Craig Kaplan Email and Phone Number
**** Taking on select advisory roles for seed, series A and series B startups. Get in touch!Startup CEOs need to embrace the role of Chief Customer Officer to create the customer-centric culture needed to not only survive but grow all aspects of the business in a unifed and cost-effective strategy.I support High-Growth Organizations and their CEOs with team-building, process-scaling, data and trend analysis, customer-centric product prioritization and development, and driving revenue via branding, sales playbooks, business development, lead qualification, sales-marketing alignment, channel development and management, customer success (NPS) and retention (NRR), sales operations and revops, and community-building.Success stories:> Virbela: 1400% growth starting from under $1m in 2.5 years (Chief Customer Officer) > Kush Co Holdings: $52 to $150m year-over-year growth. (Analytics, Sales Operations and Product teams)>> Verizon Digital Media: $100 to $250m 3 years growth. (Global VP, acquired AOL & Yahoo)>>> EdgeCast Networks: $0 to $100m in 6 years (Head of Sales, Exited to Verizon)>>>> Everbridge's Instastaff division: $0 to $1.5m in 18 months (Dir of Business Development, IPO'd){Background image created by Christopher Arndt - https://fineartamerica.com/featured/manhattan-beach-pier-sunset-christopher-arndt.html}
Zenlayer
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Senior Vice President Of SalesZenlayer Aug 2023 - PresentDiamond Bar, California, Us -
Ceo Advisor For Gtm B2B SaasStartupgrind-Manhattan Beach Jan 2023 - PresentManhattan Beach, Ca, Us*** Taking on select advisory roles to CEOs in seed, series A, or series B startups - typically B2B and B2B2C - to accelerate growth through parallel strategies: Marketing, Sales, Partnerships, Customer Success, and Operations.25 years in tech (saas/internet) and I'm most invigorated by working with entrepreneurs and entrepreneur-minded leaders (and future leaders). In every engagement, I strive to learn as much as I give back. I've been fortunate to lead growth strategy and build "systems" (merging strategy, tactics and process with an emphasis on leadership that drives team culture) for many startups ($0-1.5mm at Everbridge, $0 - $100mm at EdgeCast, $1-10mm at a W3 platform), advised dozens of CEOs, invested in funds and as an angel, implemented channel strategies and product partnerships for a Fortune 13 while integrating sales and revops for 2 multi-billion dollar acquisitions, and served on 2 non-profit boards at UCLA and a for-profit board in a small family business. At the end of the day, I listen a lot, and use my aggregated experience to get results to immediate problems while building the foundation for strategy and systems for your next challenge. At a minimum, I strive to make meaningful connections to your own network. -
Venture PartnerNextgen Venture Partners Jan 2018 - PresentSan Francisco, California, UsI launched StartupGrind-Manhattan Beach chapter to develop an entrepreneurial community and support my efforts as a Venture Partner at Nextgen Venture Partners, which provides entrepreneurs with valuable connectivity for sales, hiring, and financing introductions, as well as on-demand advice. NextgenVP typically invests $1M - $2M in early stage companies and $3M - $5M in growth stage companies.Venture Partner and CEO AdvisorSourced 2 investments for NextgenVP investments, while participating in over 15 investment committees.- Advised a CEO as startup grew rapidly and fundraised Series B at $100mm valuation- Supported $55mm to $150mm growth in 10 months for Kush Supply Company by building Sales Operations and Product Management teams in an emerging market challenged by state by state legal restrictions.- Advised dozens of startup CEOs as a formal and informal advisor to support sales and partnership strategies, hiring advice, go-to-market messaging and aligning product, marketing, and sales strategies. -
Gtm AdvisorPivotal. Jan 2023 - Aug 2023Pivotal brings the advice, frameworks, and systems to support fractional GTM leaders of today and the future.As GTM advisor, I work with the team and the client base to accelerate results in their gotomarket efforts. We engage cost-effectively to get results via outbound sales acceleration, content-marketing, and targeted channel marketing - simultaneously!
