Influencer appoints Rafael Franco as VP of product to lead the company’s product vision and innovation

Influencer has today named Rafael Franco as VP of product. The announcement comes after Influencer closed a £3million (± $3.6million) Series A investment round, deployed by Puma Private Equity, with commitments to use the funding to drive new innovations within their award-winning influencer marketing platform.

Franco brings over 15 years of experience in developing software that helps companies to scale-up and in leading successful tech teams. He previously worked at Unruly, where as VP of engineering he led multiple teams of engineers and tech leads, managing and delivering sustainable value to Unruly’s ad-tech customers focusing on quality, predictability and reporting. Prior to this, Franco held the position of Head of Products at Adaptavist, where he launched several products on the Atlassian marketplace. With initially just 2 people in his team, Franco grew the business tremendously, assembling several product teams of engineers and product managers and launching one of the most successful products in the Atlassian Marketplace: ScriptRunner.

Franco’s appointment comes after Influencer announced it had closed £3million (± $3.6million) in Series A funding, deployed by Puma Private Equity. The company stated that it would be using the funding to drive new innovations within its award-winning technology platform.

Working closely with Influencer’s CTO Todd Mansill and co-founders, CEO Ben Jeffries and CVO Caspar Lee, Franco will be responsible for ensuring that Influencer’s technology remains the industry leader in what is a rapidly changing, high growth market. Franco will also work closely with Influencer’s data scientist Preriit Souda as Influencer continues to develop its partnership with IBM Watson and amplify the data to clients, furthering their commitment to offering their clients best in market insights. He will also be tasked with improving transparency to the market. Additionally, Franco will continue to drive Influencer’s product development and innovation; owning and defining the global product roadmap and strategy. The appointment is part of a wider move by Influencer to expand their senior team across all elements of the business.

‍Commenting on Franco’s appointment CEO Ben Jeffries said, “At Influencer, our technology is at the heart of everything we do; Influencer is about combining exceptional human creativity with intelligent global data and Rafael embodies that mission. Rafael brings a wealth of experience to the role, combined with a passion for disrupting advertising technology, and I can’t wait to see how he develops our technology, especially at this stage of Influencer’s unparalleled growth.”

Influencer’s technology was launched in 2017 by award-winning entrepreneurs, 24-year-old Ben Jeffries who leads the company as CEO, and 26-year-old world-renowned YouTuber and creator Caspar Lee, as chief visionary officer (CVO). Backed by some of the world’s largest creators, Influencer is already working with many leading global brands including Alibaba, Walkers, Pantene, Hisense, Starbucks, MAC Cosmetics, and Barclays, to name a few. Read their most recent research report, The Age of Influence: How Covid-19 has propelled brands into the era of influencer marketing, here.