Audited against two additional ISO certifications with zero non-conformities for the second year in a row

AvePoint (NASDAQ: AVPT), the most advanced platform to optimize SaaS operations and secure collaboration, today announced certification against, and demonstration of conformance to, the International Organization for Standardization’s (ISO) information security management system (ISMS) audit using the 27701:2019 framework for the first time, and the 27001:2013, and 27017:2015 frameworks for the second consecutive year. Successfully achieving these three certifications demonstrates AvePoint’s prioritization of security and privacy for both itself and its customers and shows that AvePoint has proper company-wide processes for managing operations, and maintaining people and information assets, information systems, and the associated processes that enable corporate operations.

“AvePoint has a longstanding history of helping organizations safely manage and optimize their digital collaboration data. Continuing to add to our ISO certifications shows we also hold ourselves to the highest privacy and data security standards,” said Dana Simberkoff, Chief Information, Security and Risk Officer, AvePoint. “The auditors for our new ISO certification affirmed that AvePoint's unwavering focus on privacy and security was apparent in both our evaluations and in the inherent design of our products and services, which has always been our goal.”

ISO is an independent, non-governmental international organization with a membership of 161 national standard bodies, credited with publishing more than 2,100 international standards covering almost every industry from technology to food safety to aviation to healthcare. For six years, AvePoint has been audited against ISO 27001:2013, and for two years ISO 27017:2015, both of which are information security management accreditations. The new ISO 27701:2019 certification is in the information privacy management category and represents the evolution of AvePoint as a safe controller of data as opposed to a large processor of data like Microsoft, Amazon Web Services, Salesforce and Google. With access to customer and partner data, it is critical to AvePoint that it is only using said data for its intended purposes.

AvePoint’s three ISO certifications add to the company’s overall resiliency strategy and commitment to security for all customers, which includes other accreditations including SOC 2 Type II, CSA STAR, IRAP, FedRAMP and StateRAMP.

Subsidiary will focus operations on serving PE and VC-backed cybersecurity companies

Slone Partners, one of the nation’s leading life sciences and healthcare executive search firms, is pleased to announce the appointment of Mike Mosunic as President of Slone Partners Cybersecurity, its subsidiary that delivers leaders for innovative Private Equity (PE)-backed and Venture Capital (VC) companies in the cybersecurity industry.

Mosunic is an experienced executive search consultant who has led high-profile searches for Slone Partners since joining the company for a second time in 2020. In 2019, he co-founded Wolf Hill Group, the predecessor of Slone Partners Cybersecurity. The company was later acquired by Slone Partners. Earlier in his career, Mosunic served as Vice President, Sales at Sonic Healthcare (2017-2019), Chief Commercial Officer at Pathology, Inc. (2009-2016), and Chief Operating Officer at Slone Partners (2005-2009).

“Mike Mosunic is a highly passionate, driven, and visionary executive who understands the very vibrant and complex cybersecurity industry,” said Slone Partners CEO Leslie Loveless. “His enthusiastic approach, strategic mindset, and enduring commitment to recruiting are apparent from the moment you meet him, and these qualities will serve us well as he scales up Slone Partners Cybersecurity as a national leader in cybersecurity executive search.”

“I am greatly honored to assume the role as President of Slone Partners Cybersecurity,” said Mosunic. “We have a remarkable team that is relentlessly focused on creating an exceptional client and candidate experience in every search. Cybersecurity and Artificial Intelligence (AI) are rapidly evolving, and the companies involved in this exciting space require transformative leaders who can inspire creativity and capitalize on market segments that are ripe for disruption. Our executive search team will reach beyond our client partners’ limits to discover the talent that can exceed even their most ambitious expectations.”

Under Mosunic’s leadership, Slone Partners Cybersecurity will build upon Slone Partners’ 23-year track record as one of the nation’s top executive search firms to deliver senior management talent for disruptive VC-backed companies and established PE-backed companies primed to scale with the right funding and support.

