About

The Basics

We created Hexawise to help software testers achieve more coverage in fewer tests. Hexawise Inc. does one thing and we do it well; we create an easy-to-use test case generator that lets users test smarter, not harder.

Our passionate team is based in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, close to Research Triangle Park.

The Hexawise Way

At Hexawise, we consider ourselves not so much a Software as a Service provider as we are a Software and a Service provider. The Hexawise Way is how we provide service to our clients in three major phases of our relationship.

The Team

Justin Hunter, CEO and Founder

Before founding Hexawise, Justin worked at Accenture for 8 years where he led several firm-wide initiatives, including spearheading the adoption of “Hexawise-like” testing practices that routinely doubled tester productivity. He received an global CEO award for the initiative’s success.

Before Accenture, Justin also helped launch two successful start-ups: Asia’s first internet-based stock brokerage, and a European comparison shopping firm. He graduated from Georgetown University and earned a JD/MBA from the University of Virginia.

Passionate about: Justin is passionate about two things: (1) helping to spread broader awareness of proven test design techniques that improve quality and productivity, and (2) continuously improving the Hexawise tool. As explained in “The Inspiration” below, he comes by these passions honestly; they’re in his genes.

Sean Johnson, CTO and Lead Developer

Sean has worked for 15+ years as a software engineer at IBM and IT start-ups including 6 years as the CTO and Lead Architect of a start-up that grew to 70 people and was acquired by IBM.

Passionate about: Sean has worked on lots of overly complex enterprise software, so he is passionate about keeping Hexawise’s user experience simple and intuitive. He’s also very passionate about Jazz apples. According to Sean, “you haven’t lived until you’ve eaten a Jazz apple.” (He’s not as weird in person as he sounds.)

Lenora Midyette, CFO

Prior to joining Hexawise, Lenora worked in corporate finance at JP Morgan Chase for 7 years in NY, Hong Kong and London, most recently as a Vice President.  She has worked on arranged more than $4 billion worth of debt and equity transactions. She has a BS-Business Administration from the University of North Carolina, an MBA from the University of Virginia, and is a Certified Public Accountant.

Passionate about: Lenora is passionate about keeping us all focused and keeping the trains running on time.

The Inspiration

Justin’s father was the world-renowned applied statistician, Dr. William G. Hunter. Dr. Hunter’s expertise was in Design of Experiments (the scientific approach to learning as much actionable information as possible in as few experiments as possible). Dr. Hunter:

  • Worked with practitioners in a wide range of fields to solve pragmatic quality improvement goals with Design of Experiments-based solutions
  • Founded the Statistics Division of the American Society for Quality (which grew to 17,000 members)
  • Co-founded the Center for Quality and Productivity Improvement.
  • Together with George Box and Stuart Hunter, co-wrote the best-selling applied statistics book for practitioners “Statistics for Experimenters”
  • Passed away in 1986, but not before making major contributions to his field. Memorials acknowledging his contributions include: The Hunter Award (given each year to a leading applied statistician), The Hunter Conference (focused on Quality and Continuous Improvement), and, in a very real sense, Hexawise itself.

Hexawise would never have been created had Dr. Hunter decided to pursue a career in something other than Design of Experiments. It was Dr. Hunter’s infectious enthusiasm about applying these methods to a diverse range of fields that led his son, our company’s founder, to “connect the dots” and see the direct applicability of Design of Experiments methods to the software testing field.

The Award

Hexawise can trace its roots back to an award-winning initiative at Accenture, where Justin worked for 8 years. In brief:

  • Justin proposed that Accenture adopt a new approach to test case design.
  • The first time his recommended approach was used at Accenture, tester productivity tripled.
  • Accenture’s leaders gave Justin and the team he convinced to pilot this approach a global award for creating a valuable new differentiated capability.
  • Encouraged, Justin introduced this test design approach to many hundreds of testers on six continents in every major industry and continuously refined how to apply this approach.
  • Working with dozens of testing teams on diverse projects at Accenture, Justin realized: (1) Very few testing teams, even sophisticated teams at Fortune 500 firms, had even heard about this test design approach (or similar approaches such as pairwise, combinatorial, or orthogonal array-based test design methods) and (2) This test design approach delivered large measurable benefits in virtually every project it was used (even though many stakeholders were initially skeptical).

The Garage

Launched in early 2009, the early work of Hexawise was literally performed in a garage. Since launching out of our garage, we’ve quickly gained acceptance and broad usage at many Fortune 500 firms.

The Giants

Today, Hexawise is in use at:

  • 3 out of the 10 largest IT consulting firms in the world (including > 850 Hexawise users at a single global IT and consulting firm)
  • 3 of the 10 largest banks in the world
  • 4 out of the 40 largest insurance firms in the world
  • 2 of the 10 largest aerospace firms in the world