Hamburg, June 2nd 2022 – Haiilo, a leader in employee communications and engagement software, announced today that Jan Marius Marquardt has decided to step down as Chief Executive Officer (CEO) to continue in the company as the Chairman of the Board. As Chairman of the Board Marquardt will drive vision and strategy, support Haiilo’s executive management and represent Haiilo to external stakeholders. Haiilo’s Board of Directors has decided to appoint Roope Heinilä as new CEO effective immediately.
“After bootstrapping and building Haiilo for 12 years I feel it is time for a change. My trust in Roope as Haiilo’s new CEO is deep. He has an outstanding track record as a SaaS founder and CEO. I’ve truly enjoyed our time working together in the past 12 months since we initiated the merger of COYO and Smarp. It’s his time to lead Haiilo through its next growth phase.”, said Marquardt.
Roope Heinilä, as Haiilo’s incoming CEO said, “I want to thank Jan and the board for their trust in me. Haiilo is well positioned to take a global leadership role in the employee communications and engagement market with a unique suite of solutions to enable global enterprises to communicate with and engage all their employees. I look forward to leading the charge in this quickly growing and evolving market”.
Haiilo is coming off a year of record growth in 2021 and is looking to further expand its footprint, especially in North America and EMEA where it already has a strong presence. In the last 6 months, the company has more than doubled its team in North America. Haiilo has also recently strengthened its executive team with Jon Buss joining as Chief Revenue Officer and Volkan Bolat as Chief Product Officer, both bringing decades of experience in building global SaaS businesses. With a strong executive team and a suite of products in employee communications and engagement space, the company is well positioned to take advantage of the continued remote work trend.
About Roope Heinilä
Roope Heinilä has over a decade of experience in leading and building a global SaaS business within the employee communications and advocacy market. He founded Smarp, a SaaS solution tailored to the communications needs of enterprise customers, in 2011. During his time leading the company as CEO (2011 – 2021) the business successfully expanded from Finland to be a global player with offices in the UK and US with a world-class customer list including the likes of Salesforce, KPMG and Amazon. In the fall of 2021, Smarp merged with COYO to form Haiilo, and Roope took on the role of Chief Growth Officer in the company in addition to sitting on the board. In addition to his primary role at Haiilo, Roope advises SaaS companies on international expansion and currently sits on the board of Buddy Healthcare, a SaaS company specialized in patient care pathways.
Roope holds a bachelor’s degree from Aalto University, School of Business.
About Haiilo
In 2022, three established software vendors (COYO, Smarp, Jubiwee) in the employee communications and engagement space joined forces to redefine how companies reach, engage and retain their employees. Today we are one of the world’s largest providers of social intranet and employee communications solutions. From offices in Atlanta, London, Hamburg, Berlin, Paris and Helsinki, our team of 300 passionate software and communication experts support customers, including Amazon, Google, Deutsche Telekom, Ritter Sport, KPMG and German Railways, in putting the needs of more than 2 million employees at the forefront of their corporate culture. With our Employee Engagement Cloud, we offer all the features and insights that companies need to improve corporate culture and establish cross-cutting communication in the workplace. The Haiilo Employee Engagement Cloud includes four products: Haiilo Home, Haiilo Share, Haiilo Stories and Haiilo Insights.
