Cybersecurity veteran Marc van Zadelhoff will lead as new CEO; Co-Founder and CEO Peter Bauer continues on Mimecast’s Board of Directors

Mimecast Limited (Mimecast), an advanced email and collaboration security company, announced today the appointment of Marc van Zadelhoff as CEO, with Mimecast Co-Founder and current CEO Peter Bauer remaining a key collaborator as a member of the Board. Bauer, a key Mimecast shareholder, will continue to be an active advisor to Marc and the company.

“I’ve loved leading Mimecast from our founding in 2003 to our current position as a globally recognized, award-winning cybersecurity company. After an amazing and busy 21 years I am looking forward to pursuing my personal interests in addressing climate-change, environmental and social justice, and supporting young entrepreneurs. I am pleased to pass the leadership torch to Marc, whom I’ve known and respected for almost a decade and look forward to the company’s continued success under his leadership,” said Bauer.

Marc van Zadelhoff joins the company with nearly 25 years in the cybersecurity space, leading a range of organizations, most notably as CEO of Devo, a cloud-native security analytics company, COO at LogMeIn, and as one of the founders of IBM Security – serving as GM / CEO of the $2.5B, 8,000-person business unit he helped found. Marc brings a unique perspective to the company, with an emphasis on creating customer value and operational excellence.

"I’m drawn to Mimecast because it protects against today’s most urgent cybersecurity threats, namely: employees collaborating in an ever more dangerous world. Peter and the team have masterfully positioned Mimecast to help solve the problem of human risk. Joining now is super exciting to me. Mimecast has strong momentum, a world-class leadership team and a proven track record of delivering innovative solutions. In the coming months I will be meeting with customers and partners, getting to know Mimecast employees, and ensuring that we continue to deliver on our promise,” said Van Zadelhoff.

“On behalf of the Board of Directors, we thank Peter for his exceptional leadership and impact to Mimecast, navigating it from a venture-backed start-up to a cloud leader in the email and collaboration cybersecurity market,” said Michail Zekkos, Board Chair. “We couldn’t be more delighted to welcome Marc as Mimecast’s new CEO to lead the company forward in this exciting product innovation journey centered around its customers, channel partners and employees. Mimecast has never been stronger and better positioned to benefit from Marc’s long and successful cybersecurity-centered track-record.”

Marc will start his role as CEO on Monday, January 22^nd.

GroupBy Inc., a SaaS-based eCommerce search and product discovery leader, is thrilled to announce the successful implementation of the GroupBy AI Search & Discovery Shopify app with Blue Zone Planet. This application will allow Blue Zone Planet to create the most relevant search experience for their shoppers by tapping into revolutionary AI-first technology that maximizes sales and revenue.

Blue Zone Planet was looking for a Shopify-friendly solution that leverages AI to understand what customers are searching for, returns the best and most relevant product results, and improves cart conversions. Their feedback on the overall experience with the app installation and set-up was that it was swift and easy and that the responsiveness of the support team for additional questions and tips was extremely helpful. In the short time since the GroupBy AI Search and Discovery app has been launched on their site, Blue Zone Planet has seen improved search relevance and faster results.

By installing the GroupBy app, Shopify merchants like Blue Zone Planet gain access to a next-gen eCommerce search technology for modern shoppers that is powered by Google Cloud Discovery AI - delivering Google-quality search results on their store in the fewest clicks possible. The app's ability to strike an ideal balance between AI-led optimization and manual control significantly saves time on configuring and tuning search rules, but most of all increases conversions and site-wide metrics. The merchandising capabilities allow merchants to easily configure the shopper experience through a dynamic merchandising platform, monitor long-term trends, and leverage actionable insights to grow. Shopify retailers can now gain access to the most modern and revolutionary search experience with a 30-day free trial of the GroupBy AI Search & Discovery App to experience search - like never before.

“Our Shopify app allows merchants to leverage the power of true AI and for the first time ever provide Google-quality search results to their shoppers,” says Roland Gossage, CEO of GroupBy. “We’re excited to have Blue Zone Planet using the app and are encouraged by the response we have received to date. We’re looking forward to watching their eCommerce site scale as they lead the way with next-generation search technology on the Shopify eCommerce platform.”

ketteQ today announced that its supply chain planning platform is now fully integrated with Salesforce Manufacturing Cloud, giving sales and operations teams a powerful solution to improve customer forecasting and demand planning, while also providing a more complete understanding of the supply chain. With this integration, manufacturers can now drive more predictable and accurate business performance, better meet commitments, and improve customer satisfaction.

