The promotion and appointment of Zhang and Lefever signal a year focused on innovation, efficiency, and expertise in data and analytics

Razorfish, a pioneer in digital innovation, today announced the elevation of Sisi Zhang to Chief Data and Analytics Officer, and the hiring of Matt Lefever as Chief Operating Officer. The two bolster an executive team already driving near double-digit year-over-year growth for the agency.

Over the last 12 years, Zhang has played a pivotal role in expanding Razorfish’s data and analytics capabilities, overseeing a team of more than 150 data professionals. Throughout 2023, Zhang spearheaded Razorfish’s increased investments in data automation and engineering skills to keep a competitive edge against rising industry needs. In her new role, Zhang will continue to drive forward business impact through more robust data-driven offerings, implementing standardization processes, elevating data instrumentation capabilities to simplify client needs, and empowering her team’s niche and rich expertise.

“Sisi exemplifies what it means to be a leader and an innovator,” said Dani Mariano, President of Razorfish. “Data is king. During a time when brands are looking for new ways to implement and simplify processes or looking for expertise around the impact of AI and automation, we could not think of someone more deserving to shepherd our growing data and analytics capabilities.”

Bringing over 20 years of experience in program and product management, Lefever will be stepping into the role of Chief Operating Officer, responsible for the operational functions of the business and providing strategic, organizational, and administrative leadership to the agency that helps meet its goals. Lefever first started at Sapient in 1999, with a deep understanding of what it takes to grow and scale a company as he witnessed its expansion from 1,500 employees to over 20,000.

Spending the last 5 years at tellic, an artificial intelligence/natural language processing startup focused on extracting critical biomedical knowledge from literature using LLMs and other semantic technologies, Lefever is returning to Publicis Groupe, primed to lead Razorfish through its next stage of innovation, efficiency, and sustained growth.

“Matt is coming back with an incredible amount of exposure to company growth cycles that mirror what we envision for Razorfish, and his breadth and depth of experience will be greatly beneficial in the next phase of our organization,” said Josh Campo, CEO at Razorfish. “It’s an exciting time for marketers, and there is no doubt in my mind that he will be an instrumental partner and advisor to this team as we scale for the future.”

With machine learning, AtData Quality Score identifies most valuable email addresses for improved marketing performance

AtData, the leading provider of email address intelligence, today announced the release of the AtData Quality Score to help organizations better segment and qualify their customer databases. Based on machine learning, the AtData Quality Score can improve email campaign engagement, deliverability, response and conversions by enabling organizations to identify which subscribers most closely align to its best customers.

The AtData Quality Score analyzes an organization's top customers using billions of open, click and web activity signals combined with demographics, purchase behavior and spend propensity from hundreds of sources. This approach goes beyond traditional recency, frequency and monetary models allowing publishers to rank the emails most likely to open and click on content. In addition, retailers can segment the email addresses most likely to make a purchase, and non-profits can target the subscribers most likely to donate.

"Not only do marketers need to understand which email addresses are dead or high risk but they also need to identify which emails are most valuable. With the addition of the Quality Score, AtData now covers the full range of email dispositions from bad to good," said Tom Burke, AtData CEO. "Knowing that 'quality' is in the eye of the beholder, we've built a machine learning model to interpret the score the same way our customers do, tapping into their first-party data to accelerate campaign performance and marketing results/ROI."

Combined with AtData's email address intelligence solutions, which connect the dots between an email address and the individual, the Quality Score helps identify high value email addresses enabling companies to confidently segment those more likely to engage across digital channels. This results in improved activation and segmentation as emails with varying scores can be targeted, messaged and analyzed differently. The Quality Score helps businesses get to know the individual associated with the email address better and target highly engaged emails to improve delivery and response rates across channels.

Second funding round from Five Elms Capital in less than 12 months reinforces Prismatic's continued momentum

Prismatic, a leading embedded integration platform, today announced $22 million in Series B funding to drive platform innovation. Five Elms Capital led this funding round, which is the growth equity firm's second investment in Prismatic in less than a year.

"Modern B2B SaaS teams juggle a growing expectation to integrate with the other software their customers use. Fulfilling these requirements is costly, time-consuming and frustrating, but Prismatic's embedded integration platform (embedded iPaaS) provides a seamless, scalable experience that enables teams to focus on innovation," said Michael Zuercher, CEO and co-founder of Prismatic. "Amid SaaS industry challenges, Prismatic's consistent, strong quarterly growth demonstrates the pivotal role integrations play in the future of SaaS."

