Appen appoints former Pivotal Software and Astronomer SaaS executive Andrew Ettinger to lead worldwide sales

Appen Limited (Appen) (ASX: APX) the leading training data for AI company that makes trusted deep learning and generative AI work better for everyone, today announced the appointment of Andrew Ettinger as Chief Revenue Officer (CRO), effective 22 May 2023.

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Andrew Ettinger joins Appen Limited as Chief Revenue Officer

For more than 25 years Appen has successfully helped some of the largest big tech and enterprise customers adapt deep learning AI and generative AI solutions. Andrew will direct Appen’s global go-to-market sales and operations to meet our growth objectives. Andrew brings over 25 years of leadership experience in growing software and services companies from start-ups to scale-ups to a successful IPO with scaled growth. Prior to joining Appen, Andrew served as the Chief Revenue Officer at Astronomer (a Sutter Hill Ventures backed company), where he grew the adoption of an open-source data solution from 250k monthly downloads to over 15 million and increased revenue by 20x over his tenure. Previously, Andrew served as a North American sales executive at Pivotal Software, where he helped scale the business from US$0-$100 million in annual recurring revenue ahead of Pivotal’s IPO, and up to US$500 million during his seven year tenure.

Andrew will be based in Appen’s offices in North America.

Armughan Ahmad, CEO of Appen, commented:

“We are building a world-class sales organisation that works together with our dedicated customer success and support teams to help our customers deploy AI. As our CRO, Andrew will oversee and further align the operations of these great teams and identify new opportunities and partnerships to augment our growth. His extensive experience in data, cloud native applications and overall digital transformation of enterprise business functions will play a pivotal role in helping Appen accelerate our go to market expansion and revenue growth.”

The upcoming launch of Appen’s new large language model (LLM) data products is designed to enable enterprises to utilise their AI applications with confidence that their generative AI models are trustworthy. This is one of the many initiatives that Andrew will lead. The products offer a range of features that prioritise trust, risk management, and assurance while also providing businesses with complete visibility into the performance of their models.

A key factor in Andrew’s decision to join Appen is the opportunity to enable a Safe and Trusted AI world that also delivers on the promise of #AIforGood.

“In order for AI to run the world it must be safe and trusted by everyone, in every place and at every moment. This is easy to say and hard to do. Through Appen’s diverse crowd and human in the loop offerings, I believe we are well positioned to ensure that AI can be trusted and perform correctly. I am thrilled to join a team that is trusted by some of the largest technology companies and enterprise customers on the planet. I look forward to delivering on the enormous potential of deep learning and generative AI,” says Andrew.

About Appen

Appen is a global market leader in data for the AI Lifecycle. With over 25 years of experience in data sourcing, data annotation, and model evaluation by humans, we enable organisations to launch the world’s most innovative artificial intelligence systems.

Our expertise includes a global crowd of more than 1 million skilled contractors who speak over 235 languages, in over 70,000 locations and 170 countries, and the industry’s most advanced AI-assisted data annotation platform. Our products and services give leaders in technology, automotive, financial services, retail, healthcare, and governments the confidence to launch world-class AI products.

Founded in 1996, Appen has customers and offices globally.

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