Revenue Lifecycle Management solutions leader helps life sciences organizations improve operational efficiency and patient outcomes

• New BCG Survey of More Than 1,400 C-Suite Executives in 50 Markets Reveals that 66% of Leaders Are Ambivalent or Dissatisfied with the Progress Their Companies Have Made

• Winning Companies Are Upskilling, But that Percentage Is Still Only 6%

• Big Gaps Between Winners and Observers Are Already Emerging, With Organizations that Plan to Invest More than $50 Million into AI and GenAI this Year 1.3 Times More Likely to See Cost Savings in 2024

Generative AI (GenAI) exploded into the public consciousness in 2023, promising to transform the way business functions. Despite the potential, however, leaders are struggling to convert hype into reality. According to a new report by Boston Consulting Group (BCG), 66% of executives are ambivalent or outright dissatisfied with their organization's progress on AI and GenAI so far, citing three primary reasons for their dissatisfaction: a lack of talent and skills (62%), an unclear AI and GenAI roadmap and investment priorities (47%), and absence of strategy regarding responsible AI and GenAI (42%).

"This is the year to turn GenAI's promise into tangible business success," said Christoph Schweizer, BCG's CEO. "Almost every CEO, myself included, has experienced a steep learning curve with GenAI. When technology is changing so quickly, it can be tempting to wait and see where things land. But with GenAI, the early winners are experimenting, learning, and building at scale."

The report, titled BCG AI Radar: From Potential to Profit with GenAI, is based on a survey of 1,406 C-level executives in 50 markets and 14 industries. Seventy-one percent of executives surveyed say they plan to increase tech investments in 2024—an 11-point jump from 2023—and even more (85%) plan to increase their spending on AI and GenAI. Fifty-four percent of leaders already expect AI to provide cost savings this year, primarily through productivity gains in operations, customer service, and IT.

"Generative AI is radically reshaping businesses. Leading companies on the GenAI front are planning to realize up to $1 billion in productivity gains, and they are already looking at ways to reinvest into new business models and growth," said Sylvain Duranton, global leader of BCG X and a coauthor of the research. "This is a second chance for companies who missed the first AI wave."

This Is Not the Time to Wait and See

Although a small percentage of companies are already reaping the rewards of AI and GenAI, others are either playing catch up or standing on the sidelines. More than 60% of executives surveyed say their firms are still waiting to see how AI-specific regulations develop, and just 6% of companies have trained more than 25% of their people on GenAI tools so far.

According to the report, "winning" companies acknowledge GenAI's permanence and recognize its potential for both enhanced productivity and topline growth. It outlines several characteristics that set the winners apart from observers, including:

• Winners invest for productivity and top-line growth. Organizations that plan to invest more than $50 million in AI and GenAI this year are 1.3 times more likely to see cost savings in 2024—and 1.5 times more likely to achieve more than 10% in cost savings.
• Winners are systematically upskilling. Twenty-one percent of organizations spending upward of $50 million on AI and GenAI this year have already trained more than a quarter of their people.
• Winners are vigilant about GenAI cost of use. Cost of use, which has serious long-term implications, is not commanding the attention it should. Only 19% of those surveyed consider cost the top concern when choosing an AI and GenAI solution.
• Winners build intentional relationships. Only 3% of executives consider preexisting partnerships a priority when looking for AI solutions.
• Winners implement responsible AI (RAI) principles. Of the companies surveyed that are investing more than $50 million in AI in 2024, 27% put the CEO in charge of their RAI strategy (versus 14% overall).

"To unlock GenAI's full potential, executives should deploy it to improve efficiency of everyday tasks, reshape critical functions, and invent new business models," said Schweizer. "Doing so can increase productivity by up to 20%, enhance efficiency and effectiveness by up to 50%, boost revenue, and create long-term competitive advantage."

Enhanced capabilities enable sales and marketing teams to improve trade show performance and ROI through automated appointment scheduling and universal lead capture

Cvent, an industry-leading meetings, events, and hospitality technology provider, today announced that it has acquired Jifflenow, a leading B2B 1:1 and group appointments scheduling solution and iCapture, an award-winning lead capture solution. As in-person events have returned as a critical channel for driving growth, hundreds of global organizations rely on Jifflenow to schedule and manage high-quality B2B appointments and iCapture for their trade show and conference lead capture needs.

