Industry Movers and Shakers June 2018

New Hire Spotlight

BloomReach Appoints Patrick Finn

BloomReach, a global leader in personalized digital experiences, announced today that it has appointed Patrick Finn as Head of Global Channels. As an industry veteran with more than 25 years of experience in channel and strategic alliance management in enterprise software and internet technology companies including IBM, Accenture and SAP Hybris, Finn aims to rapidly expand BloomReach's global ecosystem of digital agencies, systems integrators and technology partners. Read more: Here

New Managing Director

Georgiana Verdonk-Sim has been appointed The B2B Marketing Lab's new Managing Director in Asia Pacific as part of the HubSpot Diamond Partner’s continued expansion into the region. With more than 20 years of international marketing experience, Georgiana has already played a key role in the success of B2BML Singapore and will continue to spearhead the company’s efforts in growing its client base in the Asia Pacific region. Georgiana added: “Expanding into Singapore was an ambitious challenge for the business but to have achieved such recognition as a business in such a short period is a testament to the hard work and success we’ve had in servicing our clients’ Inbound Marketing needs. On a personal level, I’m excited to be taking the business forward as Managing Director and will continue to ensure we meet the local needs of clients in the Asia Pacific region while expanding our existing client base and offerings internationally. We’ve witnessed almost exponential growth for our business in this last couple of years and expect to continue that push in Asia and internationally in 2018.” Read more: Here

Marketing Veteran Joins Contently

Giuseppe Caltabiano joins Contently as Head Content Strategy, bringing more than 20 years of experience as a global marketing and writing expert, he will lead the content strategy service offering that is provided to Contently clients in EMEA. Before joining Contently, Caltabiano was Chief Strategist at Scorch Agency, a leading B2B enterprise content marketing agency.

“At Contently, we are committed to helping marketers create engaging and accountable content that allows them to strategically meet and exceed their marketing objectives,” said Joe Coleman, co-founder and CEO of Contently. “As we continue to expand our client base and expand our offerings, we know that adding Giuseppe to our leadership team will only further move the needle for our business. His extensive experience leading content marketing strategy in global enterprises is incredibly valuable for advising top global brands across the financial, technology, industrial, and consumer sectors to produce world-class content and digital marketing strategies. We’re pleased that our clients can now benefit from his years leading global marketing strategy programs in B2B and B2C enterprises.” Read more: Here

censhare Strengthen Paris Office

censhare France has announced Fabien Girost  as the new Managing Director, strengthening its commitment to the region as it continues its investment in this Paris-based team. Girost has over 10 years of experience in leading positions within the digital industry, he will continue the development of censhare’s French market share. “As SVP Sales and Managing Director, and with the help of my team, we will continue to build a real footprint for censhare in the French market. We are a young but promising structure and 2018 is the year to consolidate and develop the success of the past. Let’s do it!” - said Girost. Read more: Here

Promotion at Highspot

Highspot, the sales enablement platform, announced Jon White has been promoted to Vice President of Product Management. White brings more than a dozen years of product leadership in innovative technology companies, including Moz and Xerox. White will lead the Highspot product management team, working under co-founder and Chief Product Officer, David Wortendyke. “Jon White is an outstanding product innovator who brings rich leadership experience in building products that customers value,” said Robert Wahbe, co-founder and CEO of Highspot. “Jon’s customer focus and deep product experience will help us further accelerate Highspot’s rapid growth.” Read more: Here

New CMO at Rackspace

Mark Bunting has been announced as Rackspace’s new Chief Marketing Officer. Bunting joins the executive leadership team, led and built out by CEO Joe Eazor over the past year. Under Joe Eazor’s leadership, Rackspace is poised to continue its transformation as one of the industry’s broadest providers of IT and professional services across applications, data, security, and infrastructure. As CMO, Mark Bunting will be directly responsible for global marketing strategy and all aspects of the marketing organization including communications, brand, advertising, creative, digital, field, and channel marketing. He will be based in the company’s San Antonio and Austin, TX offices. “I’ve known and worked with Mark for years and am excited to have him formally on board,” said Joe Eazor, CEO, Rackspace. “His appointment to CMO, in combination with the recent additions to the Rackspace executive team, serves as a signal to the market that we’re ready to drive Rackspace forward as a digital transformation leader.” Read more: Here