Founded in 2000, Slone Partners has a long history of serving the PE and VC markets and has developed a deep understanding of how they work and what it takes for leaders to succeed in investor-backed companies. As such, Slone Partners was well positioned to expand into cybersecurity and AI in 2019 to meet the needs of high performing organizations in these very competitive markets. With more than two decades of executive recruiting experience, our leadership team continues to build upon its extraordinary track record of placing transformational Board members, C-suite executives, and other functional leaders.

Mosunic earned his bachelor’s degree in psychology from Le Moyne College, an MBA from the USC Marshall School of Business, and a master’s degree in Applied Physiology from Columbia University.

Sojern, the leading travel marketing platform, today announced the acquisition of VenueLytics, the hospitality industry's most integrated guest experience platform serving independent hotels, resorts, chains and casinos. Sojern will incorporate VenueLytics' capabilities as an extension of the Sojern Travel Marketing Platform.

Sojern has long been a direct bookings driver for hotels—providing comprehensive digital advertising solutions that help travel marketers find, attract and convert new travelers, re-activate existing guests to build loyalty, and maximize net revenue per available room (RevPAR). This acquisition expands Sojern's Travel Marketing Platform to engage across the entire guest journey with VenueLytics' cutting-edge technology that includes an Artificial Intelligence (AI)-powered virtual concierge, real-time guest feedback and digital reputation management tools, and a guest marketing suite for email and text promotions. VenueLytics' solutions help marketing, operations, and front-desk teams better serve their guests with less resources required, drive incremental revenue, and maximize profit. With these additional features, Sojern can now help marketers find, attract, convert and engage travelers throughout their journey.

"This is an exciting step forward for our customers as we can empower hoteliers beyond advertising alone, expanding our offerings to be a true end-to-end marketing platform," said Mark Rabe, CEO of Sojern. "We are dedicated to providing the travel industry with innovative solutions that leverage data, AI and technology to drive results. VenueLytics' expertise in analyzing, unifying and activating data from various hotel management and marketing systems will allow Sojern to deepen our relationships in hospitality. This addition helps us to advance toward becoming the #1 travel marketing platform."

One of VenueLytics key customers is Grupo Posadas, the largest hotel company in Mexico with over 180 resorts and hotels. Posadas Director of Quality, Standards and Innovation, Leslie Gomez, commented, "By using VenueLytics AI Concierge throughout the guest journey, Posadas has increased Ancillary Revenue with more than 53K requests over the last 9 months. Our guests satisfaction improved more than 19 percentage points (pp) in NPS (Net Promoter Score) from the guests who had contact with our digital concierge experience."

By extending its platform with VenueLytics, Sojern can now support hotel marketers with an all-in-one platform that drives guests directly to a property, enables upsell mid-stay, remarketing post-stay, and builds long term loyalty. In addition to the multichannel offerings of Sojern, VenueLytics provides the ability to engage customers in an expanded multichannel network that includes SMS, Email, WiFi, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, ChatBot, Alexa, Google Home and other social media and third party apps. This allows Sojern to expand into generative AI with cutting edge tools to drive and optimize booking value for hotels.

VenueLytics Co-Founder and CEO Baskar Manivannan commented, "We have partnered with Sojern for more than a year, and joining forces will strengthen our customer base and reputation while enabling us to offer the hospitality and travel industry a wider and timely range of solutions. With AI, data analytics and personalized multichannel guest engagement at the backbone of what we do, we have a shared vision to empower hotels around the world to drive profitability, and truly elevate guest experience and satisfaction."

Last month, Sojern announced the latest version of its Sojern Travel Marketing Platform with enhanced AI powered audiences. With this acquisition, it further demonstrates the company's rigor and success at integrating new technology and scaling it globally. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but Sojern has reported previously that it is profitable, has driven more than $10 billion in global travel bookings, and serves over 10,000 customers annually around the world leveraging its long-standing AI capabilities.

The acquisition will deepen Sojern's hotel expertise in North America where VenueLytics has been focused. VenueLytics will now be able to support the global hospitality industry as an extension of the Sojern Travel Marketing Platform.

