Mark Piening brings over 25 years of experience leading sales, marketing and cross-functional teams across a range of technology-centric industries and markets. Throughout his career, Mark has had a successful track record of building revenue through direct and partner channels. Whether highly matrixed global companies, like Symantec or Dell, or breakthrough start-ups, like Nodesource or Bazaarvoice, Mark has helped lead organizations in answering the growth question, “Should we build, buy or partner?” — and then executed that plan.

Mark joined Mereo from his consulting practice, where he has helped private equity-backed companies and start-up CEOs found or turn-around companies by building investable business and go-to-market plans, getting to product-market fit, and hiring talent to grow. For two clients, Mark came on as interim COO / CRO and helped raise $16 million of growth capital to stage the next phase of growth. Most recently, Mark led growth for a $40 million revenue SaaS company, as SVP of Sales & Partnerships, which led to a successful exit and staged market expansion for the next investors.

Prior to consulting, Mark was Vice President of Business Development at Bazaarvoice, the leader in social commerce including ratings and reviews. In this role, Mark had direct responsibility for unifying accountability across referral, reseller and OEM sales, as well as technology partnerships, to align what was sold with and through partners was consistent with what was built, integrated and delivered. As part of that scale, Mark’s team won an OEM deal that was the largest in the company’s history.

Before Bazaarvoice, Mark led marketing and product management at Uplogix, an innovator in network management for mission-critical communications. At Symantec, Mark led the Global Partner and SMB Marketing teams, including campaign development and execution during and after the merger with VERITAS Software. His leadership experiences span Series A, pre-IPO, small cap and large public companies, including earlier in his career at Dell, DIGEX (now Verizon) and Ernst & Young.

To cover the acronyms, Mark is a former CPA who earned a Master of Business Administration in Marketing and Entrepreneurship from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and a Bachelor of Arts in Economics / Business from University of California at Los Angeles. Mark serves on the advisory board of Kansas University Business School and a handful of technology start-ups in Texas and California.

When he is not leading growth or solving go-to-market problems, you will find Mark traveling or playing golf with his wife, refereeing USSF and high school soccer matches, or rooting for his Bruins and Tar Heels.