Former Adroll marketing boss Cat Prestipino joins startup as CMO
Former Adroll JAPAC marketing director Cat Prestipino has resurfaced as CMO at Sydney HR startup Employment Hero.
Prestipino was part of the cull that saw most of Adroll’s Australian and Asia Pacific staff depart the company in December last year.
Employment Hero founder Ben Thompson told Mumbrella: “We are extremely excited to have Cat joining the Employment Hero team.
“Cat brings with her a wealth of knowledge about scaling marketing departments and working with small businesses. She is a highly skilled marketer, full of energy and dedicated to showing the real business impact marketing can have. As a startup, that’s an exciting combination to have onboard.”
Her appointment comes after the company, which counts ANZ, AON, Jobs Australia and AMP as clients, secured $8m from investors including employment platform Seek, on top the $4.5 million it had won in 2016.
“The Series B funding has allowed Employment Hero to add to their leadership team, starting with my role as its first CMO,” Prestipino told Mumbrella.
“The rate of growth at Employment Hero has meant the marketing team has grown relatively organically to solve for a particular need. This also means that the platform has grown faster than the brand.
“The team recognised that in order for us to keep growing, the marketing team really needed to start to think strategically and grow with the platform.”
Prestipino also said she expects working for a local startup will be little different from a multinational adtech company: “To be honest, I’ve always worked in regional offices and they definitely run like a startup.
“There is a little bit of process shipped out from HQ but ultimately, you’re making your own decisions for your market and setting everything up from scratch.
“I am excited to work for an Aussie startup. Australia has some awesome startups and its always exciting to be in a HQ. The Employment Hero team are some of the most passionate and innovative people I’ve had the pleasure of working with and I can’t wait to be the megaphone that amplifies what they’re doing.”
Prestipino sees the main focus of the startup’s marketing strategy lying in users’ word of mouth, telling Mumbrella: “Like any B2B business, we are trying to drive leads and I am still a big believer that technology can help Employment Hero do that.
“Coming from the ad tech/martech space, I have always used my own products so I know the huge power that these channels can provide.
“We also want to improve how we engage with employees – in essence, become a little more B2C. Employment Hero works with over 150,000 employees from 3,000 businesses and if these people have an awesome experience with our platform then they will talk about it throughout their career. There is a huge power in it as well.”