In the competitive dining industry, restaurants need to stand out from the crowd and own the occasion to attract new patrons and keep loyal customers coming back. ShopLiftr, a cutting-edge dynamic digital ad tech platform, is dedicated to helping full-service to quick-service restaurants, fast-casual dining, and cafés achieve this goal through highly personalized, hyper-localized display and video ads.

By using ShopLiftr's innovative platform, restaurants can curate geo-targeted ads with flexible messaging that reach the right audience at the right time. The platform injects relevant promotion information and local restaurant addresses into the ad units, enabling businesses to offer incentives catering to a wide range of customer preferences.

There are numerous ways restaurants' advertising can resonate with their target audience, including:

• Ongoing weekly, seasonal, and occasion-based promotions (e.g. Ladies Night, Happy Hour, Kids Eat Free)
• Distribution of digital coupons across multiple geographies
• Amplification of existing loyalty programs to gain new patrons
• Weather-based triggers
• Chain-wide pricing promotions, with differentiation between locations
• Call-to-action to "Order Online" or "Book Your Table"
• Private dining/catering
• Online sales & gift certificates
• New location openings
• Location-specific hiring events

"Our mission is to help restaurants own the occasion and boost their sales by leveraging the power of our innovative dynamic digital ad solution," said John Scott, ShopLiftr's CEO & Co-Founder. "We understand that the restaurant industry is diverse, and our platform is designed to cater to the unique needs of each establishment, whether it's an internationally recognized QSR or a local full-service restaurant chain."

Rising inflation and fuel costs are causing customers to dine out less often and choose local options when they do. According to The RushReport: The 2023 Restaurant Consumer Experience Report, inflation is leading 50% of Americans who eat out or opt for takeout to reduce their dining out frequency, with 44% selecting more budget-friendly choices like fast-casual or takeaway services. Elevated fuel prices influence location preferences, as 44% of patrons opt for restaurants nearer to their residences.

By employing local promotions and tailored communications, restaurants can counter these patterns. In fact, 62% of consumers emphasize the significance of receiving customized communications from a restaurant they regularly visit. With ShopLiftr, restaurants can tap into this incentive-driven behavior to boost foot traffic and enhance sales.

Don't miss out on the opportunity to boost your restaurant's sales with ShopLift

71% of Japanese TV viewers watch ad-supported streaming services

Magnite , the world’s largest independent sell-side advertising company, today unveiled its latest research study “The Rise of Ad-Supported Streaming Services: An In-depth Look at Viewers’ Changing Habits in Japan.” The research finds that in Japan, adoption of streaming services, which includes television content streamed on any device, is driven by the popularity of ad-supported content and that 71% of TV viewers in the country watch ad-supported streaming services.

TV viewers across different formats are embracing the value exchange between advertising and lower-priced access to premium content, with eight in 10 TV viewers indicating that they would choose to watch free or reduced-cost ad-supported content. In addition, 65% of streamers stated they feel it’s unnecessary to pay for an ad-free service when the same content with ads is available for a lesser fee.

“Streaming TV is paving the way toward a transformed television landscape, with ad-supported content continuing to appeal to consumers and propel streaming’s growth in Japan,” said Ken Harada, Managing Director of Japan at Magnite. “Our research shows that streaming content is being consumed across more devices than ever before, unlocking more opportunities for brands to forge greater connections with their desired audiences and boost impact across screens.”

Key findings from Magnite’s study include:

• Streaming services have become essential to ad-supported viewers in Japan. 72% of this audience consider streaming services a must-have in their household and 44% said they are watching more streaming content than the year prior, compared to 4% who are watching less.
• The premium, high-quality content that streaming TV delivers engenders greater trust than that of social media platforms. 78% of ad-supported streamers trust the ads they see within TV, compared to 60% of social media users who trust ads they see on social media.
• Exposure to brands across multiple devices drives purchasing intent. 64% of ad-supported streamers are more likely to make a purchase from a brand that they engaged with across multiple devices.

To explore additional insights, please click here.

Methodology
Magnite engaged Harris Interactive to execute an online survey of 1,243 respondents in Japan from April 25 - May 5, 2023. The respondents are people ages 16-74 who watch 7+ hours of TV a week.

