Seattle, WA, January 17, 2017 (Newswire.com) - Following a competitive $9M Series B funding round that included Microsoft Ventures, Zipwhip is building out a robust tier of middle management professionals to help the company “level up” and capture growing demand for business texting software. In the past quarter, the Seattle-based text messaging startup has made senior hires in Engineering, Marketing, Product, and Finance and promoted internally for a new director-level post in Network Operations. With this added horsepower, Zipwhip is positioned for a transformational 2017.
“The combination of our new funding and Zipwhip’s growing revenue allows us to scale all of our departments,” explains CEO John Lauer. “When we hire at this level, we’re looking for top talent that has experience in building teams, but also fits our culture. The market for business texting is maturing rapidly, and with this caliber of talent on board we’re only going to keep growing as a company.”
The market for business texting is maturing rapidly, and with this caliber of talent on board we're only going to keep growing as a company.
John Lauer, CEO
The new leaders bring a wealth of experience to Zipwhip:
· Roman Prigozhin, Director of Engineering, brings over 18 years of IT industry experience and thrives in a startup environment. Taking pride in building cross-functional teams from the ground up. He has managed software development teams in the number of successful startups such as Instant.ly, Shopzilla, RPost, and SpotRunner.
· Anna Henningsgaard is the new Director of Marketing. A vocal and highly respected member of the text messaging ecosystem for over a decade, she marketed and sold enterprise reporting tools to wireless carriers globally. More recently she ran a successful marketing analytics consultancy. She brings rich telecom relationships, startup teambuilding experience, and analytical rigor to build out Zipwhip’s inbound marketing capabilities.
· Fernando Cuadra, Director of Product, has spent the last 20 years making the world a better place. He started his career with the U.S. Air Force, where he co-developed products like instant messaging, biometrics (i.e., fingerprint swiping), and drones. He shifted to the private sector five years ago and is excited for Zipwhip to adopt a fresh product-focused mentality, human-centered design, and new loyalty strategies.
· Rebecca Conner, the new Controller, joins Zipwhip from Lighter Capital where she served as a Director of their Investment Team. Rebecca is on the Management Council for the Junior League of Seattle and a past board member of the MIT Enterprise Forum, and she brings an even higher level of organization and transparency to Zipwhip’s finance department.
· Daniel deMarteleire, Director of Operations, has been a member of Zipwhip since 2010 and is a core contributor to the design and implementation of the infrastructure. He is focused on delivering operational excellence in all sections of his department.
For the past two years Zipwhip has prioritized hiring on sales people to sell the dream of business texting: the fastest, easiest path to a consumer-business connection. Now the market is evolving quickly and there’s zero sign of it slowing down. As more people search actively for business texting solutions, the question has shifted from why texting? to who is the best and most trusted software provider? The expanded management team will help ensure that Zipwhip stays best-of-breed in texting software for SMBs and also maintains the highest level of enterprise messaging support required for its biggest customers.
Their backgrounds are very different, but each of Zipwhip’s new directors share two core experiences: building successful teams and bridging the divide between startups and more mature companies. Zipwhip will double the size of its Seattle headquarters in March and follow up with an aggressive schedule of software updates: an enhanced Free Trial experience, a new Click-to-Text offering, a revamped web app, and new integration points with brand-name CRM software.
Source: Zipwhip
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