Published on by Karim Marucchi, CEO
In March of 2013 we invited Chris Lema to join our board of directors. It was a move that we hoped would provide strategic insight into several areas: building a high performance culture, managing remote staff, navigating ecosystems, and leveraging his 20 years of experience in managing successful startups and enterprise-level teams. In short, our goals were achieved beyond our expectations.
Within a few months we knew we wanted more from Chris and more of Chris. Many of our friends who have followed us over the last year and a half have seen the value he has added in our organization. Chris would consistently bring insight, experience beyond the WordPress community, and long-term points of view on growing our internal structure in ways that have brought value to us and our clients.
Seeing the value Chris continued to add to our organization, we knew that as a team member, there was even more that he could do. So began our not-so-subtle suggestions to him that he might like joining us. Recruiting senior executives from corporate America, after all, is neither fast nor an easy process.
After a year of courting Chris, it is our pleasure to announce that he’ll be joining us in mid-September. Chris is stepping into the Chief Technology Officer role, and we’re elated to have him join our executive team. We already know how far-reaching and how helpful his experience and expertise will be on our team.
Alex King, our current CTO, will be moving into the role of Chief Software Architect, allowing him to focus his expertise in product development and deep-level technical leadership with our internal teams. His technical prowess continues to be invaluable as he works on both company standards and some new R&D for Crowd Favorite. R&D that we are very excited about for the future.
You will continue to hear from us through Chris with his valuable online presence. As a popular speaker at conferences and work with our sales and marketing teams, we know his voice will be a great addition to the Crowd Favorite brand.
Lastly, while Crowd Favorite has worked on a few products before, his product development will help us bring the WordPress platform and WordPress products into Fortune 500 enterprises.
Chris’ first day will be September 15th. Join me in welcoming our newest Favoriteer.
