After Raising $100 Million and Hitting Unicorn Status, Sendbird Hires Veteran CRO Sam Zayed to Oversee Expansion Strategy
Company preps for regional expansions into Latin America and Japan amid strong international growth; Sendbird adds dozens of new logos, including DoorDash, HomeAdvisor and Pocket Gems, and elevates customer experience as Yaekyum Lee transitions from Head of Sales APAC to newly created role
SAN MATEO, Calif., Sept. 17, 2021 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- Sendbird, the leading mobile engagement and communication company across in-app chat, voice and video, today announced the appointment of Sam Zayed as Chief Revenue Officer (CRO). Zayed will work closely with Sendbird co-founder and CEO John S. Kim to define and execute Sendbird's vertical and geographic expansion as the unicorn company puts its most recent $100 million funding round to work. Sendbird also announced the promotion of one of its earliest employees, Yaekyum Lee, from Head of Sales APAC into the newly created role of Global Head of Customer Experience, unifying all post-sales teams under one leader. The company continues to gain momentum and solidify its market leadership by signing some of the largest mobile apps across industries, from food delivery leader DoorDash, to service marketplace leader HomeAdvisor, to gaming company Pocket Gems.
"The mobile engagement and communication market is in its infancy," said John S. Kim, Sendbird co-founder and CEO. "Every app in the world is going to need to connect with their users within the app, across chat, voice and video. With our recent fundraise, the addition of Sam and the creation of our new Customer Experience organization, I'm confident we're well positioned to capitalize on this massive opportunity."
Zayed comes to Sendbird from Conga, where he served as CRO, leading a global team of 300+ professionals, and will focus on accelerating the company's hypergrowth trajectory. Prior to Conga, Zayed was the Senior Vice President, Americas and SVP of Global Account Management at Apptio. He has a successful track record of helping software companies achieve their expansion goals. Zayed will oversee Sendbird's expansion into new industries like Live Streaming and Live Commerce, as well as geographic expansion into new markets, such as Latin America and Japan.
"Sendbird is the world's leading chat, video and voice API with thousands of successful deployments across multiple verticals, having generated tremendous international traction with its current product suite," said Zayed. "With the exciting lineup of new products planned for later this year, along with the global trend to rapidly digitize user communications, I look forward to championing our core value of having an endless tenacity for customers."
Lee moves into the newly created role of Global Head of Customer Experience as the company now supports more than 150 million users each month. Sendbird has recently signed several of the biggest logos in the U.S. and internationally, including those in food delivery, payments, ecommerce and gaming. DoorDash, HomeAdvisor and Pocket Gems join Sendbird's impressive roster, which includes Reddit, Hinge, Yahoo!, Paytm, Teladoc, Virgin Mobile UAE and Delivery Hero. The new Customer Experience organization will allow Sendbird to optimize the post-sales experience for five-person startups to global enterprises.
Sendbird connects users with each other and with the brands they care about through rich in-app conversations across chat, voice and video. Its solutions are particularly compelling as billions of users now engage in real-time mobile conversations on a monthly basis, making it the most popular way for users to communicate. Sendbird helps any app harness the power of mobile communication with its easy to use API solution on top of a fully managed communication platform. Delivery apps use Sendbird to connect drivers and customers, marketplaces and ecommerce companies connect buyers and sellers and healthcare apps connect patients with caregivers over virtual calls. As the world becomes increasingly digital, Sendbird powers the billions of digital conversations people rely on every day to get things done.
To learn more about why Sendbird is seeing such strong global momentum and how it is developing the future of communications at http://www.sendbird.com.
About Sendbird
Sendbird is the leading mobile engagement and communication platform trusted by modern digital and mobile-first companies like Reddit, Delivery Hero and Paytm. We allow any company to quickly and easily embed rich real-time chat, voice and video into their app to build connections with their users and between their users. With Sendbird customers can get access to the benefits of chat, voice, video quickly and with significantly less development effort or risk if they were to build it or maintain it themselves.
Sendbird's top global customers include Reddit, Yahoo! Sports, Careem, OLA, Rally Health, Carousell, Virgin Mobile UAE, Dream11, Paytm, Grand Rounds, Teladoc, Nexon, Accolade, Hinge and Kookmin Bank. It is backed by ICONIQ Growth, Tiger Global Management, STEADFAST Capital Ventures, Meritech Capital, Emergence Capital, Shasta Ventures, August Capital, Funders Club, World Innovation Lab and Y Combinator. Sendbird is headquartered in San Mateo, California.
Please visit https://sendbird.com for more information.
Media Contact
Amber Moore, Moore Communications and Consulting, +1 (503) 943-9381, [email protected]
SOURCE Sendbird
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