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Category
C-Suite
Strategy
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Peter Evans
Optiv
Kevin Iaquinto
JDA Software
Brian Giese
True Influence
Peter Evans
CMO
Optiv
Peter Evans, CMO of Optiv, has brought his previous CMO and CEO experience to help drive a new business strategy and transformation that is fundamentally changing Optiv’s business and the industry.
Optiv has been undertaking a massive transformation from a traditional VAR to a fully integrated systems integrator. The cybersecurity market is overly complex with more than 3,000 vendors confusing the marketplace with all digital marketing systems “turned up to 11,” resulting in disenfranchised customer groups.
Success in execution has come from moving from a partner-driven organization focused on events to a fully integrated marketing engine that includes new disciplines for portfolio management, market segmentation, product marketing, demand generation and digital marketing — disciplines that were foreign and previously unnecessary at Optiv. As a result, Optiv’s total brand awareness has grown to 89%, its share of voice is an average of 10% and marketing is delivering qualified pipeline approaching 8% of the business from a standing start in 2018, driving higher opportunity conversion.
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Kevin Iaquinto
JDA Software
Kevin Iaquinto, EVP and CMO of JDA Software, is driven by building enduring connections with JDA’s brand, company, people and culture. In his role, Iaquinto maximizes customer and associate engagement through a variety of marketing activities, including brand awareness and identity, demand generation, product/solutions marketing, public/analyst relations, marketing communications, partner and customer marketing, social media and global events.
In 2018, JDA expanded its offerings, acquired Blue Yonder and partnered with Microsoft to advance its SaaS vision. Needing to support these new opportunities, Iaquinto increased his 2018 marketing goal to be 43% of the sales pipeline and 33% of all closed-won.
Factors that have contributed to Iaquinto’s strategy include:
- ROI-driven investments in marketing events/activities;
- An end-to-end partnership with sales/business;
- Account-based marketing and key content creation;
- Increased C-level customer engagement/relations; and
- Brand ambassadorship.
Iaquinto and his team ultimately surpassed their goal for 2018. Under Iaquinto’s direction, the marketing team and its demand gen activities were responsible for more than 48% of JDA’s total sales pipeline — a 20% increase from 2017 — and 39% of all closed-won deals, which was a 30% increase from 2017. Iaquinto and the marketing team’s strategies and partnerships with sales enabled JDA’s sales bookings to increase by double digits in the past year. Additionally, there were 1,073 marketing opportunities passed to sales, surpassing its goal of 1,000 by EOY.
The efforts made by Iaquinto and his team generated great momentum for JDA entering 2019, and marketing has increased its goals for 2019 to be 40% of all closed-won deals.
Passionate about bringing his A-game every day, Iaquinto’s creativity and work has won him numerous CMO awards, including Marketing Executive of the Year by PR World Awards in 2018. He has more than 20 years of experience in software/SaaS solutions and has led global marketing teams at more than seven privately held and publicly traded technology companies.
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Brian Giese
CEO
Brian Giese is the CEO of True Influence, which he co-founded with Chief Technology Officer RK Maniyani in 2008. He is a recognized thought leader in marketing and sales processes, analytic CRM and database marketing with more than 30 years of operational experience, and is passionate about how the smart use of data can improve marketing ROI and fuel higher revenues.
Giese drives True Influence’s vision of combining innovative technology with marketing expertise to help businesses connect with the right B2B purchase decision makers. This vision for data-driven marketing was the catalyst for InsightBase, the company’s intent monitoring solution.
As Giese continued to monitor the marketplace, it became apparent that True Influence needed to include the buying group in InsightBase, so the company’s customers could identify intent by decision maker and execute successful, data-driven marketing.
Giese instills not only a data-driven marketing vision, but also a customer-first vision throughout the organization. This has helped True Influence increase its YoY revenue in 2018 and accomplished 21 consecutive quarters of profitability. The fourth quarter of 2018 showed great growth momentum, with a 37% increase in revenue over the third quarter of 2018. Adding to the growth momentum, the fourth quarter of 2018 revenue grew by 32% over the same quarter the previous year.
Innovator of the year
