Dave Payne is an operational leader and technology entrepreneur with nearly three decades building, scaling, and investing in high-growth companies. As COO of Coba Bathhouse, he leads corporate operations, financial strategy, and investor relations, translating the founders’ bold vision into sustainable, scalable operations. Beyond Coba, Dave invests in and advises multiple wellness and technology companies, including serving on the Board of Directors for Boon Logic (AI analytics) and the Board of Advisors for GAGE (workforce community platform).

Dave’s career reflects an unusual combination: deep technical acumen paired with genuine commitment to human transformation. He founded Xcedex from scratch, building a virtualization consulting firm into a relevant player in the IT industry, then exited through divestiture to a larger technology company. At Code42, he scaled the technical sales organization from scratch, driving revenue from $2M to $50M through metrics-driven execution. As VP of Solutions Engineering at Elastifile, he guided a cloud storage startup through strategic pivots and a successful acquisition by Google. At Google, he built the business operating system for SAP on Google Cloud that scaled from startup to over $700M in revenue in three years.

In recent years, Dave has intentionally shifted focus toward wellness and mental health. He has studied Contemplative Psychology at Naropa University and Psychology at UNLV, grounded in ten years of active involvement in recovery communities. That combination of rigorous business discipline and genuine commitment to human wellbeing informs his approach to Coba’s next phase.

Dave’s Expertise

• Operations & Scaling: Building the systems, processes, and financial infrastructure that allow mission-driven companies to operate at scale without losing their soul. From early-stage to enterprise, Dave has proven he can grow revenue, optimize margins, and create clarity in complex organizations.
• Investor Relations & Capital Strategy: Managing sophisticated capital structures, communicating with institutional and high-net-worth investors, and ensuring financial clarity across multiple stakeholder groups.
• Transactions & Corporate Development: Operator-side experience in companies being bought and sold since 2002, including founding and exiting Xcedex, leading a startup through its acquisition by Google, and serving as EVP of Corporate Development at Hyper Networks. Dave knows what a transaction looks like from inside the business, not just from the term sheet.
• Mission Alignment: Understanding that the best businesses are those where financial discipline and genuine purpose align. Dave invests only in companies and ventures he believes genuinely improve people’s lives.
• Wellness & Recovery: Beyond theory, Dave brings lived experience and studied knowledge of wellness, psychology, and recovery practices, giving him insight into both the operational and transformative dimensions of what Coba offers.

Dave brings to Coba not just the operational firepower of a seasoned executive, but a founder’s belief in mission, the investor’s eye for sustainable value creation, and the depth of someone who has genuinely transformed his own life through wellness and presence. His role is to build the operational and financial foundation that allows Coba’s healing spaces to exist at scale and to remain true to their purpose.

Dave and his wife Sonya have been married since 1998 and have four children. He lives in Denver.