Creating strategies for personalization will be key in building trust as organizations navigate shifting privacy regulations

Today Cassie, the consent and preference management platform serving Fortune 500 companies globally, debuted new Progressive Profiling and Identity Service features to its Cookie Solution product. The features introduce capabilities that empower marketers to create bespoke, personalized customer experiences built upon anonymous, reliable first-party data, making Cassie's Cookie Solution a more advanced alternative to traditional cookie banners.

The product is a first-to-market solution to the pain points faced by today's marketers, who are challenged to reach customers online due to a confluence of factors, including an uptick in privacy browser use, online privacy legislation, and the depreciation of cookie tracking. This has serious impacts on how marketers effectively deliver personalized experiences to their customers - Cassie's new Privacy Pain Points Report, which surveyed more than six-hundred marketing professionals, found that half of marketers say that they don't have the technical or legal resources needed to do their jobs effectively while maintaining marketing compliance.

Cassie's Privacy Pain Points Report also found that:

• 69% of marketers feel concerned about the potential impact of privacy legislation on their ability to do their jobs effectively; 3 in 4 are concerned about incurring fines if they violate relevant laws concerning third-party cookies.
• 4 in 5 marketers are worried about their ability to target ads effectively without third-party data.
• 7 in 10 of marketing professionals say intelligent tracking prevention has inhibited their ability to deliver personalized brand experiences.

Cassie's Progressive Profiling and Identity Service features enhance Cassie's Cookie Solution, a first-of-its kind marketing compliance tool that was built to solve these problems.

"There has never been a better time to invest in first-party data collection," said Cassie founder and board chair Nicky Watson. "Cookie depreciation is on the horizon, and brands that invest proactively in first-party data collection will be prepared for this new reality. With Cassie's new Progressive Profiling and Identity Service features, marketing leaders can trust that their data is accurate, compliant, and capable of being leveraged to deliver personalized experiences to their customers, and customers can trust that their privacy is being protected online."

Cassie's Identity Service and Progressive Profiling tools are anonymous solutions that enable marketers to overcome privacy challenges to gather and retain as much user data as possible. Identity Service, which was built as a solution to the challenges presented by Intelligent Tracking Prevention (ITP), is able to accurately identify up to 35% more web traffic. Progressive Profiling builds trust with customers by creating opportunities for them to voluntarily share and update preference data with the brands they love, giving marketers rich first-party data about website visitors before they convert to customers. Both features deliver insights to make data-driven decisions, from informing where online digital spend should focus and shaping future product development to prioritizing content strategies that increase engagement. The result is highly personalized experiences that drive unparalleled customer engagement.

"With Cassie, brands can build trust with their customers by respecting their privacy online and without sacrificing their ability to deliver personalized experiences," said Glenn Jackson, CEO of Cassie. "Cassie's product and features are resilient to the changes impacting marketing and advertising technology, so leaders can be confident they're investing in a long-term solution to marketing compliance."

Axcient, the leader in business availability software for Managed Service Providers (MSPs), today announced a new vice president of marketing, Bryce Roberts. In his role, Roberts will lead the entire marketing effort with a focus on driving Axcient’s accelerating growth. He will be reporting to Rod Mathews, CEO at Axcient and will join the senior leadership team.

“We are thrilled to welcome Bryce as our new Marketing leader who comes to Axcient with a high-growth focus and results-oriented mindset,” said Mathews. “Axcient continues to prove that we are solving MSPs’ biggest data protection challenges with our award-winning technology. Bryce’s proven background and experience as a marketing leader in the MSP space will amplify the efforts of our outstanding marketing team and enable Axcient to continue our history of delivering results. We look forward to Bryce engaging with our MSP partners.”

Roberts has close to 15 years of experience leading Marketing teams and comes with expertise in demand gen, digital marketing, automation, and BCDR through the IT channel at companies like SolarWinds and N-able. As a Marketing leader, Roberts has enabled teams to achieve high revenue growth in the B2B SaaS industry and is skilled in global go-to-market strategy, revenue optimization, and competitive market positioning. Throughout his career, Roberts has led large, global teams with world-class platforms and marketing techniques.

