Marketing technology company Zmags has named W. Sean Ford COO and CMO. He will report to CEO Michael Schreck.
In the newly created position, Ford will be responsible for global marketing, product management, customer support and recruiting, said Schreck, who declined to say how many people Ford is overseeing.
Ford is managing and integrating team-building and process-development across functional areas. He will also focus on brand positioning, awareness building, thought leadership development, and communicating the company’s range of services to the market, said Schreck.
Prior to Zmags, Ford served as CMO of data company Syncsort, which he joined in 2009. He also held two VP-level positions at software company Oracle Corp., where he began work in 2006.
Schreck said he did not look internally to fill the position.
“[Ford] and I have known each other for two decades and have been looking for an opportunity to work together again,” said Schreck, who met Ford when both were undergraduate consultants at Monitor Group in 1991. They founded college-based rewards program Upromise in 1999 and sold the company to Sallie Mae in 2006 for an undisclosed amount.
Despite wanting to reunite with Ford, Schreck said Zmags retained recruiter Cook Associates to conduct a search because “timing sometimes doesn’t align.”
“Cook Associates had [Ford] intensely targeted on their radar,” he said. “Fortunately for us, the timing was perfect and having Sean onboard is a massive coup for Zmags.”
Zmags is a Boston-based company whose client roster includes The Home Depot, McDonald’s and Lockheed Martin Corp.
