Five months after it hired a new chief executive, Fredericton- and Miami-based artificial intelligence star Introhive also has a new chief financial officer.
Freshly minted CFO Saeideh Fard is a software-as-a-service veteran who most recently served as senior vice-president of finance at Toronto’s PointClickShare, a healthtech software-maker that ranks among North America’s largest privately owned SaaS companies by revenue size.
Chief executive Lee Blakemore, meanwhile, was appointed in January following the departure of co-founder Jody Glidden from the role. Glidden left to focus on his new, Miami-based startup Postilize.
Blakemore previously worked at educational software giant Anthology, where he ran the Florida company’s Blackboard business unit, selling online collaboration software for grade-school classrooms.
“Saeideh’s impressive background and extensive experience across various industries make her the ideal candidate to drive Introhive’s continued growth and success,” said Blakemore in a statement about Fard. “We are confident that her leadership will strengthen our financial strategy and support our mission to help businesses maximize the value of their customer relationships.”
Introhive CEO Lee Blakemore
Introhive still holds the record for the largest capital raise in New Brunswick history — a US$100 million mega-round from 2021 — but it also made headlines last summer for laying off about 16 percent of its workforce. The bulk of those layoffs came in India, and then-CEO Glidden said the move was aimed at right-sizing the business in the face of building economic headwinds.
The company sells AI-based customer relationship management, or CRM, software. It uses artificial intelligence to identify data stored in companies’ tech systems, and help them to use it to increase revenue and improve productivity. The co-founders, Glidden and Stewart Walchli, are serial entrepreneurs who previously sold their former startup Chalk Media to Blackberry, then called Research in Motion.