Avaya has confirmed Soren Abildgaard as its new Chief Technology Officer and Marylou “ML” Maco as its new Chief Revenue and Customer Experience Officer.
Avaya states that the pair of appointments “strengthens” its executive leadership team and accelerates its ambitions for innovation and growth. Abildgaard formally started his role on November 1, while Maco will begin her role effective December 1; Maco will also maintain her current responsibility on Avaya’s board.
Alan Masarek, CEO of Avaya, said:
These appointments are another milestone in Avaya’s transformation as we continue to build upon our leadership in customer experience. In a sector where innovation is crucial for staying ahead, Soren will bring his cloud and software expertise, while ML possesses an exceptional track record of driving market share and revenue growth. I am confident that they will prove vital assets in fueling our strategic plans and establishing Avaya as a clear leader in Enterprise CX.”
Abildgaard’s CV entails over 20 years of global, customer-centric software development and engineering experience from prestigious SaaS companies. As Zendesk’s Head of Engineering, Abildgaard oversaw the expansion of the product portfolio and platform, empowering Zendesk’s scaling to work with thousands of customers and grow to over $1 billion in revenues. Abildgaard also recently served as the Executive Vice President of Engineering at Contentful.
Abildgaard’s remit at Avaya includes managing its ambitions to refine its technology vision and overseeing its innovation strategy and investments to ensure Avaya stays ahead of the latest emerging technologies.
Maco has almost 30 years of experience leading enterprise software, cloud services, and network computing sales and services businesses. Maco’s CV illustrates expertise in delivering reliable revenue growth, growing market share, and earning customer and partner loyalty via sales, marketing, channel, services and customer success. Mac’s experience includes roles as Executive Vice President, Worldwide Sales and Field Operations at Genesys, and executive positions at Cisco, Oracle, and Hewlett Packard Enterprise.
Maco’s Avaya responsibilities include driving a single revenue engine and aligning people, processes, and technology to enable further customer success and growth.
Avaya affirms that the appointments occur while Avaya is “poised to take advantage of significant market opportunities”.
“We are committed to our North Star of CX, building from a position of strength with our global scale, brand, and ecosystem,” Masarek added. “These appointments, alongside the executive appointments announced in FQ3, are key to accelerating our innovation trajectory and leading the customer experience revolution.”
Avaya’s Year of Change at the Top
Those executive appointments Masarek noted above were drivers of Avaya’s rebuild after emerging from Chapter 11 bankruptcy earlier this year.
In June, ahead of this year’s Avaya Engage, Avaya announced three critical C-Suite hires — Amy O’Keefe as its new Chief Financial Officer, Omar Javaid as its new Chief Product Officer, and Josh Mueller as its new Chief Marketing Officer.
Perhaps Avaya’s most essential hire was CFO O’Keefe. O’Keefe brought 30 years of financial expertise with her and a proven track record. Prior to joining Avaya, O’Keefe served as CFO of WW International (formerly Weight Watchers International), where she contributed to the business’s rationalization and realignment strategy.
Before becoming Avaya’s new CPO, Javaid served as SVP & GM at Qualcomm and, before that, was President of the Nexmo API platform unit and Chief Product Officer at Vonage. New CMO Mueller was SVP and GM of the Portfolio Business Unit at NI (National Instruments) before joining Avaya. He was previously Chief Digital Officer at Vonage, CMO at Dun & Bradstreet and held marketing leadership roles at Dell Technologies.
