I always get asked what makes Appfire different, what sets us apart and what drives our success. The answer is simple: it’s our people. We started Appfire with the goal of hiring awesome people, and that mantra has carried through as we’ve grown over the years. With every acquisition, new hire, and appointment we make, it all comes down to people.

This past year, we’ve experienced tremendous growth as a company, thanks to the incredible work of our people. With growth comes opportunity and, in some ways, a need for change. As a $10 million company in 2019, we were able to operate with a somewhat informal senior team. But things are different now. We’ve pushed past the $150 million annual recurring revenue (ARR) mark in 2022, and our team now includes over 700 passionate and talented team members. More broadly, the year ended in an unpredictable way as many companies brainstormed how to successfully navigate the pending (or is it here?) recession. At Appfire, we needed a leadership structure to meet the moment, and to see beyond to better years ahead.

With a careful and thoughtful strategic approach, we added some exceptional people to our Board of Directors, Advisory Board, and Executive Leadership Team in 2022. Individually, these accomplished professionals are at the top of their game. Together, they’re the team that best positions Appfire for sustained growth and our continued evolution as a leading employer, partner, and industry pioneer. It’s vital to the company’s sustained growth to have seasoned board members, advisors, and executive leadership who, most importantly, apply a people-first focus across all Appfire initiatives.

I’ve had the pleasure of working alongside these brilliant individuals for some time now, and wanted to share a bit more about them and what makes them an integral part of our ongoing success. Please join me in welcoming Scott Davidson, Cindy Robbins, Carilu Dietrich, Steve Cross, Alex Triplett, Jill Adams, and Ed Frederici to Appfire!

Scott Davidson joined Appfire as a board member and strategic advisor, bringing 20 years of experience in executive roles across emerging, rapidly growing, and large public companies. As CFO of Hortonworks, he led a successful IPO, and as COO, led sales and marketing teams at successive levels of scale. He has created and executed thoughtful M&A strategies, expanding product portfolios and enhancing market opportunities. Having held executive positions at Alteryx, Quest Software, and Citrix, Scott knows what it takes to lead skilled developer teams through major product launches and periods of rapid expansion. In his role as board member and strategic advisor, he is helping to position Appfire to take best advantage of the company’s ambitious and exciting growth trajectory, including the expansion of our extensive, purpose-built portfolio to include new standalone products.

Cindy Robbins joined the Appfire Board earlier this year. As the President and Chief People Officer of Salesforce until 2019, she oversaw a global workforce that became a model of innovative corporate culture. An expert on recruiting and retaining talent, optimizing productivity, and employee satisfaction, Cindy has a proven track record of building healthy and diverse cultures that facilitate growth. She also drove Salesforce to the top of “best places to work” lists published by Glassdoor and Fortune, and will provide invaluable insight that supports Appfire’s aggressive strategy of attracting and retaining top talent.

Carilu Dietrich joined Appfire as an advisor last spring. She was instrumental in repositioning collaboration software developer Atlassian for an incredibly successful IPO, spearheading the company’s rapid expansion from $150 million to $450 million in revenue, expanding to new markets, and building out a marketing dream team. An expert in product-led growth, she has advised top CEOs on developing business strategies, managing hypergrowth, and coaching rising stars into industry leaders. In addition, Carilu co-founded Pledge 1%, a framework for companies to pledge 1% of their equity, profit, staff time, and/or product to any cause of their choice. Appfire joined the initiative in 2015 and was among the first to grow its Pledge 1% program to include all four pledge types.

Steve Cross, recipient of the Atlassian Lifetime Achievement Award, was pivotal in expanding the company’s Americas Partner Channel, re-imagining and restructuring relationships to drive monumental year-over-year revenue growth. He still actively consults in the Atlassian ecosystem and serves as an advisor to Atlassian Partners and other private equity firms. He co-founded YourFreeStuff.com and has held leadership roles at Dazzle, Connectix Corporation and Pinnacle Systems. 

Alex Triplett joined Appfire in dual Chief Financial Officer and Chief Operating Officer roles. Alex has a proven track record in the driver’s seat of technology company’s growth and development. While serving as the Global Head of Corporate Development and divisional CFO at ION Investment Group, Alex leveraged financial and industry savvy to acquire $15 billion enterprise value in acquisitions and raise and refinance $27.5 billion of debt. At Appfire, Alex has played an instrumental role in supporting our executive team with financial insight and operational analytics, while also driving business management and adding value to business operations.  

Jill Adams, our Chief Marketing Officer, brings more than two decades of experience in global B2B marketing and brand identity in the technology sector. She most recently served as CMO at Absorb Software, where she reported directly to the CEO and drove a high-growth engine through direct responsibility for all aspects of Marketing. Having worked on teams at IBM, Progress Software, and RSA, Jill has helped us drive Appfire’s growth through better user onboarding experiences, demand generation strategies, improved customer retention, partner enablement, and more. 

Ed Frederici is an experienced Chief Technology Officer (CTO) with a proven track record of execution-focused leadership and an extensive background bringing start-up technology companies to fruition via strategic and tactical planning. Since joining us earlier this year as CTO, he has played an instrumental role in building and expanding our portfolio, and successfully integrating new apps and solutions via acquisitions. Ed previously served as CTO for Salesforce Marketing Cloud (previously ExactTarget), Terminus, Cheetah Digital and Pacers Sports & Entertainment. Throughout his career, he’s worked as a C-level contributor, helping to grow teams, support acquisitions, and take Exact Target public. Ed also previously held technology and operations leadership roles at ChaCha Search Inc., SallieMae, and Performance Assessment Network. 

It’s been an exciting year, and I feel energized by the work we are doing, the people that we are doing it with and the customers we partner with.  Over the past year, we’ve welcomed some of the best and brightest minds in the business to our team. Together, we’ll move Appfire towards its next phase while continuing to solve important customer challenges. Great things are ahead with this team. I hope you follow along to find out what the future holds. 

Interested in joining our team? Check out our open positions here: https://appfire.com/join/.