Former CEO and Experian and Yahoo! CMO to support next stages in Phunware’s impressive growth
Austin, Texas [May 17, 2018] – Today Phunware, a mobile technology company developing complex digital ecosystems for marquee brands worldwide, announced that Barbary Brunner has been named its Chief Marketing Officer.
Brunner most recently served as CEO of the Austin Technology Council (ATC) and brings 25 years of global technology leadership experience to the role of CMO at Phunware. Her previous positions have included CMO for Experian’s PriceGrabber business, CMO for Yahoo! Media, Chief Digital Products Officer for MediaNews Group, Director of Global Planning for Microsoft’s MSN business and Executive Producer for SierraOnline, among others. Brunner began her career as a Program Manager at Microsoft in the early 90s. She will channel her expertise in brand and team leadership and development to support Phunware as it works to enter the public markets on NASDAQ, launches a PhunCoin cryptonetworking ecosystem and prepares for its next stage of remarkable growth.
As CMO, Brunner will be responsible for driving Phunware’s global brand marketing and communications strategy, reporting to Alan S. Knitowski, Phunware’s Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer.
Knitowski has pursued a unique strategy in building out a world-class senior executive team, including the addition of five former CEOs or Presidents. Brunner joins recent hire COO Randall Crowder, GM Audience Building and Monetization Ian Karnell, EVP Product Management and Engineering Matthew Lindenberger and EVP Corporate Development Tushar Patel, along with CFO Matt Aune and Co-Founder and CTO Luan Dang.
“With our announced intent to merge with NASDAQ company Stellar Acquisition III, Inc, and upcoming launch of PhunCoin, we are at a pivotal moment in Phunware’s history and in the larger landscapes of mobile application software, media and data,” said Knitowski. “Taking advantage of this moment requires a marketing leader with vision and expertise. Barbary possesses these and more, and we are thrilled to welcome her to Phunware’s executive leadership team.”
“I’m excited to have the opportunity to join this terrific team of leaders. I can’t think of a more perfect mutual fit than Phunware’s platform, tools and data that touch and improve the lives of more than one billion people globally every month. The breadth and depth of engagement opportunities that Phunware makes available to brands is unprecedented,” Brunner said. “And I’m also so very pleased to be joining a company that, at 50 percent diversity in its employee population and with a diverse leadership team, understands how important this is to drive product excellence, customer satisfaction and revenue results.”
About Phunware
Phunware is the pioneer of Multiscreen as a Service (MaaS), a fully integrated suite of platform products, solutions and data that allows brands to engage, manage and monetize their anytime, anywhere mobile application users worldwide. Phunware helps the world’s most respected brands create category-defining mobile experiences, with more than one billion active devices touching its platform each month. On February 28, 2018, Phunware also announced its intent to go public through a merger with Stellar Acquisition III, Inc (Nasdaq: STLR), a publicly-traded blank check company, and to launch a cryptonetworking Token Generation Event (TGE) called PhunCoin. For more information about how Phunware is transforming the way consumers and brands interact with mobile in the virtual and physical worlds, visit www.phunware.com and follow @phunware on all social media platforms.
