Boost.ai, a Nordic Capital-backed global leader in conversational AI for enterprises, today announced that Jerry Haywood is joining the company’s executive team as Chief Executive Officer effective December 1, 2022. Haywood brings 20 years of enterprise technology experience with him and has held various sales and senior leadership positions at IBM, Cisco, and Salesforce. He joins Boost.ai from LivePerson, a global technology company that develops conversational commerce and AI software. Haywood will succeed founder and current CEO Lars Ropeid Selsås, who desires to devote more time to product development and innovation.
Selsås, who was actively involved in the selection process, alongside Co-Founder and Chief Commercial Officer Henry Vaage Iversen, and Chief Operating Officer Camilla Gjetvik, stated: “During this time of accelerated digital customer experience transformation, Boost.ai has never been better positioned to become a global category leader in conversational AI. This change in leadership is a natural step in the next growth phase for Boost.ai. Jerry is a strong and experienced visionary leader who can build on the solid foundation created over the last six years, and we are thrilled to have him join us. While it is his outstanding track record that made him a natural candidate for this key leadership role, it was his personality and people-oriented leadership style that impressed us most. He is approachable, humble, and full of energy. A natural leader who can create results while making it a fun ride.”
Vaage Iversen added: “I am very happy that Jerry has agreed to join the Boost.ai team as CEO and I’m glad that we are able to fulfil Lars’ desire to focus even more on what he is most passionate about – the technology needed to fundamentally disrupt the conversational AI category and to continue to provide the best automated customer interaction solution available on the market.”
For the last three years, Haywood has held the role of SVP EMEA at LivePerson, where he led the strategic repositioning of the company in Europe, achieving impressive growth. Prior to LivePerson, Haywood spent eight years at Salesforce, where he headed up Service Cloud first in the UK, and then for the rest of Europe, achieving an increase of over 30% in revenue and bookings year after year.
Haywood said: “I am really excited and honoured to join the Boost.ai team, at a time where the owners and leadership want to accelerate growth while positioning the company as a global category leader in the conversational AI space. Boost.ai is already very familiar to me. I have followed their amazing journey closely and I am convinced that the scale up has what it needs to go all the way. Boost.ai has the best technology available and an amazing team with some of the brightest minds in the industry. I want to thank the founders, the Board of Directors and Nordic Capital for their trust. I can’t wait to meet the team across the globe and get started.”
Haywood will balance his time between Stavanger, Norway, where Boost.ai is headquartered, and London, UK, one of Boost.ai’s key markets, where he lives with his wife and three children.
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