US-based marketing automation provider, Marketo has named former senior vice president of corporate sales at salesforce.com, Fergus Gloster, as its new managing director of EMEA.
In the same statement, the company has also announced the opening of European headquarters in Dublin, Ireland.
The moves are part of Marketo’s new long-term strategy, aimed to expand its operations in Europe and support its growing international customer base.
As the new managing director of EMEA at Marketo, Fergus Gloster will be responsible for all revenue generation activities for the company in Europe, including sales, marketing, customer success, and renewals. He will report to Marketo’s chief revenue officer, Paul Albright.
Gloster was one of salesforce.com’s first hires in 2000 and served as senior vice president of corporate sales in Europe for the following nine years. He led salesforce.com’s initial entry into the market and developed its hub-based sales, alliances and telemarketing model.
Commenting on the appointment, Paul Albright said, “Fergus is the ideal leader to further accelerate our growth in Europe. He has a tremendous reputation and a proven ability to build winning teams that can take a transformative vision to market. Dublin is an ideal location for our new European base, and we look forward to attracting world-class talent that will help us deliver dramatic business impact to our customers.”
Industry comment comes from Adam Sharp, marketing director at CleverTouch, who said, “At last it appears Marketo are listening to their customer base – they are the last major marketing automation player to have a presence here – Eloqua, Silverpop, Pardot and Act-on Software have all established a presence in Europe.
“The location is interesting though – most US based companies go to Ireland because of the lower corporate tax rates and the start-ups grants available from the Irish Development Agency. The fact that Marketo have not established sales and support offices within the larger markets in Europe, suggest that perhaps they aren’t listening to their customer base as much as we might be giving them credit for.” He adds, “Overall it is a good sign, it means more choice for the customers and a further sign that marketers now have two choices – either embrace marketing automation or get left behind.”