SocketLabs, the industry leader in high-volume email delivery offered in both SaaS and on-premise deployments, today announced the appointment of Keith Hontz as its Chief Executive Officer to lead the next phase of business growth and market expansion. He will take the helm of SocketLabs effective today and will work closely with company founder John Alessi, who will remain with the company acting in a strategic advisory capacity. In his initial 100 days as the company’s Chief Revenue Officer, Hontz has played a transformational role driving new business, enterprise customer renewals and a strategic relationship with SAP as an SAP PartnerEdge® partner, including the introduction of a new SAP App Center listing for SocketLabs Email Service for SAP Marketing. Hontz previously worked for over two decades as Global Vice President at SAP in numerous roles across consulting, presales, product management, sales and sales leadership with a focus on its Customer Experience business prior to taking the CRO role at SocketLabs.
“Joining SocketLabs from SAP has enabled me to provide this amazing tech company with an extensive network of beneficial relationships, sales leadership tools, organizational management strategies and best practices for business development as it pertains to cloud computing, which have already proven to be impactful,” said Hontz. “I look forward to leading the next phase of business growth with our talented team of email delivery professionals while expanding market share for SocketLabs in my new role as the company’s CEO. John’s vision, strategy and leadership at SocketLabs over the past 12 years in serving thousands of satisfied customers prior to my arrival has been nothing short of spectacular and I look forward to building on the proven track record of success exhibited by our industry-leading high volume email delivery platform.”
Hontz’s work experience in enterprise application software and deep network from his time at SAP makes him uniquely qualified to take on the position of CEO at SocketLabs. His executive trademark to date has been the ability to uncover new business and potential growth areas in support of digital transformation for enterprise customers across all industries. Prior to SAP he spent six years at DuPont Information Systems, where he was a project manager focused on CRM Database Marketing and related systems. He holds an MBA from the University of Delaware, as well as a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from James Madison University.
In the next phase of SocketLabs’ strategic growth plan, Hontz will oversee the company’s goal of expanding into additional global markets and acquiring new enterprise customers who will benefit from its reliable service offerings. The newly minted CEO will also represent the company at two Customer Experience events in the coming week centered around the SAP Customer Experience Live event in London on October 3, 2019. In addition to exhibiting the SocketLabs platform and its capabilities at CX London, Hontz will also speak alongside industry-leading panelists at his company’s own event, “The Science of Customer Experience,” taking place on October 1, 2019.
Hontz will focus on identifying new growth opportunities, strategic partnerships and driving new innovations to build on SocketLabs strong reputation for providing high quality service, and he will continue to support the expansive roster of clients that Alessi helped secure during his tenure.
About SocketLabs
SocketLabs is a B2B technology firm that provides flexible SaaS and on-premises solutions for solving a variety of complex email delivery challenges for both transactional and marketing messages. We are a pioneer in the Email Service Provider (ESP) market with a decade-long track record of excellence. Our unique, proprietary mail transfer agent (MTA) technology is trusted by clients around the globe who invigorate their SaaS platforms, mobile apps, and custom applications by “plugging in” to an unmatched email experience. Our founders have been creating cutting-edge email solutions for over 20 years and have built a customer support organization that considers “responsiveness and satisfaction” as our key performance objectives.