Kontent.ai Adds Key Executives, Joins MACH Alliance and Opens NYC Office: Q&A with Vojtech Boril
Kontent.ai, an award-winning modular content platform, shared some big news yesterday that's reinforcing its ambitious growth plans. Along with stellar additions to its executive team, the company also announced a newly minted membership in the MACH Alliance and the opening of new offices in New York City.
In addition to covering the announcements, CMS Critic had a chance to ask Vojtech Boril, the company's Vice President of Growth & Marketing, a few questions about the news.
Kontent.ai prepares to enter its next phase of growth with two key hires
The senior executives joining the Kontent.ai team are Olga Stuck, who will serve as COO, and Monte Wilson, who has been named Head of GTM Strategy and Field Operation. According to the company's press release, these key executive appointments will serve Kontent.ai during a time of major growth and change, energized by a recent $40 million growth capital investment from Expedition Growth Capital.
With more than 20 years of experience in organizational development, Stuck has guided companies like Moravia IT and RWS Moravia through organic growth as well as acquisitions, scaling from 500 to 3,000 employees in 23 locations. “My mission is to help Kontent.ai scale and bring the organization to a new level while preserving our unique culture, relationships, and DEI at the center of what we do,” she said.
Wilson's role at Kontent.ai is to fuel growth, developing innovative go-to-market plans and efficient sales and operational structures. Wilson's impressive pedigree includes successful builds, turnarounds, and rebuilds of organizations for companies like Sitecore, Oracle, and Adobe.
“Martech is a highly competitive business segment, so it is vital that you have the right product, the right team of highly talented individuals, and be with the right ecosystem of partners," said Wilson. "Kontent.ai is perfectly positioned for high growth, especially since composable, headless technologies are really taking off in the market. We have unique advantages that I’m certain will allow us to quickly separate from the pack and help customers realize the potential of this new space. The talent in this team and the capabilities of the product speak for themselves, and I’m honored to be a part of the Kontent.ai team,”
Kontent.ai joins MACH Alliance to deepen cooperation with other vendors and empower large organizations
Another critical accomplishment for Kontent.ai is achieving membership in the prestigious MACH Alliance, a group of more than 70 independent technology companies advocating for open, best-of-breed technology ecosystems. MACH architecture – which stands for Microservices, API-first, Cloud-native SaaS, and Headless – empowers organizations to adapt to customers’ changing behaviors and deliver results.
A true cloud-native service since its inception, Kontent.ai meets the Alliance’s stringent certification standards, with its membership serving as strong validation of the platform’s impact and future vision. Becoming a member of the MACH Alliance will also allow Kontent.ai to deepen technology cooperation with other MACH vendors and deliver even more value to customers.
"Joining the MACH Alliance, Kontent.ai is pleased to shine a light on our long-standing dedication to MACH technology principles," said Bart Omlo, CEO, Kontent.ai. "Our customers’ measurable success with our modular content platform is evidence of the transformative power of MACH, not only for engineering teams but also for global content teams.”
Expanding Kontent.ai’s global footprint with an office in New York City
To meet increasing global demand, the company has opened another office in the U.S. to support its growing customer base on a local level. The new office – located in the iconic Chrysler Building in New York City – will serve as the main hub for all U.S. operations, enabling professionals at Kontent.ai to help US-based clients reach their ambitious goals.
According to the company's press release, the decision to choose New York City was reinforced by a successful New York-based session of the Kontent.ai Horizons conference in November. The Kontent.ai team believes their presence in New York City will provide a great platform for establishing stronger and closer relationships with customers and partners.
Kontent.ai's distributed team continues to work from multiple different locations around the globe, with offices in London, Amsterdam, Brno, Olomouc, Sydney, and previously Bedford, New Hampshire. On its mission to help people tell stories that change the world, the company is rapidly growing with new hires across engineering, sales, customer success, and other departments.
Q&A with Vojtech Boril, Vice President, Growth & Marketing at Kontent.ai
Our CMS Critic editorial team had the opportunity to connect with Boril and follow up with a few questions regarding the company's recent announcements.
CMS Critic (CC): Large technology companies are announcing layoffs and adjusting expectations for 2023. With your recent investment news, Kontent.ai appears more bullish. That said, how do you see a potential recession affecting your new business strategy?
Vojtech Boril (VB): We keep a positive outlook for 2023 and plan to continue hiring across the board (for both commercial and technical roles). We can still see strong traction for Kontent.ai, and while the growth rate may slow down due to a recession (that would eventually impact every business), we're still confident that we will significantly grow year-over-year.
CC: How will the new MACH Alliance membership help Kontent.ai better differentiate in what is becoming a more crowded space? Which vendors or categories do you see as key for growing your composable opportunities?
VB: Kontent.ai has always been focused on what we do the best: content management at scale. While the market is becoming more crowded, we strongly differentiate from other headless CMSs by providing key capabilities for business and marketing teams too, including real-time collaboration, superb content governance, or content collections. That being said, since we focus solely on content management (and do not plan to change this focus), it's critical for us to build strong relationships with other MACH vendors to provide customers with a composable DXP offering. We see the biggest partnership opportunities with vendors in areas of commerce (eg commercetools or Vue StoreFront), personalization (eg Uniform or Conscia.ai) and localization (eg Phrase or XTM Cloud).
CC: You mention an aggressive hiring strategy. Will more of the investment be made in specific regions like the new NA/NYC office?
VB: We're building and scaling Kontent.ai as a global, remote-first organization with office hubs in some critical locations. While our office in New York City is our main hub for North America, we're hiring across the entire US without any specified location requirement, as we aim to bring on the right talent. Over the next few years, we expect significant growth in NA, which is why the location is a focus for us from a hiring perspective, but we're also hiring in Europe (most significantly in the Netherlands, UK and the Czech Republic).
Meet Bart and Vojtech at CMS Kickoff 2023
January 17-18 in St. Petersburg, FL
Don't miss the only conference tailored for everyone working with content management systems, from beginners to experts! Featuring two packed days with a carefully curated mixture of talks, workshops, activities, world-class facilitators, thought provokers, speakers, and session leads. Meet Bart Omlo and Vojtech Boril from Kontent.ai and mingle with CMS experts and users from around the globe at this exclusive event in beautiful St. Petersburg.
Register today at the CMS Kickoff 2023 website.
About Kontent.ai
Kontent.ai is a leading modular content platform that enables marketers and developers to plan, create, and deliver content at scale. Business teams collaborate daily in the intuitive authoring experience designed for governed content production and management, real-time reviewing and approvals, and modular content reuse. In parallel, developers leverage the total flexibility of the headless solution, best-of-breed technologies, and composable AI to deliver digital experiences via API to any channel. With hubs in New York, London, Amsterdam, Brno, and Sydney, Kontent.ai helps companies like Zurich Insurance, Algolia, Vogue, AC Milan, and Oxford University unlock the full potential of their content and connect with customers worldwide.