E-mail marketing vendor StrongMail has replaced outgoing CEO Sam Cece with chief operating officer Bill Wagner. StrongMail hired Wagner in 2006, and since January he has worked as the company’s chief operating officer. Cece spent seven years as CEO and will remain an advisor to the company, StrongMail says.

The move came at the request of Cece, who helped the company increase its revenue and  its clients, Wagner says; he adds that Cece is now looking for a new business opportunity. The two sat down at the end of last year and laid out a plan for the transition, starting by appointing Wagner as chief operating officer to prepare him to become CEO, Wagner adds.

“My overarching goal is to build a high-growth company that people really want to work for,” Wagner says. “I’m very excited about the potential of the company.”

StrongMail offers a dedicated Software-as-a-Service, or SaaS, e-mail platform, which means it is hosted by StrongMail in a private cloud for each client; the company also offers a licensed on-premise software installation.

Prior to joining StrongMail, Wagner held executive marketing, sales and operations positions at enterprise software applications company BEA Systems Inc., now a unit of Oracle Corp., according to his LinkedIn profile.

“StrongMail has experienced impressive growth in its client roster and solution set during the last several years and Bill has been at the center of that growth,” says Venky Ganesan, managing director at StrongMail investor Globespan Capital and a StrongMail board member. “Bill’s deep knowledge of StrongMail’s business, energy, and compelling vision make him the natural choice to lead the company through its next phase of growth.”