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Chief Customer OfficerVirbela Mar 2020 - Dec 2022Remote, Us(Technology platform incubated in public company: EXP World Holdings)Building the Best Place to Work in the Enterprise MetaverseVirbela is a hyper-growth platform defining the future of collaboration, education, remote-work and social engagement via two virtual platforms: Virbela and Virbela Labs project Framevr.io (browser-based).Virbela goes beyond file-sharing, messaging, and video-conferencing, to replicate in-person engagement in a virtual reality platform without the requirement of a headset.We are defining a new industry of virtual communites that builds culture and relationships online with persistent virtual campuses one work campus, one university, and one organization at a time (and soon will all connect to each other universally).FRAME by Virbela is a state-of-the-art solution for collaboration in a virtual world. Built to bring people together in environments they can adapt and adjust to suit their needs.Imagine having all of your video conferencing conversations in your own personal and unique FRAME space.Say goodbye to video-conferencing and hello to the future of communication! (no headset required but its really fun to have one on in FRAME)______________Recruited to join by Virbela’s founder/President, Alex Howland and ExP’s CEO Glenn Sanford to build-out the team during hyper-growth transition.We have enabled 5x+ growth in revenues while leading all front-office teams - Sales, Partnerships, Customer Success.We grew the front-office team from 5 to over 40 building sales, marketing, and CS structure and implementing appropriately-sized management structures for P&L planning.We have developed a go-to-market strategy focused on 3 product lines and 3 industries.We opened markets in EMEA, Japan, and Korea, at minimal cost overhead.We have onboarded a dozen Fortune 1000 companies working with Product/Engineering to be enterprise ready. -
Business Operations AdvisorKushco Oct 2018 - Aug 2019Cypress, California, Us"Operational-izing" Customer Data (CRM and ERP) to drive revenue growth, cross-selling and margin expansion strategies. Advising on mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, and quarterly earnings statements. Recruited by President, Jason Vegotsky, as an advisor to drive strategic initiatives, increase sales efficiency, identify product and financial trends.Growth from $52mm to $150mm in 12 months.1) Transformed Netsuite dashboards for Executives, Sales Leaders, and Account Managers to increase visibility across sales, operations, and highlight customer and product trends.2) Re-organized Sales Operations and created a distributed & regionalized structure with personal accountability and data-driven metrics.3) Built a new Product team to scale product knowledge and accelerate vendor onboarding. The team implemented a new weekly training, consolidated internal communication and knowledge-base, implemented new vendor analysis processes, and leveraged new internal/external surveying for informed decision-making.Revenue has been growing, on average 20% quarter-over-quarter, in fiscal year 2019 -
Board MemberUcla Alumni Association Jul 2011 - Jun 2017Los Angeles, California, UsAdvise on the strategic direction of the Association with a membership of 500,000 alumni globally;2014, 2015 Chair of Technology Committee2012, 2013 Finance Committee2012, 2013, 2015, 2016 Nominations Committee2016, 2017 UCLA Awards Committee2016-2017 Career Advisory Committee -
Vice President, Global Technology SalesVerizon Digital Media Services Dec 2013 - Apr 2017Los Angeles, Ca, UsPost acquisition, Kaplan continued to lead sales growth from $100m to $250m in revenue with direct and channel sales strategies with all non-M&E segments.He led a 40+ global sales team which overlayed with the 2000 person Verizon Enterprise teamManaging go-to-market strategies for teams focused on providing our Video Lifecycle, Site Acceleration, E-commerce, and Security Solutions to all companies offering online and mobile applications to help CTOs and CMOs:* Increase performance and reliability to translate to happier online customers* Enable more nimble online operations to translate into 24/7 businesses staying ahead of the competition* Reduce reliance on cumbersome Professional Services and Support processes with our advanced self-enablement tools, APIs, and real-time Data -
