Ron Martin has joined Groupize as the meetings technology provider's CEO. He replaces co-founder Charles de Gaspe Beaubien in the role. De Beaubien will move over to lead the company's customer success team and will remain on the board of directors. Groupize also added Hugh Jones to the board roster as executive chairman.
Martin's prior roles include CEO of online payment platform Paysafe. He also led a software and SaaS incubator team as general manager of Altisource PLC and was an entrepreneur in residence at Bain Capital.
Jones has served as president and CEO of Travelocity and president of Sabre Airlines Solutions. He also sits on the board of directors for Travelport and Gogo In Flight.
The new appointments coincide with big changes for Groupize. The company launched Groupize 3.0 in early March, a platform extension for larger, more complex meetings. The timing was rough, just as governments were shutting down large gatherings and enforcing lockdown measures as a brace against the coronavirus spread.
Even so, Groupize sees value in its range. New leadership underscored Groupize's roots in smaller, simple meetings as an advantage for coming out of the crisis and growing with the customer through recovery.
"Groupize's core value proposition is strongly resonating with our target customers as the impact of Covid-19 and other forces re-prioritise their buying requirements," said Groupize CEO Ron Martin. "Our next-generation technology is designed for enterprise-wide adoption [to drive] savings, efficiencies and compliance with company policy all while maintaining flexible workflows. It is the right solution at the right time."