Wowza VOD Platform Expands Leadership Team

Wowza, a live and video on demand (VOD) platform for more than 6,000 customers globally, today announced three new executive hires. Capitalizing on what it calls “the sustained adoption of its pioneering deployable Engine technology as well as more than 50% compounded cloud annual recurring revenue (ARR) growth over the past two years,” Wowza today added Michael Phillippi as chief technology officer (CTO), Mark Lockwood as chief revenue officer (CRO) and Matt Thompson as vice president of marketing and follows Wowza’s hiring of Erin Sawyer as chief financial officer in early 2022.

Wowza said today’s strategic hires “were selected based on significant executive experience in building, scaling and commercializing deployable and cloud-based, developer-focused technologies.”

Wowza’s high-availability video platform is used by developers and technology teams at NASA, Sony, Facebook, Jewelry TV, University of Oregon and thousands more globally.

According to a study by Vantage Market Research, the global live video streaming market alone is growing at nearly 25% and will reach more than $4 billion within the next several years. Wowza has been innovating in live streaming since its founding in 2007. Wowza’s acceleration into SaaS video solutions during 2022 has included achieving SOC 2 compliance, acquiring Sweden-based Flowplayer and launching Wowza Video, its next generation all-in-one cloud-based developer platform for both live and on demand video streaming. Clearhaven Partners, a Boston-based software focused private equity investment firm, has supported Wowza in continued product and company investment since the firm’s initial investment in 2021.

“Wowza is a known innovator and pioneer in video. We believe that innovation is defined in many ways, not only in technology but also in the operational excellence to serve our customers and market,” said Dave Stubenvoll, Wowza CEO and co-founder. “I’m thrilled to welcome Michael, Mark and Matt to our leadership team as well as Erin who joined earlier this year. The talent and experience of our expanded team reflects Wowza’s continued commitment to growth and innovation, and to the upholding standards of excellence in all that we do.”

Phillippi joins Wowza as CTO with more than 25 years of SaaS and infrastructure technology leadership experience. He will lead Wowza’s global engineering and continued product scale, having previously been CTO of Canto and VP of technology at Lyxt Inc.

Lockwood, who brings more than 15 years of SaaS experience from ID.me and Logi Analytics, will oversee sales, marketing and customer success divisions as Wowza’s CRO.

Sawyer brings more than 15 years of strategic finance and accounting experience to Wowza as CFO, having previously served in senior finance roles at Emburse, Vertafore and Lexis Nexis.

Thompson will lead demand generation and marketing strategy as VP of marketing, and joins Wowza from Soprano Design and AT&T.