WP Engine Adopts New Growth Model; Appoints Veteran Leaders To New Business Units
New Go-To-Market Structure To Help Customers Excel With Next Wave Of Digital Experiences, Extend Managed WordPress Hosting Market Leadership And Deliver Market-Leading Growth
AUSTIN, Texas—Feb. 2, 2021 — WP Engine, the WordPress technology company, made a series of announcements today to kick off the new year.
As we learned last year, every business, large and small is reimagining its approach to digital because a company’s website or digital experience is now core to its continued success. WP Engine is aligning itself to help companies of all sizes excel in digital by orienting sales, marketing and customer experience into three service lines: Enterprise, Small-Medium Business (SMB) and International. In doing so, these business unit teams will be better able to deliver on our customer-inspired core value with an organization that is purpose built to support WP Engine customers’ unique needs.
“These organizational moves allow us to live our customer-inspired core value,” said Heather Brunner, Chairwoman and CEO of WP Engine. “This new go-to-market structure will help WP Engine deliver greater focus, better service and continuous innovation on our multi-product portfolio — all to unleash the full potential of the extraordinary capabilities we have built on behalf of our customers so they can succeed in their digital ambitions and win online.”
Helping Drive Business Forward Faster With WordPress
As the leader in Managed WordPress Hosting and WordPress technology, WP Engine is the driving force behind 1.2 million digital experiences for over 150,000 customers across 150 countries. In fact, WP Engine has become the most popular platform for WordPress, hosting more WordPress sites among the top 10 million than anyone else, according to W3Techs. It’s also the fastest platform on desktop and mobile for WordPress.
The changes to the company’s growth model mean it will now be organized around three primary business lines to better address the distinct needs of Enterprise, SMB and International customers. Each business unit will have its own customer experience, marketing and sales teams exclusively supporting those customers. Lisa Box, Senior Vice President and General Manager, will lead the Enterprise Business Unit. Seth Halpern, Senior Vice President and General Manager, will lead the SMB Business Unit and Fabio Torlini, Senior Vice President and Managing Director, will lead the International Business Unit.
“Over the past decade, WP Engine has repeatedly identified and scaled new opportunities in the most strategic, high-growth areas of WordPress,” said Jason Teichman, Chief Operating Officer of WP Engine. “These changes are designed to increase our ability to anticipate future digital needs, create enduring market leadership and help us scale far beyond our 150,000 global customers who drive more than 1.2 million digital experiences. I couldn’t be more excited to see the experienced leaders of our new business units and the incredibly talented people of WP Engine help our customers grow their businesses forward faster in 2021.”
Lisa Box, Senior Vice President and General Manager – Enterprise Business Unit.
Prior to this role, Lisa held various leadership roles at WP Engine including Senior Vice President for Corporate Development and Vice President of Agency and Technology Partnerships where she was responsible for expanding WP Engine’s growth strategy, market leadership and customer value through acquisitions and strategic partnerships. Before joining WP Engine, Lisa held Vice President of Business Development posts at Endurance International Group and Oversee.net.She also held sales and marketing leadership roles at Internet REIT, SiteStuff and Trilogy.
Seth Halpern, Senior Vice President and General Manager – SMB Business Unit.
Prior to this role, Seth was Vice President of North American Sales, where he was responsible for serving all of the company’s North American customers. Much of his technology career prior to joining WP Engine in 2018 was spent at Workday where he held a variety of strategic roles over a seven-year span through the hyper-growth phase of that leading SaaS company. Through his almost 20 years in technology he’s held a variety of Sales Leadership, Operations, and Marketing roles at other companies such as SAP, LeanDNA, and Siebel Systems.
Fabio Torlini, Senior Vice President and Managing Director – International Business Unit.
With over 20 years experience in the hosting and cloud industries, Fabio has a thorough understanding of all aspects of IT B2B sales, marketing, scaling global operations. Prior to his new role, Fabio led WP Engine’s strategy, revenue growth and operations in the EMEA and Australia regions. Before joining WP Engine, he held business leadership roles at Cinven, Rackspace, XO Communications and GX Networks.
Expanding Diversity & Inclusion
In addition to the organizational changes, the company recently announced the appointment of Tarsha McCormick as the company’s first Vice President of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Culture and Engagement.
Since WP Engine was founded in 2010, creating a workplace that fosters diversity, equity and inclusion has been a company-wide priority, and WP Engine, where one-third of employees do not have college degrees but have backgrounds at coding academies and non-degree training programs, has worked hard to make sure inclusiveness permeates the entire organization.
Chairwoman and CEO Heather Brunner is a signatory of the CEO Action for Diversity & Inclusion pledge, the largest CEO-driven business commitment to advancing diversity and inclusion in the workplace. In 2020, WP Engine participated in the Check Your Blind Spots tour, which was designed to give people the opportunity to learn about and explore ways to mitigate unconscious bias in their everyday lives.
In November, WP Engine refreshed its Core Values to purposely imbue each with language that deeply reflects its commitment to diversity and inclusion, alongside its mission to inspire both organizational and personal growth.
For more information about WP Engine, its products or services, go to www.wpengine.com
About WP Engine
WP Engine, the WordPress technology company, provides the most relied upon and trusted brands and developer-centric WordPress products for companies and agencies of all sizes, including Flywheel, Local and Genesis. Headquartered in Austin, Texas, WP Engine has offices in Brisbane, Australia; Kraków, Poland; Limerick, Ireland; London, England; Omaha, Nebraska and San Antonio, Texas. Read more at www.wpengine.com.
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