Rokt, the leading ecommerce technology using machine learning to make transactions more relevant to each shopper, announced that it has named Bill Barton as Chief Product and Engineering Officer, effective June 27, 2022. In this newly created role, Barton will report directly to CEO Bruce Buchanan and will lead the company’s R&D organization. With more than 35 years of product and engineering experience at companies that include Amazon, Nokia and Microsoft, Barton has a proven record of building high-performing teams across a range of hardware and software disciplines.
“We are excited to welcome Bill Barton to lead our R&D efforts as we continue to scale our R&D team to deliver against our ecommerce vision,” said Bruce Buchanan, CEO of Rokt. “We invest in projects that require a long-term commitment to solve—our time horizons are 7 to 10 years into the future—which requires a leader, like Bill, with a proven ability to solve complex R&D problems over a long period of time.”
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“Rokt has a stellar reputation as a provider of best-in-class ecommerce technologies that help online brands drive revenue and customer engagement,” said Bill Barton, Chief Product and Engineering Officer of Rokt. “I’m thrilled to join the company at such a crucial point on its growth trajectory and lead the next chapter for the R&D organization.”
Barton is a seasoned, hands-on product development executive with expertise spanning mobile advertising; multimedia communications; speech, audio and voice; IP and switched-network systems; mobile and wireless systems; web applications; interactive advertising; and algorithm development. He most recently served as Vice President, Alexa Proactive Experience, at Amazon, where he spent the last 10 years building and leading teams that developed Alexa’s spoken language understanding and knowledge capabilities. His previous experience includes serving as Director of Product Development at NAVTEQ, Director of Product Development for Nokia Location & Commerce, Vice President of Engineering for Revolabs, Senior Vice President of Engineering for Unveil Technologies (acquired by Microsoft), and Vice President of Engineering at VoiceSignal Technologies. Barton holds a BA in Physics from Harvard University.
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