Jeff Whatcott and Mike Quinn Join Executive Team; David Mendels and Deb Besemer Join Board of Directors
CAMBRIDGE, Mass., January 12, 2009-Brightcove Inc., the leading online video platform, today announced that former Acquia and Adobe(R) (Nasdaq:ADBE) vice president of marketing, Jeff Whatcott, and former FAST Search & Transfer vice president of sales, Mike Quinn, have joined the company's executive team. In addition, long-time Adobe executive, David Mendels, and former chief executive officer of BrassRing and executive vice president of Lotus Development, Deb Besemer, have joined Brightcove's board of directors. Together these additions bring a wealth of successful management, strategic and technology experience to the Brightcove team.
"Our newly expanded leadership team sets the stage for what should be another remarkable year for the company," said Jeremy Allaire, Brightcove chairman and chief executive officer. "Despite the economic challenges, we have a lot to look forward to walking into 2009 - a fantastic customer base in terms of numbers and quality, a global growth market, a strong revenue position and the success of Brightcove 3. We've seen tremendous growth in our platform business and expect to continue to build on the solid lead we have in the online video platform category with the help of the new additions to our team."
These new additions come on the heels of another strong year for Brightcove, having recently completed a third consecutive year of triple-digit revenue growth. The company expects to reach profitability in 2009 and retain a strong cash balance sheet, enabling continued product investments and expanded sales and marketing initiatives worldwide.
As senior vice president of marketing, Jeff Whatcott will be responsible for leading Brightcove's product marketing and marketing communications activities. Whatcott joins Brightcove from Acquia, the commercial open source company behind Drupal, where he was vice president of marketing. Prior to Acquia, Whatcott led marketing, business alliances and business operations for Adobe's enterprise and developer products, including LiveCycle(TM), Flex(TM) and ColdFusion(TM). He also served as vice president of product management at Macromedia, running product management, product marketing and technical evangelism for the Flash(TM) Platform. Whatcott first worked with Brightcove founder and CEO, Jeremy Allaire, at Allaire Corporation where he served as director of product marketing.
As senior vice president of sales for the Americas, Mike Quinn will oversee Brightcove's sales in the Americas. Quinn brings more than 20 years of sales management experience, most recently serving as senior vice president of sales for the Americas at FAST Search & Transfer, which was acquired by Microsoft in 2007 for $1.2 billion. Prior to FAST, he served in leadership positions at Akamai and UUNet.
David Mendels is a recognized leader in the development and strategies behind rich Internet applications. He brings nearly two decades of experience as a general manager, corporate strategist, thought leader, and deal maker focused on making the Internet easier to use for consumers and developers. At Macromedia, Mendels served as executive vice president and general manager, leading product development, marketing, and alliances including the setup and launch of international operations in Latin America and Japan. In this role he directly managed Macromedia's flagship products, including the Flash and Flex line, Macromedia Studio and ColdFusion. David joined Adobe following its acquisition of Macromedia in December 2005 and led the company's Business Productivity business unit where he was responsible for $1 billion in revenue from products including Adobe Acrobat(TM), Acrobat Connect(TM), LiveCycle and Flex.
Deb Besemer brings nearly 30 years of software industry experience, most recently serving as CEO of BrassRing, where she grew their SaaS business 10X over several years, resulting in a successful acquisition by Kenexa. She also spent 12 years at Lotus Development where she was responsible for all worldwide operations, including sales, regional marketing, business partners and channels, consulting and support. This encompassed overseeing 4,000 people and more than $1 billion in revenue.
Brightcove today also announced the transition of former senior vice president of marketing and strategy Adam Berrey to its Strategic Advisory Board. Berrey joined Brightcove in 2005 to lead the company's marketing efforts and has been instrumental in driving Brightcove's emergence as the industry's leading online video platform. Berrey joins existing Strategic Advisory Board members Adam Gerber, chief marketing officer of Quantcast; Jeff Jarvis, interactive journalism professor and veteran editor / blogger; Paul Vidich, special advisor to AOL; and Tim Hanlon, executive vice president and managing director of Publicis Groupe's VivaKi Ventures.
About Brightcove
Brightcove is an online video platform. Media companies, businesses and organizations worldwide use Brightcove to publish and distribute video on the Web. Founded in 2004, Brightcove is a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) business with offices across North America, Europe and Asia. For more information, visit http://www.brightcove.com.
Press Contacts
North America
Erika Shaffer
SutherlandGold Group for Brightcove
206-972-5514
erika@sutherlandgold.com
Europe
Stephen Orr
AxiCom for Brightcove
+44 20 8392 4056
stephen.orr@axicom.com
Adobe, Acrobat, Acrobat Connect, Flash, LiveCycle, Flex and ColdFusion are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Adobe Systems Incorporated in the United States and/or other countries.
