Beyond the Title: An interview with Meyar Sheik — our Global President

Meyar, how did your paths cross with Insider?

I’ve been in eCommerce personalization since 2004 when I co-founded Certona in San Diego California. We were exceptionally strong in the US and had an international presence with well-known global brands. I received an email from the Insider CEO, Hande in 2020 talking about recent Insider funding and key company milestones. Of course, I was curious to learn more about Insider given their product focus on personalization and customer experience, so I’ve followed Insider’s progress over the last two years.?

For context and background, my former company (Certona) was acquired by Kibo Commerce in 2019 and then we also acquired Monetate later that year to integrate Certona Personalization and Monetate Testing with the Kibo Commerce platform. I served as the President and Chief Commerce Officer of the combined company, Kibo from early 2019 until September of this year.?

I loved Certona’s products and we were market leaders for a very long time. The solution is still competitive but I also knew that the eCommerce and digital marketing world had evolved quite a bit over the last decade. New, innovative solutions that are built on modern technologies and infrastructure are required to tackle today’s dynamic and omnichannel customer experience challenges with intuitive ease and great scale.?

Enter Insider! A game-changing experience personalization platform that truly empowers digital marketers, retailers, and brands to engage with their customers and become an extension of their lives. Insider has the most innovative and extensive set of tools for personalizing the entire customer journey across any touchpoint or channel, leveraging sophisticated AI-driven algorithms to predict customer behavior, and intent and also suggest the next best channel and best send time. Delivering true 1:1 personalization!

What got your attention about Insider?

To sum it up, all the amazing accomplishments of Insider in such a short period.

I suppose I could have started a brand new company to build the next generation of personalization solutions but when I saw how much progress Insider had made as a company and platform since 2020, I was super impressed and excited to be part of the team and dream!?

It’s a great honor and achievement when a SaaS company is recognized as a leader by an industry analyst. But it’s extremely rare for a company to be selected a leader in multiple categories and by multiple industry analysts. Gartner, Forrester, IDC, and G2 have all recognized and praised Insider as an industry leader. Having 1300+ clients across the globe is another testament to the power of the products and the great customer support that Insider is known for.

In addition to great technology and products, I was really impressed with the Insider co-founders and the company culture and felt great chemistry and alignment of visions.?

If I had to build it all over again, it would look a lot like Insider!

Let’s get to know Meyar beyond his title:

1. What’s your Ikigai (the reason that gets you out of bed each morning)??

I like to make each day better than the day before by helping my teammates be more successful in their roles, by partnering with my clients to help solve their business problems, and by trying to make life a little easier and more enjoyable for the people around me.?

2. If life were a movie, which character would you like to play??

Of course, I’d like to be a superhero and save the world from evil! I am really not too picky on which superhero as long as it’s not one who turns to the dark side. :-)

3. What was your first job??

I was an applications engineer supporting sales for the startup software division of the large Macmillan Publishing Company called Macmillan software in New York City. We became market leaders with the most powerful data analytics and visualization PC-based software that was designed to do sophisticated mathematical operations and visualization for research scientists and engineers. I got to meet some of the smartest people in the world at the leading research labs like NASA, Jet Propulsion Labs, GM, Ford, US Airforce, P&G, and hundreds more. It was a hugely fun and unforgettable experience!

4. What excites you the most right now?

While we’ve come a long way, digital marketing and eCommerce are still in their infancy and great customer experience is becoming more and more critical to the success of any business. There is so much market potential and plenty of technological innovations to address that potential so it’s a great time to be in this fast-moving space and to establish market dominance.?

5. One unique fact about you (that many people don’t know about)??

I’ve had a fascination with sharks since I was a teenager and I studied them for years, so I’ve been diving with sharks for many years (without any cages or protections) and find the experience both exhilarating and very humbling!?

Swimming with sharks in their natural habitat helps you to mentally prepare for pretty much most situations.?