Customer review platform vendor PowerReviews Inc. has a new leader. Ken Comée, a former software executive with IBM Corp. and current PowerReviews board member, is the firm’s new CEO. Comée takes over the position for Pehr Luedtke, who will serve as vice president of strategy and partnerships for PowerReviews.

“Ken is the right leader at the right time to drive our next phase of growth,” Luedtke says. PowerReviews, which raised $10 million during a funding round last year, is the second-largest vendor of customer review services among e-retailers in the Top 500 Guide. 78 e-retailers in the Top 500 Guide use its services, including Staples Inc. (No. 2), Gap Direct Inc. (No. 24) and Drugstore.com Inc. (No. 46).

Comée was CEO of Cast Iron Systems, a provider of web-based computing services, prior to its acquisition by IBM Corp. in 2010. Comée continued to lead Cast Iron Systems’ cloud computing services after IBM folded it into its Websphere service. He has been a PowerReviews board member since 2011. Prior to Cast Iron Systems, Comée held management positions at CollabNet, a software development firm, and PTC, a product lifecycle management firm, PowerReviews says.

Cathy Halligan, an advisor for PowerReviews, will speak this June at the Internet Retailer Conference & Exhibition 2012 in Chicago in a session titled “Make your product reviews do more.” The IRCE $200 early-bird discount expires March 31.