Our mission at Burro is to solve the labor problem facing farmers by making robots like Wall-E a reality. To do this, we are starting first with a collaborative robotic platform called Burro, that helps people work more productively today, while building the base for more expansive autonomy where it is needed most. We believe this is the path towards a future where farming is fully autonomous.
Meet the leadership team
Charlie Andersen
Charlie grew up on a working farm. This experience led him to believe that all tedious outdoor labor should be automated, and simultaneously to understand the challenges that robots face in industries like agriculture. He founded Burro after working for CNHi, where he reported to the head of the North American operating unit and worked on special projects across sales, marketing, manufacturing, distribution, and autonomy M&A. He received a BA from Amherst College, and an MBA from Harvard Business School.
Vanessa McGrath
Vanessa McGrath is Burro’s Chief of Staff and Director of People Operations. As Chief of Staff, Vanessa handles investor relations and assists with fundraising, manages our legal teams, provides strategic advice and insight to the other executives in Burro’s C-Suite, and drives organizational structure as we scale. As Director of People Operations, Vanessa oversees all hiring and HR functions. Prior to joining Burro, Vanessa was an employment lawyer and former Pennsylvania Supreme Court Clerk. She received her B.A from Ursinus College and J.D. from Temple University Beasley School of Law and is licensed to practice law in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Vanessa loves to spend time with her Havanese puppy, Teddy, and is a big supporter of the vibrant Philadelphia art scene, including museums and the ballet.
Mark Gaudiosi
Mark has 25+ years of strategic finance experience across multiple sectors and companies. Most recently Mark was the Chief Financial Officer at Medical Guardian, a leading Healthcare company helping people live a life without limits, where he oversaw the Finance and Accounting teams through M&A and profitable growth. Prior to that Mark was the Chief Financial Officer at Gopuff where he led the growth and scale of enterprise value over 3500%. Over the past 10 years Mark has driven growth by building a world class finance organization focused on profitability and multiple strategic acquisitions.
Prior to Gopuff, Mark led Accounting and Finance organizations for large retail and technology companies including eBay Enterprise (now Radial), Aramark, and Wawa. Mark began his career in the Philadelphia startup scene, building teams and partnership to successfully work through an acquisition and IPO at Zany Brainy.
Mark received his MBA in Finance and BS in Accounting from Drexel University and sits on both the Riddle Hospital Healthcare Foundation Board as Treasurer and the Advisory Committee of the CFO Leadership Council.
Kevin Leiter
Kevin leads the development and execution of Burro’s operations strategy, including overseeing manufacturing, supply chain logistics, and Robot Support. Prior to joining Burro, Kevin gained extensive experience launching, scaling, and improving manufacturing and supply chain operations in large-scale and start-up environments at Tesla and for clients of Deloitte Consulting. Most recently, Kevin applied his operational mindset to developing TE Connectivity’s corporate and distribution go-to-market strategies, with an emphasis on implementation and value capture. Kevin’s passion for bringing impactful products to market was reinforced while obtaining an MBA from MIT Sloan School of Management, an M.S. in Supply Chain Systems Engineering from MIT School of Engineering, and a B.S. in Systems Engineering from University of Pennsylvania.
Guillermo Pita Gil
Guillermo is Burro’s Chief Technology Officer. He is focused on bringing operational excellence and engineering craftsmanship to the engineering team. Prior to Burro, Guillermo spent 15 years working in the automotive industry. He was the Director of Planning, Controls and HMI at Woven Planet and the Toyota Research Institute in California. Guillermo also worked for 12 years for the ADAS and AD departments of Renault in Paris and Nissan in Japan developing and shipping to production chassis control and ADAS/AD systems. He received his Ph.D. in controls theory from Centrale Supelec in France and two masters degrees in electrical engineering and applied mathematics from Supelec and Paris Sud. He has 15 papers and over 60 patents.
Ryan Clifford
Ryan Clifford leads the Revenue team at Burro, which consists of Sales, Customer Success, Revenue Operations, and Marketing. He is most recently a veteran of two venture-funded Silicon Valley robotics startups, backed by the likes of Bessemer Venture Partners, Shasta Ventures, SoftBank, and TransLink Capital. One of which – Fetch Robotics – was acquired by Zebra Technologies for over $300M in 2021. He’s spent his entire career bringing emerging hardware-enabled tech solutions to market in decades-old industrial customer verticals. Since 2018, he’s worked specifically on solving the global labor shortage with the adoption of mobile robotics technologies.
In his free time, Ryan enjoys coaching youth sports, snowboarding, paddle boarding, and traveling with his wife and two boys.
Join Team Burro.
Investors & Partners
We’re honored to work with a world-class group of investors.