Rocket Fuel promotes Randy Wootton to CEO

Programmatic Marketing Platform provider, Rocket Fuel has promoted Randy Wootton, 47, as its new chief executive officer. Wootton joined Rocket Fuel in March as Chief Revenue Officer and will replace Monte Zweben, who has been acting as interim CEO since then. He has also joined Rocket Fuel’s Board of Directors.

The Rocket Fuel Board of Directors selected Wootton based on his proven ability to drive growth and scale at some of the world’s most admired multi-billion dollar global technology companies, deep experience in SaaS, intimate knowledge of the advertising industry, and exceptional leadership skills.

“I am excited to take on this challenge and am inspired by the Board’s confidence in me,” Wootton said.

“I believe deeply in the hard work we’ve done to improve and expand our relationships with agencies and their holding companies, grow our direct-to-marketer sales, and shift to a SaaS model by leveraging our platform investments.

“The worldwide digital ad spend is expected to reach $143 billion in 2020, and I believe we can capture a bigger share of that market opportunity given the power and exceptional value of Rocket Fuel’s technology and talent.”

On the appointment, Zweben, who will now be Executive Chairman, said, “As we evaluated qualified candidates, the executive search committee witnessed Randy’s tremendous contributions and electric leadership style. His enthusiasm for our business is infectious, and he truly inspires Rocket Fuelers throughout the company to engage with our mission and execute.”

Old hat at sales

Prior to joining Rocket Fuel, Wootton scaled Salesforce.com’s Customer Success Product Portfolio P&L from under $200 million to almost $500 million in three years by overhauling the product management, marketing, and sales-enablement strategies for that company’s Success Services Product Portfolio. Previously, at Microsoft, he led cross-functional operations for the Global Search Services and Online Marketplace where he was instrumental in operationalizing Microsoft’s “Search Alliance” agreement with Yahoo! for the small and medium sized space.

In addition, he helped exceed a $1.6 billion target as U.S. Head of Specialist Sales, and he supported $1.8 billion in 39 countries for Enterprise Display and Search Clients as General Manager, Premium Services Operations. Wootton also was SVP at AdReady, a cloud platform company for display advertising, and he ran aQuantive’s AtlasDMT’s international division. Wootton holds a Bachelor of Science degree in English from the U.S. Naval Academy, a Master of Arts in the Liberal Arts from St. John’s College, and a Master of Business Administration from Harvard Business School.