Tell us a bit about yourself and your background before Sailthru.

Before Sailthru, I led performance marketing teams for many years and invested a lot of time in understanding consumer behavior and leading data and analytics initiatives to improve marketing return on investment and customer experience at the same time.

What got you into the retail sector in the first place and why do you enjoy it?

I started my career as an internet and media analyst at Citigroup Investment Bank and also consulted for leading digital brands such as AOL and SapientNitro. What I love about the retail sector is being above to put myself in the shoes of the customer and use data to understand consumer psychology.

Knowing that we‘re helping retail marketers evolve their thinking and move from short-term to long-term objectives makes me feel a part of something much larger.

How did you get to your current position as EVP of Sailthru?

As a customer of Sailthru before joining, I had first hand experience of how customer-centric they are as an organisation. 

Being EVP of Sailthru allows me to match my experience of driving quantifiable results through optimising products and services, with our obsession for making our customers successful.

We get to push the limits of what technology can do to support retail marketers in their quest to engage customers with personalised experiences across all channels. I can draw on my experience of supporting business growth and lean business development to help our retail customers become more successful. 

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How has your previous experience aided your current job?

Spending seven years working as a direct marketer for a variety of B2C companies before joining Sailthru makes it easier for me to elevate the dialogue with our clients.

Retailers need to shift their focus from short-term conversion to programmes that deliver long-term gains, but this is perceived as being a significant challenge when quarterly goals still need to be met. 

With my background, I‘m able to not only bring empathy into our customer relationships but to work with our customers to make it easier for them to focus on initiatives that allow them to continue to meet near-term needs without sacrificing profitable growth over the long haul.

Explain Sailthru.

Sailthru helps marketers build deeper, longer-lasting relationships with their customers – which is especially important in the retail sector. 

By personalising individual customer experiences across digital communication channels – in email, on a brand‘s website and in mobile applications – one-on-one relationships with consumers help drive higher revenue, improve customer lifetime value and reduce churn. 

What makes us unique is our data structure – where legacy marketing clouds are built to be channel centric, we‘re built to be customer centric. We have one data store and all channel data is stored within individual customer profiles so that experiences within any individual channel leverage data from every channel. The net result is increased retention and increased revenue. 

What can you tell me about the Retentionomics Forum that was held last month?

The discovery that retention-focused organisations are driving both revenue and growth is compelling. However, many organisations are still investing large proportions of its budgets into acquisition – which is often the case with many retail brands. The