New Reltio chief Chris Hylen was previously CEO of Imperva, where he accelerated growth and successfully completed a sale worth $2.3 billion to private equity company Thoma Bravo in January 2019.
Hylen will replace Manish Sood, who takes on the role of the data management platform’s first ever CTO.
Sood, who will continue to serve as Reltio’s chairman, founded the company in 2011, and will take charge of its products, technology and security, focusing on innovation and spending more time with customers, prospects and partners.
The executive reshuffle comes as Reltio sees a surge in demand for its mission-critical data management platform, Reltio Connected Customer 360.
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“Relationships are at the core of the digital world,” said new CEO Hylen. “Reltio enables business leaders to deeply understand their customer relationships and deliver on the promise of their brands.
“Reltio is uniquely positioned to provide real-time, customer focused data at scale. We have an opportunity to build a world-class growth company.”
CTO and chairman Sood commented: “Personally, I’m thrilled to have Chris join as CEO of Reltio and lead us on our next exciting chapter of growth and company building. Chris has effectively and efficiently scaled multiple businesses to hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue and led multi-billion-dollar market cap companies.
“Chris’ addition to the team will put us on extremely strong footing to build Reltio into a market leader in the industry. In particular, I am excited to partner with Chris to build something extraordinary.
“For those who know me, I live and breathe the product and the business value it delivers. I’m happiest when I’m working with our product, technology and user experience teams and when I’m interacting with our customers and partners.
“These experiences energise me and get my creative juices flowing. I’m excited to focus my time and energy thinking about the big impact we can have on how companies operate, how they innovate, how they engage with customers and how they drive better business outcomes.”
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Further executive appointments
In addition to a new CEO and its first ever CTO, Reltio also welcomes Mark Templeton, former CEO of Citrix and Digital Ocean, and Larry Lenhart, operating partner at NewView Capital, to its board.
Templeton joins as an independent director, while Lenhart has begun serving as a board member.
From his tenure at the helm of Citrix from 2001 to 2015, Templeton oversaw growth from a one product, one customer segment organisation worth $500 million, to a $3 billion company with over 100 million users.
Lenhart, meanwhile, has led growth and scale and successful exits at multiple companies, including five acquisitions and an IPO, and brings nine years’ consulting experience, including being a partner at Deloitte.
“It’s never been more critical to get closer to customers and build lasting relationships based on connectedness, insights and empathy,” said Templeton. “Reltio is at the epicenter of powering data-driven connected customer experiences across digital and human interactions.”
“I’m thrilled to join the Reltio board and help it grow into the de facto platform for delivering a 360-degree data-rich lens to enable differentiating customer experiences.”
Lenhart commented: “As one of the lead investors in Reltio, we are excited about the company’s next chapter of growth.
“With the combination of a world-class CEO like Chris, a visionary product leader like Manish, an award-winning product, and a significant market opportunity, Reltio is well positioned to scale to become a mission-critical company for powering connected experiences.”