With these acquisitions, Cvent further expands its Event Marketing and Management platform, offering enhanced solutions to help organizations:

• Maximize trade show impact by facilitating meetings and appointments with the highest-value customers and prospects: Trade shows are a large and growing category of marketing program spend, offering unique opportunities for sales and marketing teams to reach and engage new audiences and connect with their prospects and customers face-to-face. However, organizing, managing and tracking onsite appointments – through multiple systems and manual processes like email, calendar holds and spreadsheets – leads to wasted time and lost opportunities. With the addition of Jifflenow’s technology, Cvent gives organizations an easy way to ensure executives and sales teams are maximizing their time on the trade show floor by meeting with the most important customers and prospects. In addition, these new capabilities not only maximize the number of important appointments that are held, but also enable previously offline conversations to be tracked and actioned after the event ends.
• Increase the number of event leads: Trade shows are a vital part of an organization’s brand awareness and lead generation strategy. By acquiring iCapture, Cvent now helps organizations get more out of every trade show with a consistent, customizable and easy-to-use universal lead capture solution. By eliminating fragmented, unreliable lead capture tools that have to be re-learned from show to show, organizations can boost lead volume with a standardized system that meets their unique lead capture needs.

• Better qualify and convert trade show leads: 74% of marketers⁽¹⁾ say events are their most important demand generation tactic, and with its highly configurable qualification questions and robust CRM integrations, iCapture facilitates more intelligent and efficient lead capture onsite. In addition, Jifflenow simplifies the process of booking qualified appointments at the event to convert these leads into business opportunities. This powerful combination streamlines post-event follow-up and enables sales and marketing professionals to easily capture, qualify and convert their leads with greater speed, consistency and visibility.

“The Jifflenow team is excited to continue its mission to transform meeting automation as an integral part of Cvent, a clear leader that continues to transform the meetings and events industry,” said Hari Shetty, CEO and Founder of Jifflenow. “Last year, we unveiled an expanded partnership and integration with Cvent, and today’s announcement is an exciting evolution of our relationship. It takes a highly committed team to reach the level of success that we have achieved, and we’re excited to leverage Cvent’s global scale, research and development resources and robust partner ecosystem to continue to innovate to help organizations capitalize on their trade shows and conferences.”

“Trade shows and conferences offer some of the highest quality engagements sales teams will encounter, and iCapture was founded nearly 12 years ago with a single goal in mind: helping organizations capture those engagements and turn them into revenue-generating opportunities,” said Brady Roberts, President and Co-Founder of iCapture. “With organizations investing more in trade shows to reconnect with customers and prospects, now’s a great time to join the Cvent team and add our best-in-class solutions to their platform.”

“Over the past nearly 25 years, we’ve helped power global meetings and events programs, and these acquisitions highlight our continued commitment to innovation and delivering the best-in-class solutions our customers need to drive their businesses forward,” said Reggie Aggarwal, CEO and Founder of Cvent. “We’ve known and respected Hari and Brady since the inception of both Jifflenow and iCapture, and we are extremely excited to welcome their teams to Cvent.”

Cvent’s enhanced trade show and conference solutions will be featured prominently at the Company’s user and industry conference, Cvent CONNECT 2024, to be held June 10-13 in San Antonio, Texas.

Amagi ADS PLUS, the premium CTV advertising marketplace from the global SaaS technology leader for Connected TV and Free Ad-Supported Streaming TV (FAST) services, Amagi, today has launched a new, innovative feature called FAST Deals, a curated programmatic marketplace set to enhance the advertiser buying experience across FAST services.

As consumer engagement with FAST services continues to soar, advertisers face the challenge of navigating a fragmented ecosystem to target audiences at scale within premium, relevant environments. Advertisers also struggle to achieve consistent transparency into the programming where their ads are placed, while content owners face challenges in effectively merchandising their inventory across the expansive programmatic landscape. Addressing this issue, FAST Deals marketplace from Amagi ADS PLUS is designed to simplify and enhance the advertising experience for buyers, content owners, and programmatic exchanges.

FAST Deals launches with more than a dozen curated programmatic inventory bundles that address the most commonly targeted CTV inventory, including news, sports, entertainment, seasonal and tentpole events, U.S. Spanish-language programming, and DEI-focused packages. These bundles are underpinned by Amagi ADS PLUS' partnerships across a breadth of leading content owners and FAST innovators. FAST Deals is currently available across leading programmatic CTV exchanges in North America.

