Kristin Naragon, the new chief strategy and marketing officer of Akeneo, says the “product experience” company is on a mission to help companies tell their product story effectively across multiple channels.
Naragon asserts that companies have focused in large part on customer experience and customer journey mapping but that “there hasn’t been the same awareness from CEOs that, my gosh, we should also have a strategy with a chief product officer and technology to support really articulating our product story consistently wherever our products are being showcased.”
She adds, “There’s nothing more frustrating for a CEO to go searching for a product of their own company and to see incomplete, inaccurate information and bad images.”
To address such concerns, Akeneo has taken several steps in 2023 to expand its suite of product data management technology offerings, including:
- Its September acquisition of Unifai, an AI platform designed for the automated collection, cleansing, categorization and enrichment of product data.
- The March launch of Akeneo Activation for Retail, which connects product data from Akeneo PIM to product detail pages of retailers and marketplaces worldwide.
- Extending the availability of Akeneo PIM by making it available through the online marketplaces SAP Store and Google Cloud Marketplace.
Akeneo says it now has more than 850 customers worldwide, including North America-based companies CarParts.com, Arc’Teryx, DSW, Nautica, Belvins, TaylorMade and Chico’s.
Akeneo also expanded its management team this year. In addition to Naragon, who joined the company in January to head strategy and marketing, others include:
- Andy Tyra, chief product officer, who is a former executive of Amazon Fresh and the Amazon Web Services.
- Nadine Pichelot, chief financial officer, a veteran technology industry executive most recently with Anaplan.
- Sabrina Jaksa, chief people officer.
- Tim Kohn, technology and product advisor, who formerly was vice president of technology and product at Amazon.com Inc.
Akeneo also appointed former director of product strategy Camille Fant as head of corporate social responsibility. Along with overseeing diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, Fant will spearhead Akeneo’s plan to reduce its carbon footprint per customer by 30% within the next year.
Paul Demery is a Digital Commerce 360 contributing editor covering B2B digital commerce technology and strategy. paul@digitalcommerce360.com.
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