Rokt on a roll with new CTO from Apple

Former Senior Apple Engineer, James Wilson joins Rokt as Chief Technology Officer

SYDNEY, Feb. 20, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Rokt, the global leader in e-commerce marketing technology today announced that James Wilson has joined the executive team as Chief Technology Officer. Wilson brings to the team extensive technical expertise and leadership skills with over 20 years experience in software and network engineering, most recently working in the US in senior engineering roles at both Apple and Amazon.

Wilson, who is now based in the Sydney office, will be responsible for shaping and driving the technical vision for the Rokt business as well as inspiring and growing the engineering team.

CEO Bruce Buchanan commented, "We are delighted to welcome James to the executive team as our first CTO. We spent the last 12 months searching for the right match - requiring extraordinary talent, leadership skills and relevant experience in big data, machine learning, enterprise scale applications, privacy, cloud infrastructure and agile engineering practices - and we have found it in James. In addition, we're excited to be hiring over 70 additional engineers and dedicating more than USD$23m this year to cutting-edge research and development."

Buchanan continued, "Australia is a hotbed for extraordinarily talented engineers so we're delighted that we can bring such a seasoned professional back to Australia to help mentor and develop the next generation of the world's best."

Wilson joins Rokt from Apple where he spent the past 8 years rising up the ranks to the Senior Software Engineering Manager responsible for over 50 engineers developing Apple's Mail, Contacts and Calendar apps on iOS and macOS, the out-of-box device setup experience and cloud data privacy systems. At Apple he led the projects to bring Two-Factor Authentication to all iCloud accounts, iCloud Family Sharing and the privacy initiatives that keep Apple at the forefront of consumer data privacy. Prior to this, Wilson held a senior leadership role at Amazon (AWS) where he led a global organisation of engineers and data scientists in applying machine learning to network monitoring at a massive global scale.

"Rokt has quickly established itself as one of the smartest companies globally in a rapidly evolving tech world," commented Wilson. "As our products continue to scale, we're looking to build a ground-breaking engineering team here in Australia who can solve not only the problems immediately in front of us, but are ready to take on the challenges of tomorrow. Gone are the days of great tech being found only in Silicon Valley - I'm thrilled to be heading home to join such a forward thinking business and look forward to pushing the boundaries with transformative technology."

This appointment is reflective of Rokt's ongoing commitment to building world leading technology and in shaping how e-commerce brands use AI to get smarter in the transaction. Rokt, who recently won a landmark federal court case against IP Australia, is at the forefront of world-class innovation and is committed to supporting and developing technological innovation in Australia. Rokt currently employs over 175 staff and is operating in 10 global markets.

About Rokt
Rokt sits at the intersection of digital marketing and commerce working with the world's biggest brands to get smarter in the e-commerce transaction. Our marketing technology creates 1:1 user experiences in the Transaction Moment, when people's wallets are out and their minds are open to discovering new things.

Using Rokt AI to dynamically recommend the next best action, we help our partners drive smarter commerce by optimizing both their user experience & value realization in the transaction. Presenting a 1:1 optimized offer such as an upsell, app download, loyalty sign-up, calendar subscription or third-party offer has proven to drive over 10X improvement in our customers' bottom line.

Rokt's premium marketplace of e-commerce partners including eBay, Ticketmaster, Groupon and Fanatics opens up over 100 million transactions per month globally, providing brands a referral platform to present relevant offers and effectively acquire consent from customers while they are in a buying state of mind.

Founded in Sydney in 2012, Rokt currently operates in the US, Canada, UK, France, Germany, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Netherlands and Japan. For more information visit www.rokt.com or follow the company at @ROKT.

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SOURCE Rokt