The $22 million in funding will primarily fuel the expansion of Prismatic's research and development, fostering innovation and enhancements to the embedded iPaaS platform. Last year, Prismatic empowered B2B SaaS companies to provide the ultimate user experience for user-built integrations via its embedded integration designer. Future updates and launches enabled by this investment will drive even more versatility in the ways SaaS teams can build, manage, and embed integrations.

"Prismatic's stellar growth since its Series A, achieved in less than a year, has solidified the indispensable role of embedded iPaaS in B2B SaaS companies," said Austin Gideon, Principal at Five Elms Capital.  "We are seeing intense demand across our portfolio of B2B software companies for a platform to help augment integration capabilities. Scaling software companies are able to realize strong returns on investment by utilizing Prismatic's platform, allowing teams to remain focused on delivering new products to customers. Partnering with this team again for the Series B gives us the opportunity to make meaningful advancements and improvements in the future of SaaS."

Prismatic's remarkable offering, achievements and quarter-over-quarter growth have also been recognized by software review site G2. The company was again named the #1 Momentum Leader with numerous badges in the Winter 2024 G2 report.

"Prismatic has been a game-changer for our team," said Colton McCormack, Lead Software Engineer - Integrations at Sisu. "The platform's intuitive low-code builder, marketplace and robust monitoring capabilities allow us to deliver complex integrations faster and more reliably than ever before. Whether quickly wiring up an integration using pre-built components or developing custom logic, Prismatic gives us the flexibility and customer support we need."

Veldran, a veteran of the company, to take over leadership of GoTo, implementing strategic growth plans while continuing to oversee the company’s global finance organization

GoTo, the company making IT management, support, and business communications easy with flagship products GoTo Resolve, GoTo Connect and LogMeIn Rescue, today announced that Rich Veldran, its Chief Financial Officer, has assumed the role of Chief Executive Officer. Mr. Veldran takes over for Paddy Srinivasan, who is stepping down from his role after nearly a decade with the company to pursue an opportunity outside of the IT management and business communications sector.

Mr. Veldran will lead the company, implementing its strategy for growth, while continuing to oversee GoTo’s global finance organization. Mr. Veldran joined as GoTo’s Chief Financial Officer more than three years ago and has played a pivotal role in realizing GoTo’s vision to make IT easy.

Mike Kohlsdorf, the Chairman of the Board of GoTo, said, “we are excited for Rich to step into the Chief Executive role at this important time for the company. He brings a deep understanding of the business and is well-positioned to continue driving GoTo’s success with an outstanding suite of products and a strategy to invest in technology that will better serve corporations and organizations around the world.”

“I am excited about the opportunities that we have to grow GoTo. We have an outstanding team, loyal customers, and the right approach to investing in technology that will truly transform IT for our customers. We are on the right path to success and have a great future,” added Mr. Veldran.

Mr. Veldran brings more than 30 years of experience leading strategy, finance, and operations for Dun & Bradstreet, ADP, and Procter & Gamble. Most recently, prior to joining GoTo, Veldran was a Senior Advisor and Executive Coach with Boston Consulting Group (BCG). He holds an MBA in Finance from Cornell University and a B.S. in Industrial Engineering and Operations Research from Cornell University.

Mr. Kohlsdorf concluded, “On behalf of the Board, we also want to thank Paddy for his many contributions to the company over his tenure with LogMeIn and GoTo and wish him well.”

CRM Leader Says AI, Personalization, Integration, Cost Considerations, and Data Security Will Dominate

Tim Sims named Chief Commercial Officer

Jed Dederick becomes Chief Revenue Officer

Global advertising technology leader The Trade Desk today announced changes to its senior leadership team to further advance the company’s growth strategy globally. Tim Sims is appointed to a new role as Chief Commercial Officer, and Jed Dederick is promoted to the role of Chief Revenue Officer. Both Sims and Dederick will report to Jeff Green, The Trade Desk’s Co-Founder and CEO.

