SAN. JOSE, Calif., Aug. 06, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Christine Heckart, one of Silicon Valley’s most lauded and respected market-centered business leaders, has been named chair of the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council’s North American Advisory Board. Heckart is known for her strategic vision and adept business leadership, leveraging market transitions and technology paradigm shifts while at Microsoft, Cisco Systems, and NetApp.

Heckart is the founder and CEO of Xapa World, a gamified mobile app that helps companies scale high-impact people development to all employees. With experience on both sides of the board table, she brings over 25 years of experience in the technology industry and has held a variety of leadership roles including CEO, GM, president, and CMO in market sectors that include interactive digital entertainment, SaaS, data analytics, security, networking, and storage. Her focus now is helping companies grow their business by growing their people.

“Christine is a brilliant, business-minded market leader with an analytical, data-driven approach to identifying market opportunity and a flair for inspiring customer-relevant market engagement,” notes Donovan Neale-May, founder and executive director of the CMO Council.

The 20-year-old professional affinity group has been the leading voice for CMO title growth, development and advancement in the enterprise with over 16,000 members in 10,000 companies worldwide. Heckart was one of the first community members and a strong and vocal advocate for the critical role CMOs have in driving business growth and success.

“Christine rightly advocates for CMOs to be deeply immersed in all facets of the business and be the lead custodian and architect of the customer experience. This requires masterful management of relationships across the C-suite,” Neale-May adds.

Having begun in new product development, Heckart's passion is in forging wholly new markets, and she has launched three new categories that have reached several billion in revenues annually. She has also created disruptive business models and worked through big market downturns and inflections. Heckart has experience in high growth environments where scale challenges predominate and is also familiar with the challenges of leading transformational change in a connected economy.

“Rapid growth is challenging in today’s business climate, and CMOs play a critical role in aligning their company to a higher purpose, fueling revenue acceleration, bringing new products to market, using AI to reinvent go-to-market, and creating engagement with all stakeholders,” said Heckart.  “What better place for CMOs to grow their craft, their leadership skills and their network than with the CMO Council’s global community? I’m honored and excited to join and learn with and from this esteemed group of professionals.”

Named one of the Fifty Most Powerful Women in Technology by the National Diversity Council and a 2016 Woman of Influence by Silicon Valley Business Journal, her passion is helping people and companies achieve more than they ever thought possible. Heckart serves on the board of directors for SiTime, Contentful, and NextGen Directors Academy with Haas Berkeley, and previously for Lam Research, Scalyr, and 6Sense.

The CMO Council North America Advisory Board is comprised of prominent marketing executives and thought leaders from a diverse range of industries and global brands. Acting as a conduit for knowledge exchange between marketers in North America and other regions, these voices serve as an invaluable “eyes and ears” as the CMO Council grows and builds new initiatives. Brands represented in NA include AWS, AON, Analog Devices, BMC Software, Charles Schwab, Darigold, Dell, Disney, Dyson, FICO, Fiji Water, GE Appliances, GE Lighting, Goldman Sachs, Harman, Hitachi, JLL, KB Home, MetLife, NBCUniversal, Nestle, NFL, Nike, Penske, RITE AID, Roche, SAP, Sharp, Stanley Black & Decker, Sunwest Bank, Tech Mahindra, and Wells Fargo Bank. See: https://www.cmocouncil.org/advisory-board/north-america

About CMO Council
The Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council is the only global network of executives specifically dedicated to high-level knowledge exchange, thought leadership and personal relationship building among senior corporate marketing leaders and brand decision-makers across a wide range of global industries. The CMO Council's 16,000-plus members control approximately $1 trillion in aggregated annual marketing expenditures and run complex, distributed marketing and sales operations worldwide. In total, the CMO Council and its strategic interest communities include more than 65,000 global executives in more than 110 countries covering multiple industries, segments and markets. For more information, visit: www.cmocouncil.org.

Media Contact:
Kevin Sugarman
ksugarman@cmocouncil.org