rewardStyle Attracts Top Executive Talent as Company Moves Into Accelerated High Growth Phase

DALLAS, Feb. 26, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- rewardStyle, the pioneer and undisputed leader in global influencer marketing, and company behind LIKEtoKNOW.it, the first-of-its-kind influencer-driven shopping app, has quietly built out a powerful bench of senior leaders and executives, investing heavily in talent as it plans for the next phase of global retail and marketing innovation.

Joining the largest influencer platform in the world, on the basis of both retail sales and brand collaborations, this extraordinary pool of talent brings a wealth of cross-industry, global experience and nods to the company's bold plans for scaled hypergrowth. The appointment of these rewardStyle leaders follows the company's consecutively immense and steady financial growth over the past four years. Annually, rewardStyle drives over $1B in retails sales, representing a 300% percent growth since 2015. Now, with a new executive lineup in place, rewardStyle hit an impressive milestone of garnering $4 Billion in lifetime retail sales as of January 2019.

Investing heavily in talent to bolster its global position as the de facto influencer marketing platform for brands and influencers, rewardStyle's nine new executives include Jeff Dawson, Chief Financial Officer and former CFO of Match, Tom Sipple, Chief Revenue Officer and former VP at AppLovin, Kacy Cole, Senior Vice President of Marketing, and former Marketing Director at T-Mobile, and Raj Lalsare, formerly the VP of Strategy, Merchandise and Analytics at Travelocity, to name a few.

"As a world-class technology platform, we are defining a new industry that began in marketing and has now expanded into a mobile retail renaissance, all driven by our mobilization of the global influencer. We have a clear and audacious vision of where rewardStyle is going in the next 3-5 years, and as founders, we have chosen to invest and augment our existing competencies with values-driven, high-performance individuals who have brought their careers to rewardStyle because of a shared vision of that future," said Amber Venz Box, President and Co-Founder of rewardStyle. "rewardStyle built a business that not only empowers the next generation of creative entrepreneurs, but also redefines the shopping experience."

rewardStyle launched their consumer shopping app, LIKEtoKNOW.it, in the spring of 2017, expanding its product offering and attracting a global audience that comes to purchase. Quickly becoming the largest influencer-driven commerce channel in the world, LIKEtoKNOW.it garnered 1M app users in under nine months. Not too far after, in 4Q of 2018, LIKEtoKNOW.it product search launched, becoming the only place consumers can go to search for products and get 100% shoppable results in the context of real influential people's lives. Today, LIKEtoKNOW.it serves as the next generation blogging platform, built to empower and connect modern influencers with the mobile consumer who expects convenience, accessibility and immediacy when consuming content from their mobile device.

Joining rewardStyle's growing team of over 230 talented employees across seven global offices, the company has made the following executive appointments to their senior leadership team:

• Jeff Dawson, Chief Financial Officer – Dawson joins rewardStyle from Academic Partnerships, where he held the position of CFO, prior to that he was the CFO at Match and held multiple financial leadership positions in his over 8 year tenure with the company and was instrumental in Match's 2015 IPO. His experience also includes ten years of progressive leadership experience with American Airlines, Airband Communications, and PwC.
• Tom Sipple, Chief Revenue Officer: Sipple joins rewardStyle from AppLovin, where he previously served as Vice President, North America Sales and helped lead the company through their $1.4 billion exit in 2017. Previously, Tom served as VP of Sales at Tapjoy, VP of IAC and Managing Director of Yahoo SE Asia.
• Kacy Cole, Senior Vice President of Marketing: Cole's experience includes transforming businesses through digital innovation, integrated marketing and original content, with a proven track record for retailers including T-Mobile, butter LONDON, and Tommy Bahama. In addition, Cole brings deep expertise in content and media from her roles at Getty Images, Bill Gates owned Corbis and Hearst Magazines International.
• Raj Lalsare, Senior Vice President of Strategy & Analysis - Lalsare joins the rewardStyle team from Academic Partnerships, an online education business, where he held a Senior Vice President role overseeing strategy, analysis and innovation. Prior to his time there, he was VP of Strategy and Merchandising at Travelocity. He also spent five years at Oliver Wyman, where Lalsare helped C-level clients globally in addressing strategy and operations challenges. Lalsare has also worked at Expedia as Director of the Hotels Business Line.
• Ben Newell, Vice President of Product: Newell comes to rewardStyle as a 17-year veteran of Sabre, where he created TripCase, a mobile travel tool serving more than 10M consumers. Most recently, he servedas Vice President, Product Portfolio responsible for implementing agile product management techniques across the company's entire technology investment.
• Kristi O'Brien, Vice President of Corporate Development & Strategy: O'Brien joins rewardStyle from Allen & Company where she executed a number of complex transactions ranging from mergers and acquisitions to public and private financings for industry players such as Time Warner, Refinery29, and Scripps Networks.
• Vijai Viswanathan, Vice President of Engineering: Viswanathan joins rewardStyle from Lexis Nexis, where he served as Senior Director of Product Development, managing a $7 million budget.
• MeLinda McCall, Vice President of Human Resources: McCall has extensive experience linking people and strategy to drive value creation. She has leveraged best-in-class human capital management practices and accelerated talent planning on a global scale for both fast-growing and large established companies such as Dr Pepper Snapple Group, The Coatings Group, and Coca-Cola Enterprises.
• Brittany DeGan, General Counsel - At rewardStyle, DeGan focuses her time on corporate governance, commercial transactions, IP, privacy, and regulatory matters. Degan enjoys helping growth stage companies develop and market innovative technology and solve complex business issues. Prior to joining rewardStyle, DeGan was Deputy General Counsel and Vice President of ALQIMI Group located in Washington, DC.

For information on rewardStyle, LIKEtoKNOW.it and their newly appointed C-suite and executive-level talent, visit the brand websites, download the LIKEtoKNOW.it app, and follow @LIKEtoKNOW.it and @rewardStyleHQ on Instagram. 

About rewardStyle
rewardStyle is the first and largest invitation-only, end-to-end content monetization platform, empowering 40,000 of the world's premium, digital-style influencers to achieve maximum economic success for their online content. In March 2017, the LIKEtoKNOW.it app was launched. Featuring first-of-its-kind technology, the high-traffic app gave users the ability to instantly shop real looks from influencers, tastemakers, stylists and celebrities, across categories including fashion, home, beauty, family and more. Thanks to the continued development of in-app innovation such as 'Product Search'—the only existing tool of its kind that allows consumers to search products and get 100% stoppable results in the context of real influential people's lives—the app has now become the largest influencer-driven commerce channel in the world. Since its inception, rewardStyle and the LIKEtoKNOW.it app have attracted an audience that comes to buy, driving more than $4B in sales to its retail partners. Annually, rewardStyle drives more than $1 billion in retail sales.

SOURCE rewardStyle