Thought Industries Unveils New Learning & Intelligence Vision Expanding Leadership Team with Chief Product and Strategy Officers

Strategic Appointments Follow CEO Arrival as Company Leads Innovation in AI-first Learning & Intelligence Platform

BOSTON, Dec. 16, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Thought Industries, a leading platform for customer learning and intelligence, today announced the appointment of Chief Product Officer Sarah Phoenix and Chief Strategy Officer Julien Denaes as the company enters an ambitious new chapter under CEO Irana Wasti. The expanded leadership team will guide Thought Industries' strategy to evolve from a traditional learning platform into an AI-powered Customer Intelligence & Growth Platform that connects learning to measurable business outcomes.

"Businesses need to grow through the success of their customers," said Irana Wasti, CEO of Thought Industries. "To help our customers drive key strategic business metrics, our North Star is an AI-first Customer Intelligence & Growth Platform that unifies learning data, customer behavior, and intelligent actions to deepen loyalty, grow revenue, and unlock continuous value creation. These leadership appointments are critical to driving that strategy."

Phoenix and Denaes bring deep experience building and scaling technology for global customers, helping businesses adapt to rapidly changing customer expectations and increasingly complex data environments.

A New Chapter

The appointments follow a comprehensive strategic review led by Wasti after she joined Thought Industries in October. Drawing on extensive customer conversations and market analysis, the company has sharpened its focus in three areas:

• Customer goals: Businesses want to get customers to realize value from their products, and customers want guidance to the right product value for them.
• Vision: To empower every business to grow through the success of its customers.
• Mission: To transform customer interactions into intelligence — and that intelligence into growth.

Building on its category-leading learning platform, Thought Industries plans to roll out new AI-driven capabilities, starting with its core learning experiences, analytics, and automation.

New Chief Product Officer

Sarah Phoenix joins Thought Industries as Chief Product Officer to lead the product vision and execution as the company advances its roadmap. She brings extensive experience building and scaling data-driven, customer-centric products for global audiences.

Most recently, Phoenix served as SVP of Product at BILL, where she led teams responsible for highly engaging user experiences serving nearly 500,000 customers. Prior to BILL, she held senior product leadership roles at companies including Twitter and GoDaddy, with a consistent focus on data, AI, and customer-centered design.

"Customer education is no longer just about courses and content," said Phoenix. "Our opportunity is to connect learning signals, product usage, and customer behavior so our clients can see, measure, and shape the value their customers get from their products in real time. I'm excited to build on Thought Industries' strong foundation and help define this next category of Customer Intelligence & Growth."

New Chief Strategy Officer

Julien Denaes joins Thought Industries as Chief Strategy Officer to lead corporate strategy, long-range planning, and strategic initiatives, ensuring tight alignment between product investments, market opportunities, and customer needs.

Most recently, Denaes served as Senior Director of Product Management at BILL, after joining through the acquisition of Finmark, where he served as VP of Business Development, helping to scale financial planning and analytics solutions for high-growth businesses.

"Our customers are living in a fragmented world of tools and data, while their end users expect simple, powerful, intelligent experiences," said Denaes. "Thought Industries is uniquely positioned to connect those dots — starting from learning and extending into customer intelligence and growth. I'm thrilled to join at this moment, with a clear North Star and a leadership team committed to moving with urgency and focus."

About Thought Industries

Thought Industries is the Customer Learning & Intelligence Platform for customer-centric businesses, unifying learning experiences, customer data, and intelligent action to drive loyalty, revenue, and continuous value creation. With a vision to empower every business to grow through the success of its customers and a mission to turn customer interactions into intelligence — and intelligence into growth, Thought Industries helps organizations guide each customer to the right content experience, maximizing value for them. By combining powerful customer learning experiences with rich behavioral insights and AI-first workflows, the platform enables companies to accelerate product adoption, reduce churn, and clearly prove the business impact of customer education at scale.

Founded in 2013, Thought Industries serves customer-centric businesses worldwide across software, manufacturing, life sciences, financial services, and more. For more information, visit www.thoughtindustries.com or follow Thought Industries on LinkedIn and X (formerly Twitter).

SOURCE Thought Industries