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Appointments, News

Acoustic Appoints Mark Cattini CEO

SaaS industry veteran with over 20 years of CEO experience to lead next phase of innovation and growth

Acoustic, a global marketing and customer experience provider for B2C brands, today announced that Mark Cattini has been named Chief Executive Officer (CEO), effective immediately. Mark has served on the company’s Board of Directors since May 2022 and joins Acoustic as it evolves the marketing digital experience for its customers to meet the growing needs of today’s businesses. Mark brings on board Adam Stewart as Chief Technology Officer and Jay Schaufeld as Chief People Officer, underscoring the company’s continued investment in its technology and talent.

Acoustic helps customer-obsessed brands build closer customer connections with hyper-personalized, multichannel experiences. Mark’s appointment, as well as Acoustic’s recent investment from Francisco Partners, will accelerate the company’s vision to provide powerful technology to meet the needs of B2C brands across retail, financial services, insurance, tech and telecom, travel and hospitality, and more.

“I am thrilled to be asked by the Board to lead Acoustic as CEO during an exciting time for the company and the marketing industry as a whole,” said Mark Cattini, CEO of Acoustic. “Businesses today require easy-to-use solutions that can be quickly deployed to drive more value to their customers. Acoustic is uniquely positioned to help brands deliver personalized digital experiences and provides robust behavioral analytics to optimize customer journeys to increase loyalty and growth. I’m delighted to join Acoustic as it accelerates this platform vision on a global scale and look forward to working with our customers and partners to realize the next phase in our strategic growth.”

Mark brings over two decades of experience as a successful CEO at enterprise software companies, including MapInfo (NASDAQ: MAPS), Autotask, and ClickSoftware.

“As businesses grapple with market uncertainty, new privacy regulations, and evolving consumer expectations, they require a technology partner that can support their needs today while future-proofing their business for the challenges of tomorrow,” said Jared Hendricks, Senior Managing Director of Centerbridge Partners. “With Mark’s appointment as CEO, Acoustic is better positioned than ever to support businesses across industries as they tackle these challenges head-on. Acoustic’s combination of best-in-breed technology and proven SaaS leadership positions the company as a next-generation leader within this space. We’re thrilled to have Mark join as CEO to further Acoustic’s mission to bring hyper-personalized digital experiences to life.”

Mark along with Adam Stewart and Jay Schaufeld start their roles immediately. Adam spent 17 years at Autotask/Datto in the role of SVP, Engineering while Jay brings over 25 years of experience as a human resources leader, including serving as Chief People Officer at ClickSoftware.

About Acoustic, L.P.
Acoustic, L.P. helps businesses close the digital experience gap by giving them a holistic view into the customer experience and enabling them to deliver personalized experiences based on consumer needs and preferences. The Acoustic portfolio of products helps businesses across industries to grow customer lifetime value with award-winning technology and unbeatable client success teams. Learn more about the Acoustic portfolio at www.acoustic.com.

News

Acoustic Announces Strategic Growth Investment from Francisco Partners

Acoustic, a global marketing and customer experience provider for B2C brands, has obtained a strategic growth investment from Francisco Partners (“Francisco”), a leading global investment firm that specializes in partnering with technology businesses. Existing investor Centerbridge Partners remains the primary equity holder in the company. 

Acoustic helps brands deliver over 120 billion personalized messages each year using its single, unified platform that combines marketing automation with deep digital experience analytics. Acoustic empowers businesses to create seamless, data-driven digital experiences across email, web, SMS/MMS, mobile push, WhatsApp, social media and more. 

“We are thrilled to announce this new investment from Francisco Partners. As more consumer interactions take place digitally, customer experience becomes the deciding factor for whether consumers engage with your brand,” said Dennis Self, CEO of Acoustic. “This investment validates our strategy for creating unified digital customer experiences at scale. It will also help accelerate our platform vision and continue to create highly personalized multichannel experiences through our product suite that connects consumers’ online interactions with the buying experience. We’re excited to be working with two top-tier investors, Francisco Partners and Centerbridge, as we continue to evolve our platform and offerings to enable a new generation of consumer marketing and experience capabilities.”  

“Brands and marketers are looking for more effective ways to continuously improve the overall consumer experience while simultaneously maximizing the performance and ROI on their marketing investment,” said Peter Gingold, Managing Director at Francisco Partners. “Acoustic’s unified marketing and experience platform uniquely positions the company to emerge as a next-generation leader within the $344.8 billion MarTech industry. We’re excited to join Centerbridge Partners and the Acoustic team to accelerate this vision and the delivery of innovative solutions to create exceptional, personalized customer experiences across several key industry verticals including retail, financial services, insurance, tech and telecom, travel and hospitality, and more.” 

“We are excited to partner with Francisco Partners, a world-class firm specializing in investments of technology companies that are leading the way in innovation and growth, who, like us, believe in Acoustic’s vision and the value of its powerful marketing and experience platform and supporting capabilities,” said Jared Hendricks, Senior Managing Director, and Chris Litchford, Managing Director, of Centerbridge Partners. “Acoustic is a demonstrated leader in an ever-evolving industry. We are committed to helping Acoustic operationalize and scale its solutions through our continued investment.”  

SVB Securities served as financial advisor to Acoustic. Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP acted as legal advisor to Acoustic. Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel LLP acted as legal advisor to Francisco Partners. 

About Francisco Partners 

Francisco Partners is a leading global investment firm that specializes in partnering with technology and technology-enabled businesses. Since its launch over 20 years ago, Francisco Partners has invested in over 400 technology companies, making it one of the most active and longstanding investors in the technology industry. With approximately $45 billion in capital raised to date, the firm invests in opportunities where its deep sectoral knowledge and operational expertise can help companies realize their full potential. For more information on Francisco Partners, please visit www.Franciscopartners.com. 

About Centerbridge Partners, L.P.  

Centerbridge Partners, L.P. is a private investment management firm employing a flexible approach across investment disciplines – from private equity to credit and related strategies, and real estate – in an effort to find the most attractive opportunities for our investors and business partners. The firm was founded in 2005 and as of August 31, 2022 has approximately $34 billion in capital under management with offices in New York and London. Centerbridge is dedicated to partnering with world-class management teams across targeted industry sectors and geographies to help companies achieve their operating and financial objectives. For more information, please visit www.centerbridge.com. 

About Acoustic, L.P. 

Acoustic, L.P. helps businesses close the digital experience gap by giving them a holistic view into the customer experience and enabling them to deliver personalized experiences based on consumer needs and preferences. The Acoustic portfolio of companies helps businesses across industries to grow customer lifetime value with award-winning technology and unbeatable client success teams. 

Learn more about the Acoustic portfolio at www.acoustic.com.