Amsterdam-based unicorn Backbase, a category-leading Engagement Banking Platform that empowers financial institutions to accelerate their digital transformation, announced on Tuesday, January 3, that it has appointed Mark Appel as its Chief Marketing Officer.
This development comes following the recent hirings of Markwin Geneste (Chief Commercial Officer) and Roland Booijen (General Manager of Ecosystems), in 2022. The Dutch unicorn says it has now strengthened its executive team after bringing in Mark Appel.
Backbase Founder and CEO, Jouk Pleiter, mentions, “Mark’s curiosity for new technologies and inspirational leadership will build on the foundations to rejuvenate our marketing team as a high-performance revenue engine for Backbase. Mark represents Backbase’s core values of craftsmanship, entrepreneurship, and can-do, and I’m delighted to work with him.”
Who is Mark Appel?
Appel will head up Backbase’s marketing team. He has over 30 years of experience working with technology and growing firms including Apple, Twinfield (which was acquired by Wolters Kluwer), Exact Software, and most recently CM.com.
Mark Appel, CMO at Backbase, says, “I’m excited to bring my experience to Backbase as we pursue our ambitious purpose to improve the daily financial lives of 10 per cent of the world’s population. I look forward to building structures that will continue to drive brand recognition and amplify demand generation at Backbase.”
During his time at CM.com, in less than three years, Appel nearly quadrupled CM.com’s income while expanding the marketing department from 10 to 80 workers. In his previous position at Exact, he supervised the move to SaaS and doubled the company’s size during his 8-year employment.
As CMO of Backbase, Appel will be responsible for supporting the growth that has seen Backbase eclipse €200M in revenue and be named to the 2022 CB Insights’ Fintech 250 list.
Brief about Backbase
Founded in 2003 by Jouk Pleiter and Gerbert Kaandorp (no longer with the company), Backbase is a financial technology company that aims to “re-architect banking” around the customer.
According to the company, its white-label Engagement Banking platform enables banks and credit unions to quickly digitise their operations that interact with consumers. It also claims to create seamless journeys that both meet and surpass the expectations of today’s tech-savvy clients.
With global headquarters in Amsterdam, Backbase has regional offices in Atlanta (Americas HQ), Boise, Mexico City, Toronto, London, Cardiff, Dubai, Kraków, Singapore, Sydney, and Tokyo.
The company has over 150 customers around the world, including Advanzia, Banco Caja Social, Banco de la Nacion Peru, Bank of the Philippine Islands, Berenberg, BNP Paribas, Citizens Bank, ENT, Greater Bank, HDFC, Judo Bank, KeyBank, National Bank of Bahrain, Navy Federal Credit Union, Natwest, SchoolFirst Federal Credit Union, Standard Bank, Société Générale, Washington State Employee Credit Union, and Wildfire Credit Union among many others.
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