TORONTO, ON – August 22, 2019 – Influitive Corporation—a provider of online community and customer advocacy software—today announced the appointment of Dan Cote as the company’s new Chief Marketing Officer, and Rob Merklinger, Senior Vice President of Sales. These executive hires will help fortify the Influitive leadership team, which includes the recent addition of CEO, Dan McCall.
These new appointments will help the company accelerate its efforts to meet the growing global demand for engaged customer communities fueled by advocates. Mobilizing customers through online communities helps create positive customer experiences and supports customer success, which is a growing, multibillion-dollar market. The company counts among its customers nine of the 10 largest global software organizations, including Adobe, Cisco, IBM, Oracle, and Salesforce.
Dan Cote comes to Influitive as its Chief Marketing Officer. He brings more than 25 years of leadership experience in high-tech software and services companies across a wide range of marketing disciplines, including strategy, demand, research, and communications. Dan most recently led a product marketing team at Citrix—a global leader in digital workspace, networking, security, and analytics technologies—that was responsible for the billion-dollar-plus application and desktop virtualization product line. Prior to that, he held VP of marketing positions at companies including Virtual Computer, nSight, and SellMasters.
Rob Merklinger joins Influitive as SVP of Sales. Most recently, he held the same title at CollegeVine—the largest marketplace for college advisory services. Previously, he was SVP of Sales at Salary.com, a global leader in compensation data and analytics tools for enterprise HR teams. Before that, Rob was VP of Sales at Intronis, a leading provider of cloud backup technology for the SMB marketplace. Rob also held sales leadership and business development positions at Oracle and Compuware (formerly Gomez).
“Companies of all sizes and stripes know that profitable growth and success hinge on happy customers,” said Dan McCall, CEO, Influitive. “Maintaining high customer satisfaction and loyalty requires constant engagement and cultivation—and advocates provide the rocket fuel to do this at scale. Dan and Rob are executive leaders who I know and have worked with in the past. They have a track record of developing effective go-to-market strategies with tightly integrated marketing and sales plans. I’m thrilled to have them on board working alongside myself and the rest of our leadership team.”
About Influitive
The world’s most engaging customer communities are powered by Influitive. Our easy-to-use platform combines industry-leading customer advocacy tools, expert services, and training with intelligent automation, gamification, and personalization features that drive extreme engagement and customer growth at scale—while minimizing administrative effort and time to value. Customer advocates create and share enriching content that spark peer-to-peer interactions, leading to authentic, positive customer experiences and greater levels of advocacy. Influitive works with customer-driven digital businesses, including nine of the top ten largest global software companies. Leading brands such as Cisco, Oracle, Adobe, ADP, and IBM trust Influitive to help foster collaboration, build trust, and deepen relationships with customers for top-line growth and bottom-line profits. Visit influitive.com to learn more.
