Catalina hires chief data, analytics officer
Catalina has hired a former Olympian to be its chief data officer.
Sean Murphy joins the St. Petersburg, Fla.-based shopper intelligence company as its executive vice president, chief data and analytics officer, coming to Catalina from Vericast, where he was SVP of Analytics. Murphy also notably swam for Canada in the 1988 Seoul Olympics.
Murphy’s vast technology, media and marketing experience includes several senior roles at Vericast, the marketing solutions company that owns Valassis and Harland Clarke. There, he led the data science, marketing science and business analytics teams, developing a new insight consulting team to expand the company’s sales and service strategy. He also led the integration of three organizations representing $1.8B in revenue, scaling the company’s analytics and insight processes to launch five new products across six vertical markets.
“Sean brings more than 25 years of forward-thinking, entrepreneurial leadership, nimble innovation, and analytic process development to Catalina, as well as a demonstrated commitment to developing people, differentiating business strategies, and sustaining customer prosperity,” said Wayne Powers, CEO, Catalina. “Sean believes that data is only useful if it is helping drive effective decisions, and his primary focus will be on partnering cross-functionally to leverage our unparalleled shopper intelligence to help our customers do just that.”
In addition to his work at Vericast, Murphy has held senior leadership roles for Vendavo Inc., including vice president of pricing science, leading the company’s pricing data to help businesses drive critical decisions toward top-line growth.
He also spent several years as a marketing and product strategy executive for technology companies in and around Silicon Valley, including Peoplesoft, and Ask Jeeves (now Ask.com), where, in the early days of the search business, his team created search data-based solutions for customers.
“The opportunity to join a leading market innovator like Catalina, and head a global team of some of the world’s premier data & analytics experts to drive business for many leading and emerging CPG brands and retailers, was simply too great to pass up,” said Murphy.
After earning both a B.S. and an M.S. in Industrial Engineering from Stanford University, Murphy received a Master of Business Administration from Harvard Business School. He is also a patent holder and a former international world-class swimmer, NCAA champion, Olympian, and Masters World Record Holder.