Rocket Fuel Names Former Salesforce.com and Microsoft Executive Randy Wootton as Chief Executive Officer
November 04 2015 - 4:16PM
Business Wire
Board Taps Wootton, Rocket Fuel’s Chief Revenue
Officer Since March, Based on Track Record Scaling Global
Operations, SaaS and Marketing Tech Expertise, and Success Driving
Change
Rocket Fuel (NASDAQ:FUEL), a leading Programmatic Marketing
Platform provider, has named Randy Wootton, 47, as its new chief
executive officer. Wootton joined Rocket Fuel in March as chief
revenue officer and will replace Monte Zweben, who has been acting
as interim CEO since March. The Rocket Fuel Board of Directors
selected Wootton based on his proven ability to drive growth and
scale at some of the world’s most admired multi-billion dollar
global technology companies, deep experience in SaaS, intimate
knowledge of the advertising industry, and exceptional leadership
skills. Wootton has also joined Rocket Fuel’s Board of
Directors.
“Randy has been a change agent from the start, expanding our
pipeline, invigorating our direct sales approach, inspiring
cross-functional teams with his executional rigor, and actively
contributing to the development of our strategy. He has been my
close partner in the day-to-day work of transforming Rocket Fuel,”
said Zweben. “As we evaluated qualified candidates, the executive
search committee witnessed Randy’s tremendous contributions and
electric leadership style. His enthusiasm for our business is
infectious, and he truly inspires Rocket Fuelers throughout the
company to engage with our mission and execute.”
Key considerations for the search committee were finding a
candidate with a track record of scaling up businesses, extensive
knowledge of SaaS, and a deep understanding of the advertising
industry. Wootton brings the added benefit of working closely on
Rocket Fuel’s transformation efforts since joining the company in
March. He was a key contributor in developing the company’s
strategic plan and has led the implementation of a new sales model
and sales methodology. Wootton is already ramped and ready to
execute against business goals.
“I am excited to take on this challenge and am inspired by the
Board’s confidence in me,” Wootton said. “I believe deeply in the
hard work we’ve done to improve and expand our relationships with
agencies and their holding companies, grow our direct-to-marketer
sales, and shift to a SaaS model by leveraging our platform
investments. The worldwide digital ad spend is expected to reach
$143 billion in 2020, and I believe we can capture a bigger share
of that market opportunity given the power and exceptional value of
Rocket Fuel’s technology and talent. We still have a lot of work to
do as we make this shift, reinforce our foundation, and prepare for
future growth. Our strategy is solid -- now it’s time to focus and
execute.”
Prior to joining Rocket Fuel, Wootton scaled Salesforce.com’s
Customer Success Product Portfolio P&L from under $200 million
to almost $500 million in three years by overhauling the product
management, marketing, and sales-enablement strategies for that
company’s Success Services Product Portfolio. Previously, at
Microsoft, he led cross-functional operations for the Global Search
Services and Online Marketplace where he was instrumental in
operationalizing Microsoft’s "Search Alliance" agreement with
Yahoo! for the small and medium sized space. In addition, he helped
exceed a $1.6 billion target as U.S. Head of Specialist Sales, and
he supported $1.8 billion in 39 countries for Enterprise Display
and Search Clients as General Manager, Premium Services Operations.
Wootton also was SVP at AdReady, a cloud platform company for
display advertising, and he ran aQuantive’s AtlasDMT’s
international division. Wootton holds a Bachelor of Science degree
in English from the U.S. Naval Academy, a Master of Arts in the
Liberal Arts from St. John’s College, and a Master of Business
Administration from Harvard Business School.
With Wootton’s transition to CEO, Zweben will become executive
chairman. He will focus on building an ecosystem of strategic
partnerships, continue to offer support on product development
initiatives and contribute his expertise in Artificial
Intelligence.
Dr. George John will resign from the company and step down from
Rocket Fuel’s Board of Directors. Dr. John plans to join a venture
capital firm as an executive in residence to explore new
opportunities in Artificial Intelligence. He will also mentor an
entrepreneurship class at Stanford University, his alma mater.
Cautions Regarding Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains “forward-looking statements”
regarding future events and our future financial performance,
including but not limited to the expected growth of worldwide
digital ad spend and the Company’s ability to participate in that
market opportunity. Words such as “expect,” “believe,” “intend,”
“plan,” “goal”, “focus” and other similar words are also intended
to identify such forward-looking statements.
These forward-looking statements are subject to a number of
risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ
materially from the results anticipated by such statements,
including, without limitation: risks associated with the Company’s
growth; failure to achieve expected synergies and efficiencies of
operations between Rocket Fuel and [x+1]; failure to adequately
address competition from agency trading desks and to make progress
against the Company’s other strategic initiatives; failure to
achieve the expected benefits of our sales force restructuring,
including improved sales productivity; and general market,
political, economic and business conditions.
Additional factors that could cause actual results to differ
materially from those anticipated by our forward-looking statements
are under the caption “Risk Factors” in our Annual Report on Form
10-K filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) on
March 16, 2015 and in subsequent SEC filings. These forward-looking
statements are made as of the date of this press release, and
Rocket Fuel expressly disclaims any obligation or undertaking to
update the forward-looking statements contained herein or therein
to reflect events that occur or circumstances that exist after the
date on which the statements were made.
About Rocket Fuel
A leading Programmatic Marketing Platform provider, Rocket Fuel
(NASDAQ: FUEL) offers brands, agencies, and platform partners
managed services, as well as a SaaS-based Data Management Platform
(DMP) and Demand Side Platform (DSP), to optimize performance,
awareness, and lift across marketing objectives, channels and
devices. By applying artificial intelligence at big data scale,
Rocket Fuel’s Moment Scoring™ technology performs a real-time
calculation of each ad opportunity based on a marketer’s goal to
determine the likelihood a consumer will engage in a desired
action. Moment Scoring goes beyond 1:1 marketing by learning to
predict what marketing actions to take with a campaign at a precise
moment in time, which results in a much more efficient use of
marketing dollars. Rocket Fuel serves 96 of the Ad Age 100, three
of the top five agency holding company trading desks, and partners
with some of the world’s leading CRM platforms, marketing platforms
and systems integrators. Headquartered in Redwood City, California,
Rocket Fuel has more than 20 offices worldwide.
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version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20151104006806/en/
Rocket FuelKristin Holloway,
650-480-7561pr@rocketfuelinc.com
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