“The Trade Desk has grown more rapidly and gained more market share in the last four years than at any point in our history, and these leadership appointments ensure that we are well positioned to continue on that high-growth trajectory,” said Jeff Green, CEO and Co-Founder, The Trade Desk. “I have worked with Tim and Jed for many years, and I could not be more excited to see them help The Trade Desk achieve its ambitious growth goals, all while providing the highest possible level of client support.”

In the newly formed role as Chief Commercial Officer, Sims is responsible for The Trade Desk’s global client services organization as well as the company’s global inventory teams. This new role brings together key commercial teams critical to the success of The Trade Desk’s growth strategy. A 10-year veteran of The Trade Desk, Sims has risen through the organization, most recently serving as the company’s Chief Revenue Officer, and prior to that as Senior Vice President, Inventory Partnerships.

“The advertising industry is evolving rapidly, and the scope of our supply side partnerships is expanding. At the same time, our clients are looking to make the most of these partnerships in the context of breakthrough technology innovations, including Kokai,” said Sims. “I look forward to bringing these key teams together as part of a new commercial organization aimed at furthering the company’s market leadership.”

With more than 12 years at The Trade Desk, Dederick is promoted to the role of Chief Revenue Officer, responsible for driving revenue generation across the organization globally. Prior to this role, Dederick was the Chief Client Officer, overseeing the company’s top brand and client relationships.

“As more brands and agencies embrace the power of data-driven advertising, we have an incredible opportunity to partner in new ways around the world, bringing powerful innovation to their fingertips,” said Dederick. “One of our strengths has always been our industry-leading client support, and I look forward to building on that legacy in this new role.”

• Establishes industry-leading interoperable platform for data collaboration across all clouds and walled gardens globally

• Strategically expands collaboration network and drives further adoption of core identity and connectivity solutions

• Preliminary Q3 FY24 revenue and operating income above the Company’s prior guide

• Conference call today at 2:30 PM PT (5:30 PM ET)

LiveRamp^® , the leading data collaboration platform, today announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Habu, a data clean room software provider, in a cash and stock transaction valued at approximately $200 million. The acquisition will further accelerate LiveRamp’s ability to offer global data collaboration at scale, across all clouds and walled gardens, solving fundamental challenges for customers while also unlocking powerful measurement and analytics use cases.

Global brands and media companies use Habu’s technology to securely share first-party customer data with business partners and publishers to enable more effective and personalized marketing.

Companies are overwhelmed with data and even the most sophisticated companies find it challenging to fully realize the value of their data. Today, data still sits in operational silos, making it difficult to leverage internally and even more so with external partners. The combination of LiveRamp and Habu solves these structural challenges by connecting data and making it interoperable across all clouds, walled gardens, and clean room environments while maintaining privacy and governance protocols.

“LiveRamp enables next-generation data collaboration that delivers unmatched brand and business value. Through this acquisition, we will further empower our customers to unlock insights, use cases, and revenue streams by seamlessly connecting data and deepening measurement, across any platform or partner they prefer,” said Scott Howe, CEO of LiveRamp. “Habu shares our vision, and together, we will help more global enterprises benefit from the transformative power of data collaboration.”

The Habu acquisition will allow LiveRamp to deliver differentiated capabilities to customers to:

• Streamline and simplify cross-cloud collaboration by seamlessly connecting data across clouds, warehouses, and clean rooms while reducing complexity and IT infrastructure constraints.
• Achieve a first-of-its-kind, single view of measurement across any walled garden, programmatic channel, or media partner, including media networks and all major CTV and TV platforms.
• Access enhanced enterprise identity and connectivity solutions to break down data silos and navigate signal loss and evolving privacy regulation with confidence.
• Expand LiveRamp’s industry leading data collaboration network, enabling global connectivity to the world's most scaled network of publishers, walled gardens, retailers, brands, and agencies.
• Advance AI initiatives through greater data access to train and optimize analytical models that inform marketing decisions and enable other enterprise use cases.

Matt Kilmartin, CEO of Habu, added, “LiveRamp and Habu approached the data collaboration market with two complementary strategies that share the common goal of creating the largest data collaboration network rooted in privacy. As we look ahead to our next chapter as part of LiveRamp, we’re as committed as ever to our mission of paving the way for the next frontier of responsible data collaboration.”

The Habu team will help lead LiveRamp’s data collaboration strategy, reporting to LiveRamp’s Chief Revenue Officer, Vihan Sharma.