microsoft partner network to turn outdated assets into a market-leading ERP platform. “Our goal is to empower SMBs with technology that’s engineered to fit and built to last,” said Natalie. “That means building software that’s smart, adaptable, and grounded in the day-to-day realities of the people who use it.”
