I couldn’t be more excited and honored to introduce myself to the greater ListenFirst community today – – my first official day as the new CEO of ListenFirst.
I’m here because of ListenFirst’s amazing team who serve a client roster of the world’s best brands. Our clients rely on us to help them make informed decisions which can make or break their careers. I look forward to working with the ListenFirst team and our brand partners to build a legacy within the ever changing and fast paced social technology environment.
As a bit of background, I’m no stranger to the SaaS industry. Early in my career, I co-founded and led the multimodel SaaS communications technology company Emergency Communications Network — taking it from two full-time employees to the industry’s largest provider of emergency and intelligent notification services with $100+ million in annual revenue. I’m now a 3 time CEO, which should actually be measured in dog years to make it feel more equivalent. In this journey I have built a solid track record with being responsible for three successful business growth stories driving nearly $1 billion in Enterprise Value creation.
While I consider myself to be very lucky, in my experience, luck is in many ways very self-fulfilling. When you view life through the lens of seeing everything as an opportunity for personal growth, you tend to take on more opportunities, and even if they don’t pan out, each will play a role in shaping your mindset about the world around you. I have literally had just about every job you can imagine growing up – from cleaning toilets in hotels to working in the medical field, and I’ve learned from each experience.
As it turns out I’m better at developing cloud-based software companies and leading the expansion of organizations than I was at cleaning toilets. I’m not an expert in social media analytics yet, but I believe my knowledge in how to build a sound technology company will serve ListenFirst’s current business life cycle, staff, and client base well.
As CEO, I will focus on goal setting, scaling, and tooling to accelerate growth for our team and our clients. I will also focus on leading the executive leadership team with ListenFirst’s global expansion. My goal is to help our company expand in high-growth verticals including CPG, cannabis, sports, and entertainment. Our social media best practices developed for the world’s best brands can fuel these businesses.
I’m passionate about always providing my team members with the strategy, support, and tools they need to succeed and then getting out of their way to let them flourish. As a business builder, I’m deeply invested in my work and always eager to build relationships with others internally and externally. I can already tell ListenFirst has great people, a great product, and customer support!
Last but not least, I am a proud University of Florida alumnus and unapologetic Gator fan. I have even been lucky enough to participate in a Gotham Gators watch party in NYC! GO GATORS!
I look forward to getting to know all the members of the ListenFirst community, from our dedicated employees to our amazing brand partners, in the days, months, and years ahead; and seeing all that we will accomplish together.
– David DiGiacomo
