Hootsuite nabs eBay's Jimmy Duvall to lead product
The social media management platform HootSuite is bulking up its leadership team with the addition of former eBay e-commerce head Jimmy Duvall.
In his role as Hootsuite's new VP of product, Duvall will manage the company's portfolio of products and services - which is on a pretty strong growth trajectory following Hootsuite's $60 million funding round back in September.
Hootsuite CEO Ryan Holmes said in a statement that Duvall was chosen specifically for his record of scaling product and design for high growth companies. While with eBay, Duvall led product development for its e-commerce platform Magento, apparently before it began shutting down in July.
Jimmy Duvall
Prior to eBay, Duvall had a six-year stint at Yahoo, running the company's small business product line and e-commerce efforts.
"Hootsuite is in an enviable market position with more than 10 million users spanning over 175 countries," Duvall said in a statement. "As social networks and social messages continue to proliferate, businesses need a core system to effectively manage social.
Given the aforementioned funding round (at a rumored $1 billion valuation), Hootsuite is clearly looking to ramp up its research and development of new services.
Known mostly for its Twitter management and dashboard app, Hootsuite has been shifting focus toward the enterprise, acquiring companies such as Brightkit to help it expand in that area.
It remains to be seen whether Hootsuite can differentiate its portfolio enough to nab enterprise customers away from the likes of SAP, Oracle and Salesforce - which have all began to offer social marketing management software.
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