Bazaarvoice Promotes Heather Brunner to Chief Operating Officer

Bazaarvoice, the market and technology leader in hosted social commerce applications that drive sales, today announced the promotion of Heather Brunner to Chief Operating Officer. Brunner, who joined Bazaarvoice in August 2008 as SVP of Worldwide Client Services, has been instrumental in the company’s meteoric rise to over 750 clients in 17 verticals in 35 countries. Due to the Client Success team under Brunner’s leadership, Bazaarvoice has produced more than 40 pioneering social commerce case studies showing measurable results for the world’s largest brands. In her role as COO, Heather will be responsible for the company’s global operations, including executing its go-to-market strategy and servicing its product line across the global business.

“Heather has a tremendous wealth of experience based on her past experience as both CEO and COO of technology firms, as well as her proven success at running international client services organizations for Accenture, Coremetrics, Oracle, and Trilogy,” said Brett Hurt, founder and CEO of Bazaarvoice. “Her time at Bazaarvoice has been marked by success – in delivering exceptional client results, in motivating and leading her team, and in embodying the culture that is our biggest advantage. It is an honor to promote Heather to COO as a true change agent who is helping our clients connect in a transparent, open dialog with their customers and drive radical business change as a result.”

Bazaarvoice also announced the promotion of four additional executives to prepare and build for the company’s next phase of rapid growth. These executives, who bring a combined 50 years of experience in leadership roles at leading private and public technology companies, include:

•Brant Barton, Co-founder & Chief Innovation Officer: Under Brant’s leadership and vision, Bazaarvoice’s industry partnership program, Radius, has rapidly expanded to include partnerships and technology integrations with industry leading eCommerce platforms, web analytics solutions, recommendation and personalization engines, email marketing providers, digital agencies, and technology integrators. As Chief Innovation Officer, Barton will leverage his unique understanding of social commerce and the Internet industry to help shape Bazaarvoice’s product, marketing, and services strategies and identify emerging opportunities to support company expansion and competitiveness.

•Andy Maag, Chief Technology Officer: Andy has innovated a proven, scalable architecture that has served over 100 billion Reviews, Answers, and Stories to date with incredible uptime for the world’s largest online retailers, manufacturers, financial services providers, and travel companies. Bazaarvoice’s Social Commerce Platform has grown rapidly since 2005 and now serves more pages per day than Twitter and Wikipedia combined. In his new role, Maag will continue to lead all technology research and development for Bazaarvoice as the company leads the way in creating the infrastructure to support the social commerce powered Web.

•Michael Osborne, Chief Revenue Officer: Over the past four years, Michael has built a worldwide sales organization which has grown from serving domestic retail clients with Ratings & Reviews, to an ever-expanding multi-national team providing a complete suite of social commerce solutions for over 750 brands in 36 countries. In his new role, Michael will continue to lead the organization in developing new clients and ensuring success across the entire client base. In addition to leading the growth of Bazaarvoice’s worldwide client base and its commercial relations team, he will now be responsible for leading partnerships in business development.

•Michael Svatek, Chief Product Officer: Under Mike’s leadership, Bazaarvoice has continually released innovative new products features and strategies on an eight-week cycle. These industry-leading solutions include innovative new capabilities that drive social commerce success such as Social Network Accelerators, ActiveProfiles, and Social Recommendations – all of which raise the bar on connecting consumers to each other to drive measured revenue growth and cost savings. In addition, Bazaarvoice Labs has debuted several industry-first offerings, including BrandAnswers to allow manufacturers to impact and join customer conversations on the world’s largest retail sites. Svatek, in his new role, will continue to ensure that Bazaarvoice leads the worldwide industry with a scalable, mature social commerce platform that features advanced social network integration and full extensibility to support a rich social commerce ecosystem.

“Brant, Andy, Mike, and Mike are exceptional leaders who understand the value of excellence, transparency, and humility in building a great business,” continued Hurt. “I’m very pleased to welcome them to the C-team, where their experience, passion, and leadership will help drive our next phase of global growth. These promotions also make room for a new executive layer, creating opportunities for exceptional people who want to participate in this historical transformation of commerce based on the power of digital word of mouth.”

Bazaarvoice means “voice of the open marketplace,” and the term defines the company’s vision and its workplace. Bazaarvoice’s culture and business was recently highlighted on CNN in their Building Up America series, and the company has been named a Best Place to Work by the Austin Business Journal for the past three years running. The company has adopted many leading-edge cultural practices such as intense testing for all new hires, an upward feedback program for managers in quarterly performance reports, and an unrestricted vacation policy based on trust and respect. Employees participate in regular leadership training, such as the all-company Total Leadership initiative based on The Wharton School professor Stew Friedman’s book that emphasizes the alignment of work life with core values. Employees can also participate in activities and fundraisers organized by the Bazaarvoice Foundation that allow the company and employees to give back to the community, nourishing the soul of the company.

“Bazaarvoice is one of Austin’s hottest companies, known for attracting the best of the best in technology and social media,” said Chris Pacitti, General Partner at Austin Ventures. “The company has grown from a start-up to a mature market leader in record time based on the strength of its culture, clear vision, and proven execution. These qualities of innovation, trust, and accountability define Bazaavoice and its leadership, and will help drive the next phase of growth under the guidance of Brett and his expanded executive team.”