Former Alteryx Chief Scientist will help Near customers gain advanced insights on the consumer behaviors that drive their businesses

Near Intelligence, Inc., a Data Intelligence Platform that provides insights on people and places, today announced that it has appointed Dan Putler as its Chief Data Scientist. With an illustrious career marked by expertise in predictive analytics, machine learning, optimization, and geographic information systems, Putler brings a wealth of experience to the Company.

In this new role, Putler will define Near’s analytics offerings and develop Near’s AI strategy, with a deep focus on ensuring data quality and identifying and pursuing focus areas for analytics enhancement to help customers derive maximum value from Near’s global data sets, empowering operational and marketing leaders with solutions to help them engage and grow their businesses at scale.

“Dan Putler’s appointment as Chief Data Scientist underscores our steadfast dedication to continually advancing the analytics agenda of our industry, customers and partners,” said Gladys Kong, CEO, Near. “Dan brings a proven track record in applying statistics, econometrics, and GIS tools to create new, cutting-edge solutions for businesses. His work will undoubtedly elevate our capabilities and drive innovation in our solutions. We look forward to Dan's impactful contributions to Near's success.”

“I’m thrilled to be joining Near, a leader in understanding consumer behavior,” said Dan Putler, Chief Data Scientist at Near. “Building on the work I did at Alteryx to further predictive analytics and business machine learning, along with my prior academic work on advanced quantitative models of customer behavior, I look forward to exploring and enhancing Near’s data intelligence solutions across myriad operational and marketing use cases. I look forward to the opportunity to contribute to Near's vision, helping tackle complex business problems through the application of advanced analytics and AI."

Prior to joining Near, Putler served as the Chief Scientist at The Public Health Company, where he played a pivotal role in shaping product strategy and leading product development. Previously, he was Chief Scientist at Alteryx, where he was also one of the primary developers of Alteryx's R-based predictive analytics and business machine learning tools. Additionally, as the Co-Founder and Chief Data Scientist at Anemoi Analytics, he spearheaded the development of geo-data for business intelligence.

Putler's academic background includes a Ph.D. in Agricultural and Resource Economics from the University of California, Berkeley. He served as an Associate Professor of Marketing and Marketing Division Chair at the Sauder School of Business at the University of British Columbia, as well as an Assistant Professor of Management at Purdue University Krannert School of Management.

Sedlak returns to his AdTech/MarTech roots, rejoining BlueKai leadership to help define Enhanced In-Scene Advertising and build on a successful first year of growth.

The groundbreaking partnership offers brands, agencies, publishers, and currency providers granularity at scale, commingling Samba TV’s big TV data with HyphaMetrics’ person-level panel data

Samba TV, the leading provider of TV technology for audience data and omniscreen measurement, today announced its partnership with HyphaMetrics, the sole independent cross-media, cross-walled-garden dataset designed to unify the historically disconnected worlds of linear, streaming, and digital. Together, this partnership marks the industry’s introduction of a scaled first-party TV and streaming viewership dataset, calibrated by the most comprehensive person-level viewing panel that seamlessly and simultaneously measures all content, viewed by all people, across all devices in the home.

“This unique partnership between Samba TV and HyphaMetrics is a significant step in the urgent drive for real measurement reinvention across the video industry,” said VAB President and CEO Sean Cunningham. “This innovative dataset offering should prove to be a crucial accelerator, one that is capable of turning today’s ambitions for best comprehensive measurement solutions into an achieved reality for 2024.”

The partnership will exclusively leverage Samba TV’s first-party data in the U.S., pulling from millions of opted-in televisions calibrated by HyphaMetrics’ complete and individualized measurement of all content, ad consumption, product placement, and brand sponsorship across all devices through its opt-in panel. By combining Samba TV’s robust viewership data with HyphaMetrics’ patented and proprietary artificial intelligence-fueled panel data, the advertising industry will gain unprecedented access to a unified dataset, offering census-level data with person-level granularity. The cross-validated dataset can be leveraged across the media marketplace to activate interoperability, thereby increasing flexibility and utility of existing data.