"We're seeing a big spurt in growth — among viewers and advertisers — for FAST programming. One key reason for this is the sector's focus on premium, high-quality and niche content," said Emily Bromley, VP, Growth, FreeWheel. "By teaming up with Amagi, we hope to better connect buyers in today's TV ad landscape with quality, transparent, relevant and curated content — with consumers in the FAST space."

James Smith, Executive Vice President and General Manager, Amagi ADS PLUS, commented:
"Advertisers keep asking for ways to go bigger on key audience segments and contextual environments but are often confined by the complexity of running and measuring the same target across so many publishers. At Amagi, our products power the FAST channel programming, playout, and ad insertion for over 3,800 publishers, reaching over 200 million CTV households. This puts us very close to the stream and allows us to leverage our platform metadata and scale to give brands a single destination for the reach they desire on key audience segments in a suitable and premium environment."

Amagi ADS PLUS and the FAST Deals marketplace are built on the foundation of Amagi's industry-leading FAST platform, which currently facilitates content creation, distribution, and ad insertion across more than 110 million hours of viewing and more than 1 billion ad impressions. ADS PLUS leverages Amagi's extensive relationships with premium CTV content owners to establish an advertising marketplace that bridges the gap between content creators and leading advertisers.

Key Features of FAST Deals by Amagi ADS PLUS:

• Enhanced Relevancy: Leveraging Amagi's end-to-end FAST platform, ADS PLUS possesses unparalleled insight into content metadata, enabling precise and granular inventory packaging for advertisers.
• Transparency and Quality: Accurate and readily available content metadata provides advertisers with unprecedented transparency into ad placements, while ADS PLUS inventory curation ensures adherence to all standard industry supply parameters.
• Exclusivity: Through direct and comprehensive relationships with content owners, Amagi ADS PLUS offers unique and exclusive inventory across diverse verticals, providing advertisers with unparalleled opportunities.
• Flexibility in Access: ADS PLUS provides buyers with the flexibility to access FAST Deals via their preferred programmatic exchanges.

Captiv8 Inc., the award-winning Influencer Marketing Platform, including the 2023 Winner of 'Best Influencer Marketing Technology' (Influencer Marketing Awards, London), has officially launched in Italy.

Captiv8's Italian efforts will be led by seasoned veteran, Milan-based Marta De Leonardis, who will be taking on the role of Country Manager. With key experience, including roles at Vodafone, Kiver (Mondadori Group), and influencer marketing agency Open Influence, De Leonardis brings more than a decade of experience in brand strategy, marketing programs, and creator solutions.

"I have admired Captiv8's unified approach to creator marketing for some time now" - De Leonardis says – "With its focus on enterprise solutions, Captiv8 has a track record working with the most innovative Fortune 500 brands and largest global agencies. Italian brands have the utmost sophistication and are on the cutting edge of innovation, making Captiv8 a natural fit to service this market. Marketers are looking for holistic tools that allow them to measure the true impact of influencer campaigns, and Captiv8's technology meets this demand. Its commerce solutions give them the ability to track creator impact across the entire purchase funnel, from awareness to actual transactions, and account for all attributing measurement factors. Captiv8 can track brand and performance campaigns through its comprehensive platform and attribute performance by creator or even by-post level."

Since its inception in 2015, Captiv8 has managed over 25,000 campaigns and has responded to global demand by offering support in 10+ languages: English, Italian, German, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Swedish, Polish, Japanese, Arabic, and more. In 2023, Captiv8 added robust first-to-market affiliate capabilities, to provide solutions for the growing intersection of influencer marketing and ecommerce.

Krishna Subramanian, co-founder and CEO of Captiv8 said, "Since expanding into the UK, we have seen a growing demand for end-to-end influencer marketing capabilities and measurement tools from our partners in the EMEA region. We see tremendous opportunity in the Italian market, and look forward to building upon the success we have had in the United Kingdom. The core offering of our business is simple: to create efficiencies in the world of influencer marketing, and provide marketers with tools to drive the highest ROI and impact, with creative and relevant influencer marketing. With that, we're excited to expand and welcome Marta to our international team. We are excited to work closely with our partners in Italy, and driving meaningful impact and measurable results for our industry peers."