Twilio Veteran Jessica Popp Joins Ada as Chief Technology Officer

Popp to Lead Engineering Organization Through Continued Hypergrowth

TORONTO, Oct. 13, 2021 /CNW/ -- Ada, the leader in Automated Brand Interactions, today announced Jessica Popp has been appointed Chief Technology Officer, where she will be focused on scaling Ada's technical vision and strategy as the company grows its engineering and machine learning teams.

Prior to joining Ada, Popp served as Vice President of Engineering at cloud communications leader, Twilio, where she spearheaded engineering efforts for the company's contact center platform, Flex. She joined Twilio through the acquisition of SendGrid, where she led the customer lifecycle application teams. Bringing more than 25 years of software experience to her new role at Ada, Popp's expertise in application research and development in a variety of consumer and scientific computing arenas makes her the ideal person to take the lead on key technical decisions that set Ada up for continued expansion and success.

"Beyond the value Ada's technology is providing to its customers, the team has an incredible growth vision that I'm thrilled to be a part of," said Popp. "It's clear that Ada is paving the way for the future of customer experience automation. I look forward to bringing my years of experience building exceptional technical teams into the mix to accelerate the momentum."

This new addition to Ada's executive bench comes on the heels of the recent appointment of Michele (MB) Bettencourt to its Board of Directors to support continued growth. An industry veteran with years of company leadership, MB will work closely with Ada's leadership team on go-to-market, sales and marketing strategy. Recently included on Great Place to Work's 2021 List of Best Workplaces for Inclusion, diversity in leadership is a top priority for Ada, who boasts an executive team comprised of 70% female and/or diverse leaders, far above Canada's leadership benchmark of just 10% of women in executive roles. This is reflective of Ada's three pillars: invite diverse voices to the table, ensure diverse voices have influence on decision making, and support diverse voices in the tech community.

"We're ecstatic to welcome Jessica to our leadership team," said Mike Murchison, co-founder and CEO of Ada. "Her qualities represent everything we're looking for to lead our technical direction and strategy. We have lofty goals for the next year at Ada and we need the best of the best to help drive them. We have no doubt that Jessica's contributions will play a key role in making those goals a reality."

Based in Toronto, Ada makes it easy for brands to automate their customer interactions with AI. In the last 12 months, the company has automated more than 1.5 billion brand interactions for customers like Zoom, Facebook and Square. These automated interactions are generating hundreds of millions of dollars in business value. By uncovering new opportunities for revenue, Ada's automation is designed to transform reactive CX models to proactive, personalized profit generators.

Significant growth has propelled Ada to unicorn status, recently raising a $130M Series C round at a $1.2B valuation that positions the company as one of Canada's largest software firms. Ada ranked 15 on Deloitte's Technology Fast 500™, a list of the 500 fastest-growing technology, media, telecommunications, life sciences and energy tech companies in North America. In addition, Ada was included on The Globe and Mail's third-annual ranking of Canada's Top Growing Companies, as well as LinkedIn's Top Startups in Canada, an annual ranking of companies that have remained resilient during tumultuous times, continuing to attract investment, employees, and attention.

With continued business momentum, the company plans to hire aggressively in engineering, sales and marketing in Canada and around the world.

To learn more about Ada, visit www.ada.cx.

About Ada
As the market leader in Automated Brand Interactions, Ada is the only conversational AI platform purpose-built to support a scalable, automation-first customer experience strategy.

By uncovering new opportunities for revenue, Ada's automation is designed to transform reactive CX models to proactive, personalized profit generators. A global company, Ada's automation and AI enables clients around the world, like Facebook, AirAsia, and Zoom, to increase valuable interactions across the entire customer journey and empower CX professionals to succeed.

SOURCE Ada

MEDIA CONTACT: Calen McGee, [email protected]