“Advertisers, media publishers, and their currency providers navigate a complex landscape of data that often excludes walled gardens, and shortchanges under-represented viewing audiences,” said Samba TV Co-founder and CEO Ashwin Navin. “Together with HyphaMetrics, we are now able to offer to our industry a more robust and representative dataset that will be foundational to measurement companies and the future of TV currency.”

The commingled multi-million device dataset will be made available to brands, agencies, publishers, and currency providers, offering insights, planning, and measurement at the household and person level. This includes previously difficult to measure behaviors, including person-level and co-viewing of linear and streaming TV, multichannel video programming distributors (MVPD), user-generated content (UGC), broadcast-only households, video games, and more.

“We are excited to provide a new and unprecedented level of detail that, in combination with Samba TV’s data, will fulfill the cumulative industry demand of granularity at scale,” said HyphaMetrics CEO Chris Wilson.

HyphaMetrics Co-founder and President Joanna Drews adds, “Hypha’s longstanding goal is to accelerate the activation of interoperability— for our clients and for the industry at large. Together with Samba TV, we are making this a reality.”

Leading conversation analytics platform streamlines business objectives and saves customers time and money

CallTrackingMetrics, a global conversation analytics company, today announced the launch of four new personalized plans in 2024 - Marketing Lite, Marketing Pro, Sales Engage and Enterprise. The plans are designed to meet the changing needs of marketers, sales and lead generation teams and enterprise organizations by providing customizable tools and resources to power users' unique digital marketing goals.

"Businesses today need flexibility in their marketing tools — whether they're a 5-person startup or 500-person enterprise, everyone has unique objectives and KPIs to hit," said Todd Fisher, co-founder and CEO of CallTrackingMetrics. "With these new personalized plans, we're empowering our customers to choose a solution tailored to their needs and budget. Combined with new AI tools and integrations like Zoom, our software provides immense value that will take digital marketing efforts to the next level in 2024."

The plans also come with new industry-leading support and training resources. All customers have 24/7 access to live chat, email ticketing and an extensive online knowledge base for support. Meanwhile, Marketing Pro and Sales Engage plans include dedicated onboarding specialists for implementation guidance and access to live phone and chat support.

CallTrackingMetrics also recently unveiled a new integration with Zoom that seamlessly incorporates meeting transcripts and recordings into the activity log. Everything you can do with a phone call, such as determine sentiment and intent, qualify, tag, score, etc., can now be done with Zoom recordings. LeadReactor, another new lead management product, also helps businesses to connect quickly with prospects and automates next steps. Both help streamline and automate processes for businesses, and save time and money while providing a better, more personalized experience for customers and prospects.

Khozema Shipchandler Appointed CEO

Jeff Lawson Steps Down as CEO and from the Twilio Board of Directors

Jeff Epstein Appointed Chair of the Twilio Board of Directors

Company Expects to Exceed Financial Guidance for Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2023 Results

Twilio, the customer engagement platform that drives real-time, personalized experiences for today’s leading brands, today announced that Khozema Shipchandler, formerly President of Twilio Communications, has been appointed Chief Executive Officer and will join the company’s Board of Directors, effective immediately. Shipchandler succeeds Jeff Lawson, Twilio’s co-founder, who is stepping down as CEO and as a member of the Twilio Board. In addition, Jeff Epstein, a member of the Twilio Board and Lead Independent Director since 2017, has been appointed as Chair of the Twilio Board.

Shipchandler has over 25 years of experience growing businesses and driving financial performance across global, public organizations. Prior to Twilio, Khozema spent over two decades at GE where he drove operating excellence in GE’s high tech aviation division, plus accelerated growth in the Middle East region. He has a deep understanding of Twilio’s business, operations and culture, having most recently served as President of Twilio Communications, and previously as Twilio’s Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer.

“Khozema is a proven leader and the right person to lead Twilio in its next chapter,” said Jeff Epstein, incoming Board Chair. “This appointment ensures that Twilio is best positioned to deliver increased value to all stakeholders going forward. Khozema successfully led Twilio Communications over the past year, pivoting the business to profitable growth, in addition to having served in key operational and financial leadership roles over the past five years.”

