EXCLUSIVE: Charlie Cole Out as Tribute Technology CEO

EXCLUSIVE: Charlie Cole Out as Tribute Technology CEO

Tribute Technology, one of the biggest players in deathcare tech, has announced that Charlie Cole has resigned from his position as Chief Executive Officer, effective immediately. Also resigning are Chief Financial Officer Frances DeBlasio and Head of Transformation Alex Cross.

This news comes less than 24 hours after the closing of the 2024 National Funeral Directors Association (NFDA) International Convention and Expo, at which Cole participated in the Tribute Technology booth.

In an exclusive interview with Connecting Directors today, Courtney Gould Miller shared that these resignations will not disrupt operations at Tribute, nor will it impact the level of service the company has always provided to its customers. She adds that customers should not be concerned about the financial position of the company.

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“First of all, I can say there is no concern from a financial perspective,” says Gould Miller. “In fact, we’ve recently announced how our board and the executive team have approved over $5 million in investment on our tech roadmap and operational support. That is remaining the same. We are excited about the future and looking forward to pursuing all of the roadmap and objectives that we’ve had.” 

Gould Miller, a veteran of the funeral profession with more than 30 years of experience in deathcare and a longtime member of the Tribute executive team, has been promoted to the position of President of Commercial Markets from her former roles as Chief Customer Officer and Chief Marketing Officer. She acknowledged that although these leadership changes may seem sudden, they are actually part of a larger plan. 

“The ‘why’ behind this is that Tribute has been going through a strategic review over the last few months, looking at everything from feedback of our many valued customers to what we’re hearing in the market … what we see in technology outside of the profession as well as inside, and what kind of team we need to go after that. This really was a mutual decision to move forward against that strategic plan.” 

All three resignations come less than two years into these individuals’ tenure at Tribute Technology. Cole joined the company in March 2023, while DeBlasio and Cross were added in April and February of the same year.

Over the last several months, many deathcare professionals have questioned the company’s perspective toward other funeral home website providers based on comments made by Cole. At DISRUPT Media’s 2024 Funeral (Un)Conference, Cole seemed to target competitors Tukios and Legacy.com, and at the Selected Independent Funeral Home Annual Meeting earlier this month, Cole said that Tribute’s goal was to put non-Tribute customers “out of business.”

“I want to put your competitors out of business because they don’t use our websites,” Cole said during his Selected presentation. “I mean it. And I’m going to. I have two funeral homes that churned off Tribute in the last 12 months that are in my sights, that I am actively optimizing their competitors’ websites.”

Gould Miller responded to those comments during today’s interview with Ryan Thogmartin:

Tribute Technology is one of the largest providers of funeral home websites, serving more than 10,000 customers — more than half of the funeral homes in the United States. Brands under the Tribute umbrella include SRS Computing and CFS, as well as non-website-related Legacy Touch.

Gould Miller assured Connecting Directors that all of these brands are being supported by Tribute Technology, and that competing offerings nor the recent resignations will change the tech roadmap. In fact, there are no plans to sunset any of these brands.

“We have a very aggressive roadmap that we’re excited to get after,” she says. “We have not only features coming to support software like SRS and our platforms like CFS. We want to support those for our funeral homes, make them better for our funeral homes, and of course, invest in our technology like Tribute websites and Tribute Management Software to be the very, very best in the profession.”