ON Partners Recruits Chief Revenue Officer for SmartBear
September 26, 2023 – ON Partners’ Tindall (Sewell) Hein and Aaron Clark recently helped recruit Melissa Campbell as the new chief revenue officer for SmartBear, a Sommerville, MA-based provider of software development and visibility tools. “Melissa believes that high-performing sales teams demonstrate key qualities like high energy, data-driven decision making, results focused, and customer obsession, so I’m certain she will fit right into the culture at SmartBear,” said Frank Roe, CEO of SmartBear. “Melissa is passionate about leading an inclusive and diverse sales organization where each team member grows and makes an impact. Her focus on talent development will make her a driving force in SmartBear’s success as we continue delivering tools that provide visibility across the entire software development lifecycle for developers worldwide.”
With a track record in cultivating and maintaining customer relationships, Ms. Campbell has experience with talent acquisition and nurturing sales talent and teams, while emphasizing the importance of delivering value for long-term customer success. Throughout her career, she has been closely partnering with product and engineering teams.
Ms. Campbell has 30 years of experience in enterprise software sales for companies ranging from early-stage venture backed to large public organizations to lead SmartBear’s global sales team. Previously, she served as chief revenue officer and general manager at data products provider Tamr Inc. for the last five years. Prior to that, Ms. Campbell was group vice president for Oracle’s service automation business. During her career, she has held sales leadership roles at BMC Software, BEA Systems, and IBM/Lotus.
“I am truly thrilled to join the remarkable team at SmartBear and be part of this exciting company journey to empower development teams,” said Ms. Campbell. “Having led sales teams at both fast-growing start-ups and large enterprises, I’m impressed by SmartBear’s culture of excellence and customer-focus. I look forward to continuing to strengthen and expand customer relationships and accelerate SmartBear’s next phase of growth.”
SmartBear provides a portfolio of tools that give software development teams visibility into end-to-end quality through test management and automation, API development lifecycle, and application stability. SmartBear is used by over 16 million developers, testers, and software engineers at more than 32,000 organizations – including Adobe, JetBlue, FedEx, and Microsoft.
Serving Clients Since 2006
With a primary focus on technology, consumer, industrial, and the life science sectors, ON Partners recruits C-level and board talent for public and private companies, as well as venture capital and private equity firms. Founded in 2006, the firm’s consultants work from offices in Atlanta; Boston; Chicago; Cleveland; Dallas; Menlo Park, CA; Minneapolis. MN; San Francisco; and New York. ON Partners was named one of the fastest growing search firms this year by Hunt Scanlon Media. The firm is now ranked as one of the 20 largest search firms in the nation.
Related: ON Partners Recruits Chief Revenue Officer for StarCompliance
Ms. Hein builds executive leadership teams at growth equity, private equity, and Fortune 500 companies. She serves a range of positions across CEO, operating partner, and VP-level executive roles with strong focus on diversity placements with a concentration on industrial and technology sectors.
Mr. Clark focuses on executive-level sales and go-to-market searches. He serves VC-backed growth companies, private equity firms, and large, global organizations. Mr. Clark specializes in industries such as enterprise software, tech-enabled business services, SaaS, internet, and information services.
Evolving Role
The chief revenue officer essentially owns everything that goes to market – sales, account management, customer success, and sometimes marketing as well, according to a recent report from ON Partners. Ten years ago, there was no such position as CRO. The role was known as head of global sales or VP of sales, depending on how companies defined the role. But as executives in that position continued to see other key functional experts reporting directly to the CEO, they wanted a seat at the executive table as well.
ON Partners Recruits Chief Revenue Officer for Seeq Corp.
Daniel Bolger and Jake Espenlaub of ON Partners have helped to place George Skaryak as chief revenue officer of Seeq Corp., a provider of manufacturing and industrial internet of things advanced analytics software. “This is an exciting time of growth for Seeq, and we’re thrilled to add a sales leader with a proven track record of growing SaaS businesses to bring more value to our customers,” said Lisa Graham, CEO at Seeq. “George’s rich background in enterprise sales and passion for hiring and training sales teams will be an invaluable addition to the executive team.”
According to ON Partners, the CRO role demands different skill-sets depending on the client. “For a smaller growth company, someone who thrives in an early-stage environment and enjoys building things from scratch – hiring, putting key tools and processes in place – requires a unique person who is good at the heavy lifting required to acquire market share and evangelize,” the firm said.
That person can be different from one needed by a more established company doing $10 million to $20 million per year in revenue, who understands how to improve on and tweak the work of his or her predecessor, according to ON Partners. For a $100 million-plus organization, the CRO needs to understand how to lead large teams in a complex, matrixed environment selling across multiple market segments on a global basis. That said, certain qualities remain consistent. Every CRO must know how to hire the right team, lead good people, and have a strong sense of how to build and scale a company.
Related: ON Partners Places Chief Revenue Officer for LastPass
Contributed by Scott A. Scanlon, Editor-in-Chief; Dale M. Zupsansky, Managing Editor; and Stephen Sawicki, Managing Editor – Hunt Scanlon Media
