AppDirect Announces Inaugural Digital Heroes Awards at Engage 2018

SAN FRANCISCO, OCTOBER 17, 2018 -- AppDirect, the only end-to-end commerce platform for succeeding in the digital economy, today announced the winners of its inaugural Digital Heroes award, recognizing innovative thinkers and risk-takers who are finding new ways to address digital business challenges, transform their organizations, and make technology more accessible across the globe.

Digital Heroes are those leaders who embody the core characteristics needed to effect true digital change within their organizations - they take risks, have the foresight and perseverance to drive change, don’t take no for an answer, and take the necessary action to execute on their vision and strategy.

Despite being one of the most talked about topics, digital transformation is not easy. For digital transformation to work, companies need people with a unique set of superpowers -- foresight, persuasion, and tenacity to name a few -- as well those willing to take risks, go above and beyond, and advocate for a new way of thinking to succeed.

To recognize those leaders who are willing to challenge the status quo and have the foresight to to see the who are leading transformative changes, AppDirect is honoring the following Digital Heroes of 2018:

• Alex Barnett, Director, Developer Platform, Intuit

• John Chambers, CEO, JC2 Ventures

• Joe Cho, Senior Director of Product Management, ADP

• Riccardo Ferraresi, Product Owner and Solutions Architect for SME Cloud, Swisscom

• John Guillaume, VP, Product Management, UX, & SaaS, Comcast Business

• Nina Harding, Chief of Global Partner Strategy and Programs, Google

• Julia Hartz, Co-Founder and CEO, Eventbrite

• Stewart Hawker, Senior Group Product Manager, Digital Cloud Marketplace, Vodafone

• Irv Henderson, Co-founder and CEO, Taltech

• Drew Houston, Co-founder and CEO, Dropbox

• Arianna Huffington, Founder and CEO, Thrive Global

• Mike Kim, Senior Produce Manager, Telus

• Matthew Leppanen, Director of Product, Business Productivity Solutions, Rogers Communications

• Bob Lord, Chief Digital Officer, IBM

• Toby McDuffie, Senior Director, Symantec

• Suzanne McKechnie Klahr, Founder, Build.org

• Alex Mireles, Business Solutions Subdirector, AT&T Mexico

• Bob Nebaum, Director PTC Partner Marketplace, PTC

• Kalu Njoku, Business Transformation Specialist, Bluegrass Cellular

• Rose Nunez, Director, Channel Management Cloud Initiatives & Business Development, IBM

• Mark Register, Senior VP, Business Development & Channels, Docusign

• Michael Roberts, Chief Marketing & Digital Strategy Officer, Bank of America

• Alain Schaefer, Digital Program Lead, ABB

• Gavriella Schuster, Corporate Vice President, Global Commercial Partner Leadership, Microsoft

• Rupen Shah, Vice President, ISV Alliances & Strategy, Pega Systems

• Lochan Sim, Partner Solutions Director, Global Partnerships, Worldpay

• Brad Smith, Chairman & CEO, Intuit

• Jon Stross, Co-founder and President, Greenhouse.io

• Thorsten Weimann, CEO, Abtis

• Michelle Zatlyn, Co-founder and COO, Cloudflare

“We are honored to present the first Digital Heroes award and we congratulate the winners who are committed to their organization’s digital transformation journey,” said Dan Saks, Co-CEO and President, AppDirect. “These leaders are bringing new growth opportunities and successfully distinguishing their organizations by leveraging emerging technologies and making it more accessible across the globe. We hope this recognition will continue to inspire these leaders and others to succeed in the digital economy.”

AppDirect’s Digital Heroes were announced at the company’s annual summit Engage, the only digital economy event where developers, service providers, and businesses of all sizes attend to learn, network, and collectively transform the way people do business in the cloud. The event took place Oct. 15-17, 2018, at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco, Calif.

About AppDirect
AppDirect provides the only end-to-end cloud commerce platform for succeeding in the digital economy. The AppDirect ecosystem connects channels, developers, and customers through its platform to simplify the digital supply chain by enabling the onboarding and sale of products with third-party services, for any channel, on any device, with support. Powering millions of cloud subscriptions worldwide, AppDirect helps organizations, including Jaguar Land Rover, Comcast, ADP, and Deutsche Telekom connect their customers to the solutions they need to reach their full potential in the digital economy.