Shipchandler said, “I am honored to step into the CEO role and to partner with our talented team to lead Twilio in its next era. Over the last year and a half, we have implemented meaningful changes across the organization to position ourselves for renewed growth and to drive operational improvements, optimize our capital allocation strategy, and enhance focus and execution. We have a strong foundation, but we always have more work to do. As I step into the CEO role, I am focused on continuing to build on the considerable growth and operating improvements we’ve made across the board, plus taking a fresh look at the areas of the business that are underperforming to realize the full potential of our business.”

“Building Twilio over the past 15 years has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my life,” said Jeff Lawson. “We launched Twilio in 2008 with a to-do list written on the back of a pizza box and 15 years later, Twilio’s platform handles over 1.7 trillion interactions a year on behalf of more than 306,000 customers across the globe. I’m proud to have led the company from zero to over $4 billion in annualized revenue, and now generating a 19% free cash flow margin as of our last earnings. I leave Twilio in the hands of a capable and talented management team who have my full support and respect. Khozema is a great leader, and I am confident he will lead the company well. Thank you to every Twilio customer, employee and developer I’ve had the privilege of building with – I can’t wait to see what you build next.”

Shipchandler continued, “It is a privilege to follow in the footsteps of Jeff – a tech visionary and pioneer from whom I have learned so much from over the past five years. Over the last 15 years, Jeff led Twilio through its incredible evolution from a disruptive startup to an admired public company. He brought his passion as a founder to countless product innovations and shaped our culture. Jeff also pushed the tech industry forward in many ways – democratizing business communications and making a hero of developers. His mark on Twilio is indelible and I have profound respect for him as a leader and friend.”

Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2023 Results

Twilio expects to report fourth quarter 2023 revenue, fourth quarter 2023 non-GAAP income from operations, and fiscal year 2023 non-GAAP income from operations above the top-end of the guidance ranges it originally provided on November 8, 2023.

The company will provide further information when it releases its fourth quarter and full year 2023 results on Wednesday, February 14, 2024, after market close. Twilio will host a conference call at 2:00 p.m. (PT) / 5:00 p.m. (ET) on Wednesday, February 14, 2024, to discuss its results with the investment community.

Investors and analysts can pre-register for the webcast at https://events.q4inc.com/attendee/764646733, and the live webcast will also be available on the Twilio Investor Relations website at https://investors.twilio.com. A replay will be available at (800) 770-2030 (U.S.) or (647) 362-9199 (non-U.S.) with conference ID 80378 until 11:59 p.m. (ET) on February 21, 2024.

About Khozema Shipchandler

Khozema Shipchandler most recently served as President of Twilio Communications, since his appointment in March 2023. Prior to that, he had served as Twilio’s Chief Operating Officer since October 2021 and as Chief Financial Officer from November 2018 to October 2021. Prior to Twilio, Shipchandler held a variety of financial and operating roles at GE across Industrial Internet, Aviation and Corporate Audit in the U.S., Middle East and Singapore. He earned his bachelor’s degree from Indiana University Bloomington. Khozema also serves on the boards of Smartsheet and Ethos.

Omneky Inc announced today that it has achieved SOC 2 Type II compliance in accordance with American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) standards for SOC for Service Organizations also known as SSAE 18. Achieving this standard with an unqualified opinion serves as third-party industry validation that Omneky Inc provides enterprise-level security for customer's data secured in the Omneky Inc System.

Omneky Inc provides a cloud-based community management and virtual event platform to customers throughout the United States.

Omneky Inc was audited by Prescient Assurance, a leader in security and compliance attestation for B2B, SAAS companies worldwide. Prescient Assurance is a registered public accounting in the US and Canada and provides risk management and assurance services which includes but is not limited to SOC 2, PCI, ISO, NIST, GDPR, CCPA, HIPAA, and CSA STAR. For more information about Prescient Assurance, you may reach out to them at info@prescientassurance.com.

An unqualified opinion on a SOC 2 Type II audit report demonstrates to Omneky Inc's current and future customers that they manage their data with the highest standard of security and compliance.