First CEO for Varick

Varick, an audience-centric digital marketing company, announced that Paul Dolan will become their first ever Chief Executive Officer. Dolan brings over twenty years of industry leadership experience to Varick, with a track record of building and leading technology-enabled, data-driven media businesses. As Chief Executive Officer, Dolan will oversee the corporate strategy, technology roadmap and employee development at Varick, while also focusing on the growth and success of its clients’ businesses. “Paul is joining Varick during a monumental time. Not only are we coming off a record-breaking close in 2017, but we are also gearing up to celebrate our 10th anniversary in August,” says Walt Cheruk, President at Varick. “The addition of Paul to our senior leadership team will allow Varick to continue to provide cross-channel performance for clients today, while also preparing for the next stage of its evolution. His expertise in bringing new programmatic opportunities to the market will drive growth for our clients, our platforms and our people.” Read more: Here

Elastic Path Team Grows

Former IBM Digital Commerce Development Lead, Leho Nigul joins Elastic Path as Vice President, Product Development. “Thanks to our recent $43 million in growth funding , Elastic Path is now in hyper growth mode,” said Harry Chemko, CEO, Elastic Path. “We’re committed to expanding our research and development team. Leho’s depth of commerce industry knowledge, product architecture and development experience will be instrumental to advancing our product vision.”

“What excites me the most about Elastic Path Commerce is its API-first approach. Five years ago, Elastic Path’s product architects took what was then a big leap to constrain their APIs to meet full REST-Level 3 requirements,” said Nigul. “This created the first truly headless commerce solution on the market. Now every commerce software vendor is scrambling to catch up. I’m looking forward to guiding Elastic Path’s exceptional product vision and team.” Read more: Here

New Board Member

Bsquare Appoints Ryan Vardeman to Board of Directors, Vardeman will serve as a class III director and, as such, his term of office will expire at the company's 2021 Annual Meeting of Shareholders. "We are pleased to welcome Ryan Vardeman to the board," said Andrew Harries, Bsquare executive chairman. "Ryan brings extensive corporate strategy, operating, and financial experience. The board and I believe that Ryan's experience and insight will help us advance the evolution of DataV and balance our overall business priorities. Given that Palogic is one of our largest shareholders, we look forward to Ryan's contributions to Bsquare."

"Having carried out extensive research on Bsquare, I believe that DataV is uniquely well positioned to become a significant offering in the enterprise and industrial IoT market," stated Vardeman. "I look forward to working with my fellow directors to enhance shareholder value." Read more: Here

Dan Beers Joins Aurea Software

Former IBM executive Dan Beer joined Aurea Software as Chief Customer Success officer and senior vice president and general manager of Aurea’s newly created small and medium business solutions division, Aurea SMB Solutions. In his new role as SVP and general manager of Aurea SMB Solutions, Beer is responsible for all operating functions of this channel-focused division, which consists of products from GFI USA, Inc., Kerio Technologies Inc., Exinda Inc. and their affiliates. In addition, in Beer’s role of chief customer success officer across the Aurea portfolio, he is responsible for operating global customer success and support. This group is dedicated to creating a scalable, knowledge-centric success organization that delivers a reliable and consistent experience, allowing customers to optimize their use of Aurea solutions. “Dan brings a proven track record to Aurea from leading both mid-sized and very large software companies and divisions,” said Scott Brighton, CEO of Aurea Software. “Under his leadership, I’m confident we will increase customer and partner success, deepen product innovation, build more meaningful partnerships and operate the world-class customer support operations Aurea’s clients deserve.” Read more: Here

OpenText Receives Award

OpenText received a 2018 SAP® Pinnacle Award as the SAP Solution Extension Partner of the Year, which recognizes its outstanding contributions as an SAP partner. SAP presents these awards annually to the top partners that have excelled in developing and growing their partnership with SAP and helping customers run better. The winning partner is selected on the basis of its technology innovation, market impact, and demonstration of customer impact. "OpenText is honored to have received SAP’s top partner award. This is a reflection of the incredible value both SAP and OpenText are bringing to the new CEO agenda for the intelligent and connected enterprise," said Mark J. Barrenechea, Vice Chair, CEO & CTO, OpenText. "At OpenText, we are committed to long-term innovation on SAP platforms to revolutionize businesses, drive strategic change, and to make the digital and cognitive eras a reality.” Read more: Here

New Senior VP at Pluralsight

Pluralsight, Inc., appoints Sean Farrington as Senior Vice President of Sales in Europe, the Middle East, India, and Africa (EMEA). Reporting to Joe DiBartolomeo, Chief Revenue Officer at Pluralsight, Farrington will oversee the strategic direction, expansion, and operation of commercial and enterprise sales. In this role, he will build and lead a team of sales professionals both on the ground in Pluralsight’s Dublin office and throughout Europe, the Middle East, India, and Africa. “Sean has more than 17 years of international sales experience and we are thrilled to have him join the Pluralsight team,” said Joe DiBartolomeo. “As we continue to accelerate our global expansion, Sean will play a key role in our success by growing our sales pipeline in existing markets and penetrating new ones.”

