Partnership with All Raise, which amplifies female voices in technology, led to connection
Contentful, the leading content platform for digital-first businesses, today announced that Christine Heckart, Chief Executive Officer of Scalyr, has joined its board of directors. Heckart and Contentful were connected through the organization All Raise, which aims to amplify the voices and accelerate the success of women in technology.
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The addition of Heckart, a technology veteran who has held leadership roles at Microsoft, Juniper Networks, Cisco and NetApp, reinforces Contentful’s philosophy that diverse experiences among both leaders and employees are necessary for any organization to truly thrive. The company’s global workforce, which it plans to double in the next 12-18 months, includes more than 450 employees from 72 different countries.
“I am delighted to join the board of directors at this exciting time in Contentful’s trajectory,” said Heckart. “The more the boardroom reflects all stakeholders and brings together a variety of lenses through which to view the world, the more likely companies will come to decisions that serve everyone. As an early member of the All Raise Board Xcelerate program, it’s clear to me that Contentful believes this too.”
Heckart joins Contentful board members from Balderton Capital, Benchmark, General Catalyst and Sapphire Ventures.
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Committed to diversity in tech
Contentful is one of five companies to participate in the inaugural round of Board Xcelerate, a new program launched today by the organization All Raise. It elevates the visibility of highly qualified women, nonbinary individuals and others from underrepresented backgrounds, matching them with positions on the boards of technology companies.
“For many startups and companies like ours, the fundamental thing we do for our customers is to help them create something completely new — something that hasn’t existed in the past,” said Steve Sloan, CEO, Contentful. “To create and invent effectively, we need diverse perspectives at every level of our company. We are so thrilled to bring Christine and all of her deep knowledge and experience in technology leadership onto our board.”
Rapid growth
Those varied experiences and diverse perspectives have helped contribute to rapid growth for Contentful, particularly over the past year. Although companies have been increasing their investment in digital channels for a number of years, the Covid-19 pandemic increased the reliance of brands on digital as the primary means of customer engagement. Contentful is enabling businesses to quickly respond to this dramatic shift in what has become a digital-first and in some cases, digital-only economy.
Covid-19 has become a digital tailwind, causing many companies, including healthcare company GoodRx, to move faster to meet the changing needs of their customers in an uncertain time.
“When Covid-19 hit we needed to create a hub to provide our customers with essential information that would help them make sense of the pandemic, as well as a telehealth marketplace where they could book care safely from home,” said Thomas Goetz, Chief of Research at GoodRx. “Contentful allowed us to create entirely new channels where we could communicate with customers in a matter of weeks.”
Contentful closed the last fiscal year with more than 2,500 paid customers, including Peloton, Shiseido and BP. Over 270,000 organizations have signed up for Contentful’s free Community plan. And more than 600,000 digital builders — including designers, developers and content creators — use Contentful to build and deliver digital experiences. Contentful helps support customers with one of the fastest growing partner ecosystems in the digital experience market, including digital and technology partners such as AKQA, R/GA and EPAM.
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