Seismic hires former Hootsuite lead Heather Cook as APAC VP

Australian-based sales and marketing enablement firm Seismic has snapped up a former Hootsuite and Marketo executive as its new vice president for Asia Pacific.

Heather Cook will lead Seismic's expansion across Asia Pacific, including Australia, New Zealand, and Key Asia markets. She will also orchestrate business operations and lead the Seismic team in delivering 'exceptional customer service' in Asia Pacific.

Cook, who has worked at organisations including Oracle, Dell, Marketo, and Hootsuite, brings 20 years of experience in business - particularly in the areas of marketing, operations, sales enablement, services, and strategy.

Speaking about her appointment Cook says, "Governments across Australia, New Zealand, and Singapore have announced commitments towards building digital economies, helping their workforces acquire digital skills and supporting local businesses in adopting technologies."
 
She adds, "I have always been passionate about helping companies transform their businesses with emerging technologies. It is an exciting time to join the team because Seismic provides the opportunity to play a key role in the digitisation journey and talent upskilling of companies. With its automation, AI and data analytics capabilities, the platform helps sales and marketing teams gain in-depth understanding of customers to inform business strategies.

Cook points to research from Salesforce, which found that 57% of customers have stopped buying from a company because a competitor provided a better customer experience. She believes that turbulent market conditions have led many companies to neglect the customer experience.

"Uniting sales, marketing and services capabilities using technology to excel in customer experience becomes crucial for businesses to stay competitive and resilient in this volatile environment," says Cook.

Seismic cofounder and CEO Doug Winter says Cook has a track record of growing markets, nurturing high-performance teams and championing diversity.

"This level of experience, combined with Heather's in-depth understanding of marketing technology buyers and trends will be critical to Seismic's success as we enter the next phase of growth in ANZ and Asia. More importantly, Heather's expertise will immediately add value to our customers transforming their sales and marketing capabilities to thrive in this digital-first world.

Earlier this year, Forrester Research named Seismic's LiveSocial social sales solution as a leader in the Forrester Wave: Sales Social Engagement Solutions, Q1 2021 report.

Commenting on the leadership position, Winter says, "Social engagement is critical to developing meaningful relationships with buyers across the digital landscape.

"We are seeing companies migrate from legacy point solutions to Seismic, given a growing preference for an integrated sales enablement solution that includes a social selling capability. Together on one platform, social engagement and sales enablement represent the future of a unified experience for sellers, and we're thrilled to be recognised by Forrester as a Leader in this evaluation.