Vice President, Sales / Business Development / Customer SuccessEdgecast Dec 2007 - Mar 2017EdgeCast Networks (Acquired by Verizon, December 2013)GTM Leadership, team-building, and customer success management at every iteration to $100 million ARR.$0 to $100m revenue growth in 6 years, and acquired by Verizon for $400m (now streaming platform of Verizon Media)Revolutionizing the delivery of websites, content, applications by combining the most advanced CDN engineering (EdgeCast Networks) with the resources of Verizon's Wireless, Data, Security, and Backbone teams globally!Hired in 2007 as 19th employee to build and manage the Sales Team. Led the team from 2 to over 30 at the time of the acquisition.Transitioned the team from Inside Sales to Hybrid Inside/Outside Team.Built Client-focused Account Management Team and processes to maintain churn under 1% annually.Optimized Sales Ops processes to ensure maximum time focused on selling Created unique Salesforce implementation to ensure efficiency of sales activitySales grew over 30% year over year for 7 years. -
Director, Board Of DirectorsPlasma Technology Systems Jun 1998 - Aug 2011Acquired by PlasmaTreat in 2011.Consulting business applying environmentally-safe treatments for surface bondability in a variety of industries, including Semiconductors, Healthcare, and Sporting Goods. -
Director Of Sales, Instastaff Staffing ServicesEverbridge Apr 2006 - Dec 2007Boston, Massachusetts, UsInstaStaffWith cofounder, launched new SAAS product to a new industry and grew revenues from $0 to $1.5m ARR in 18months. InstaStaff was a technology innovator providing efficient communication processes for staffing companies; enabling our clients to recruit customers and fill contracts faster and accurately.http://www.instastaff.comParent company: Everbridge (IPO’d 2017) -
Director, Board Of Directors (Non-Profit)Associated Students, Ucla "Asucla" Jun 2005 - Aug 2007Los Angeles, Ca, UsFiduciary responsibility and policy-making for non-profit run by a majority student-run board. Provides event services, food services and retail outlets (UCLA Store and uclastore.com) geared to servicing the UCLA community of over 40,000 students, faculty, staff, and alumni. With over $80m in revenue, the organization uses excess funds to increase student wages and provide programming for undergraduates and graduates. -
Senior Business Development DirectorLionbridge Jul 2002 - Mar 2006Waltham, Massachusetts, UsBuilt partnerships with Technology Developers to leverage Lionbridge/VeriTest services:- Quality Assurance / Testing- Product Maintenance / ADM- Development expertise *While consulting on the appropriate onshore/offshore delivery model. -
Sales ExecutiveEtesting Labs (Formerly Zd Labs, Ziff Davis Media) 1999 - 2002Waltham, Massachusetts, UsAcquired by VeriTest/Lionbridge in 2002.Formerly ZD Labs, a division within Ziff Davis Media.eTesting Labs provided independent product testing, benchmarking, competitive analysis and QA services in the technology industry. -
Project ManagerNts (Acquired Xxcal In 1998) 1995 - 1999Belcamp, Md, Us*Managed up to 15 engineers on multiple parallel projects*Onboarding/Trained 3 teams of engineers in 18 months.*QA projects for AMD, Fujitsu, Sony, HP, and others.*Competitive Analysis, User Interface evaluation
Craig Kaplan Education Details
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UclaCommunication Studies W/ Business Specialization -
Bellarmine College Preparatory
Frequently Asked Questions about Craig Kaplan
What company does Craig Kaplan work for?
Craig Kaplan works for Zenlayer
What is Craig Kaplan's role at the current company?
Craig Kaplan's current role is GTM Leader for Zenlayer | CEO Advisor for Growth | Executive Leader @ 5 High Growth Startups in Emerging Markets (3 exits) | Former Board of Directors @ UCLA.
What schools did Craig Kaplan attend?
Craig Kaplan attended Ucla, Bellarmine College Preparatory.
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