New CEO for Zappi as Founder Phillips Moves Role

Agile and automated research specialist Zappi is bringing in a new CEO, Aaron Kechley, as founder Steve Phillips moves to become Executive Chair and Chief Innovation Officer. Kechley, who starts today, worked previously as President at Inmar Intelligence and of SaaS platform dataxu.

Zappi says the transition is intended 'to accelerate its growth and solidify its position at the forefront of consumer insights innovation'. Former MESH Planning Partner Phillips (pictured below) has led the company since founding it as ZappiStore a dozen years ago: it now employs more than 300 people in 13+ countries, has more than 350 enterprise customers worldwide and expects to surpass $100m in annual recurring revenue (ARR) by the end of 2025.

In his new role Phillips will help to drive AI advancements across Zappi's products and deliver innovative solutions. Company President Ryan Barr will remain in role, focusing on building the company's connected insights ecosystem, forging enterprise partnerships, and driving customer success, while Kechley focuses on growth strategy, expanding global reach and enhancing the Zappi platform.

Kechley, who will work from Zappi's Boston office, brings more than 25 years of operating experience leading high-growth technology companies and fifteen building SaaS companies that help clients make data-driven decisions. In almost five years as President at Inmar Intelligence, he launched the firm's data-driven Retail Media platform and grew it into a market leader, leading the integration of three acquisitions in the process. Before this he spent nine years at AI-driven media optimization platform dataxu as it moved from a managed-service offer to a self-service platform - the firm was ultimately acquired by Roku. Earlier he was COO at fintech firm HelloWallet, and a product management leader at RSA, the SaaS security products division of software group EMC.

'It is with immense pride that we announce the next chapter in Zappi's story' says Phillips, 'one characterized by enhancing our ability to help our customers build winning brands. As an experienced operator of high-growth SaaS companies - and someone that lives and breathes data - I have the utmost confidence that Aaron Kechley is the best person to lead us into the future'. On LinkedIn, Phillips explained further: 'Of course it is interesting and also odd for me personally, having started and led the company for a decade. I always said that I would continuously review whether I was best placed to be CEO and for the last couple of years I have realised that we increasingly needed different skills. So it is time for me to step aside from the CEO role and instead become the Chief Innovation Officer. The best thing is that I now get to focus entirely on what I enjoy best. More AI, more new ideas and more focus on building out what I think the future tech for consumer insights needs to be. This will be fun!!'

In December 2022 Zappi raised $170m in growth capital in a round led by Sumeru Equity Partners. Sanjeet Mitra and George Kadifa, Zappi Board Directors and co-founders of Sumeru, said this week in a statement: 'Steve is a long-time innovator in agile insights software and has been a terrific partner to Zappi's customers and employees. We congratulate Steve on his new role and are excited to welcome Aaron to lead the company into its next chapter of growth and innovation. Aaron has a long history in scaling software companies, and we believe with him joining Zappi that the business is positioned for even greater success at the forefront of innovation in martech'.

Zappi made substantial changes to its senior team in January, hiring Nataly Kelly as CMO and Melissa Clucas as CFO, and promoting longstanding staffer Babita Earle to International MD. It has also recently released an Amazon #1 category bestseller, The Consumer Insights Revolution , together with one of its founding clients and partners, PepsiCo.

A certified B-Corp, Zappi is online at www.zappi.io/web .