Acquisition deepens company's commitment to leading the future of AI-powered customer experience (CX) with new and transformative quality management capabilities

Zendesk today announced it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Klaus, the industry leading AI-powered quality management platform. AI is driving a rapid increase in customer interactions and radically transforming the world of customer service. Customer service teams are being asked to increase their ROI by managing a rising volume of interactions while providing quality service, and increasing their organization's efficiency in the process. With Klaus, Zendesk customers will be able to deliver consistent, high quality service across every channel and across both human and digital agents (bots) all while unlocking the power of everyday customer interactions to increase loyalty. 

"As AI drives up the speed and frequency of customer engagement, only AI-powered quality assurance (QA) can keep up as companies work to identify and fix gaps in their customer service operations," said Adrian McDermott, chief technology officer, Zendesk. "The combination of Zendesk AI and Klaus' capabilities will help businesses navigate greater complexity and volume and ensure both digital and human agents deliver highly personal and empathetic service."

"Zendesk and Klaus share a vision of AI-led, personalized CX with businesses fully anticipating and acting on their customers' needs," said Martin Kõiva, CEO and founder, Klaus. "QA software plays a critical role in this, ensuring consistency, assessing both human and digital agent performance and providing actionable insights for strategic planning. As part of Zendesk, we will continue to build and deliver these crucial capabilities, but now at an even greater scale." 

With digital agents resolving more service inquiries without human interaction, having a QA solution that analyzes both human and digital agent performance is crucial to maintaining quality control and providing best-in-class customer service. While most QA software is capable of only scoring 1 to 2 percent of interactions and cannot recognize systemic trends, Klaus' AI scores 100 percent of customer support interactions. It pinpoints conversations with positive or negative sentiment, identifies outliers, churn risk, escalations and follow-ups across all conversations – even those done by digital agents or outsourced teams. Klaus spots knowledge gaps and coaching opportunities that can be used to improve agent performance and productivity, all of which results in higher customer satisfaction.

WEM is a critical capability for today's customer service leaders. The acquisition of Klaus will be the latest addition to the company's existing workforce engagement management (WEM) solutions which includes Tymeshift, a modern workforce management tool built exclusively for Zendesk. The company acquired Tymeshift in June 2023. The acquisition of Klaus is anticipated to close in the first quarter of 2024 upon receipt of required regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions.

ElementalTV announces the launch of VISTA, a transformative platform for CTV publishers, at CES 2024 in Las Vegas. VISTA's proprietary technology combines key DSP, DMP, and SSP features to power new revenue opportunities for publisher sales teams. This innovation revolutionizes campaign activation and audience engagement, enabling CTV publishers to unlock an audience-centric revenue model that connects with their audience anywhere across CTV to maximize monetization.

Omer Latif, CEO of ElementalTV, remarked, "With VISTA, we have created a revolutionary step change in CTV advertising. This platform embodies our relentless commitment to innovation, fusing essential ad tech features to create a singular solution for universal audience activation. By unifying data, context, and activation, VISTA is tailored to unlock the full potential of CTV advertising, enabling publishers to maximize audience value with unparalleled precision and efficiency."

VISTA stands out with its "Audience Anywhere" capability, empowering CTV publishers to leverage extensive audience insights and campaign management tools. It connects with a vast network of over 150 million US-based households, meticulously vetted by VISTA's quality team and safeguarded by premier brand safety tools.  At the core of VISTA's audience discovery is sophisticated AI and machine learning, driving precise audience insights and activation strategies. 

Raoul Marinescu, President of Digital Sales at Allen Media Group, an early client of ElementalTV, shared his perspective: "The launch of VISTA presents a tremendous opportunity for CTV publishers like us. Its innovative approach to audience activation aligns perfectly with our goals for revenue growth and margin expansion. We are excited about the possibilities VISTA opens up in terms of enhanced audience engagement and operational efficiency."

The unveiling of VISTA at CES 2024 provides publishers with access to cutting-edge technology and further signifies ElementalTV's role as an innovation leader in the ad tech industry. VISTA is poised to become a must-have tool for CTV publishers seeking to grow revenue and thrive in a rapidly changing digital advertising landscape.