“I was drawn to Pluralsight for its values and commitment to fulfilling its mission to democratize technology skills,” said Farrington. “As technology continues to evolve and the pressure of digital transformation increases, keeping pace with technology will continue to be a priority for organizations around the globe, and I am excited to introduce them to Pluralsight as we continue our global expansion.” Read more: Here

New CSO at my6sense

Mobile Marketing Pioneer Ivan Braiker joins my6sense as their first Chief Strategy Officer. With content engagement migrating from desktop to mobile devices, my6sense, a comprehensive, white label programmatic native ad platform and exchange, made the announcement. Avinoam Rubinstain, CEO and founder of my6sense, said, “We’re excited to have Ivan join our team as Chief Strategy Officer, bringing to my6sense his 25 years of management experience in mobile and media, most notably from Hipcricket. With our enhanced AI technology and strong growth in Europe and the Americas, my team and I are looking forward to using Ivan’s insight and experience to enable us to navigate the expansion my6sense is experiencing.” Ivan Braiker said, “With new clients coming on board driven by my6sense’s proprietary AI technology, it’s an exciting time for me to be joining Avinoam and his team as they scale their native, programmatic offering to support a growing list of supply and demand side partners utilizing a range of ad units and solutions.” Read more: Here

New CFO at Hubspot

HubSpot Appoints Kate Bueker as Chief Financial Officer effective June 18, 2018. Bueker brings almost 25 years of financial and operational expertise to HubSpot. John Kinzer stepped down as Chief Financial Officer as of June 18, 2018, but will remain with HubSpot through January 3, 2019 to ensure a smooth transition of his duties to Bueker. “Kate is a fantastic financial leader with a proven track record of helping businesses scale,” said Brian Halligan, co-founder and CEO of HubSpot. “We’re confident her extensive experience and commitment to delivering results will help drive HubSpot’s continued growth as we enter our next chapter as a company.” “HubSpot has experienced massive growth over the past decade, and is well positioned to continue that expansion in the years to come,” said Bueker. “I’m excited to help the team execute on its mission of helping millions of organizations grow better while continuing to deliver value to its employees, customers, and shareholders.” Bueker joins HubSpot from Akamai Technologies where she most recently served as the senior vice president of business finance and operations. Read more: Here

Umbraco Has Been Busy

Andrew Barta is back at Umbraco after leaving in 2017 for some adventures. In his new position he will be primarily focusing on training and communications, along with growing partnership in North America. Read more: Here

The new Umbraco.TV Crew has been put together, they will be responsible for creating new content for Umbraco.TV along with free Umbraco Cloud videos for YouTube. Umbraco.TV is well-known as the hub for Umbraco HQ producing video tutorials, teaching developers, implementers and editors how to use Umbraco. You will find step-by-step tutorial videos that teach you best practices whether that’s setting up a site from scratch or using a features in the right way, so you get the most out of it. Read more: Here

Progress App Innovation Awards

Progress announced the winners of the inaugural App Innovation Awards during ProgressNEXT 2018 conference. The winners were honored for innovation, excellence and impact in application development and digital experience using Progress solutions. Submissions ranged from Fortune 500 organizations to startups across industries, and nominees were selected based on the level of innovation, sophistication, and environmental or social impact of their application.  Read more: Here

Episerver Hires Microsoft Veteran Mike Rogers

Episerver has hired Microsoft channel veteran Mike Rogers as Partner Sales Manager, creating this new postion to drive their Dynamics business. "While Episerver has worked with the more classic Microsoft partner in the past, we are now seeing a steady flow of business with partners focused on complex CRM, ERP, and BI use cases that are simplified by not only the complementary technology but, of course, the implementation. This combination is helping organizations create standout experiences," said Rogers. "We have broken ground with Dynamics partner relationships and Episerver's investment in this role gives way to build on this vision." Rogers said in his new role he is working to get the message out that Dynamics 365 partners going to market without a strong commerce and content story are at a disadvantage today. Read more: Here