Thousands of MSPs have benefited from Axcient’s technology, enablement, and support. With x360Recover, Axcient partners have seen increased security, more efficiencies, and less training required for their technicians. Flexible deployment options in x360Recover continue to enable operational maturity and is solving multiple use-cases with one solution. The Marketing team at Axcient will continue to tell the partner success stories through Roberts’ leadership and enhance the entire Marketing engine through communications, tracking metrics, and streamlining internal processes to achieve success.

“I am excited to lead an already high-performing Marketing team into the company’s next phase of growth alongside the incredible Axcient leadership team,” said Roberts. “Axcient’s vision to cure data loss is a cornerstone in how we can enable MSPs to secure and grow their businesses. I have a passion for discovering new ways we can help MSPs secure their clients with Axcient’s full line of products and services, and I look forward to working with our partners.”

Alteryx Analytics Automation powered by AWS allows CFOs to modernize financial processes with new technologies and automated self-service analytics in the cloud

Alteryx, Inc. , the Analytics Cloud Platform company, today announced decision intelligence and intelligent automation capabilities on Amazon Web Services (AWS) designed to empower chief financial officers (CFOs) and finance leaders to embrace cloud and data analytics as strategic tools for their modernization goals.

"Analytic insights help us tailor digital transformation solutions based on our clients' needs to achieve the greatest impact for their business," said Ana Margarita Albir, president at ADL Labs. "Leveraging Alteryx and AWS, we are able to integrate capabilities across any data source, visualize and analyze data in real time, and enhance security, resulting in an estimated $6 million in cost and efficiency savings for both ADL and our clients."

Changing regulations and manual processes in the office of finance often mean repetitive work, time consuming data input, and hours of labor spent in preparing spreadsheets. The Alteryx intelligent automation capabilities available on AWS maximize the benefits of cloud for office of finance teams by modernizing processes that help them solve more complex data problems and adapt to constantly changing market environments. Highlights:

• Impact the bottom line: Analytics automation significantly reduces the time and effort spent with manual processes, freeing up time for analysts on strategic projects moving the business forward. For instance, analysts on billing teams have used Alteryx to reduce the cost of overhead of manual bill reporting up to 25 percent.¹ An accounting team reconciling financial data reduced time spent on reconciliation processes up to 99 percent.² 
  
  
• Modernize with new technologies: Alteryx leverages the power of AWS to provide an environment where technologies like artificial intelligence, machine learning, data science, robotic process automation, and blockchain meet, making it easier for CFOs to quickly deploy and use new technology right away. For example, a finance team relying on labor-intensive, outdated tools for calculating sales tax liability can quickly adopt automation and configure alerts on incorrectly taxed transactions, freeing up tax resources for higher-value activities.
  
  
• Gain data-driven insights at scale: Finance departments are expected to deliver regular insights to management for decision-making. Alteryx provides an automated process for connecting and combining different data sources, helping finance teams quickly process and transform large amounts of data so they can generate reports in a fraction of the time.
  
  
• Digitally upskill across finance: Alteryx provides a self-service, low-code/no-code environment so that an analyst or business user can quickly upskill in data and analytics while leveraging the power and scalability of AWS.

"Businesses globally are looking to automate for efficiencies and drive deeper insights to quickly respond to multifaceted challenges and dynamically changing landscape," said Nitin Brahmankar, vice president, ISV and Global Ecosystem Partnerships, Alteryx. "We are working with AWS to empower finance teams to leverage the power of the cloud and modernize financial processes to perform critical analysis that truly matters to their bottom line."

"With Alteryx Analytics Automation powered by AWS, finance teams can innovate and modernize tax and audit processes with automated self-service analytics that streamline and accelerate traditional compliance work," said Madhu Raman, worldwide head of automation at AWS. "Organizations can benefit from templates that help data analysts and line-of-business users to use, customize, extend, and integrate enterprise data with intelligent automation workflows that assist with record to report, procure to pay, and order to cash processes."