BlackLine Systems Hires Enterprise Software Veteran as First Chief Marketing Officer

Leading cloud financial close software company expands executive team, adding former NetSuite CMO to lead global marketing strategy through period of rapid growth

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BlackLine Systems

May 28, 2014, 08:05 ET

LOS ANGELES, May 28, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Enterprise financial software company BlackLine Systems has expanded its executive management team, hiring David Downing, former chief marketing officer (CMO) of cloud ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) leader NetSuite, as BlackLine's first-ever CMO. Downing is an enterprise software veteran with deep cloud and ERP experience. In this new role, he will be responsible for driving BlackLine's global marketing strategy as the company seeks to capitalize on the growing worldwide demand for solutions that drive greater efficiency, financial governance and risk management across the spectrum of financial operations.

"BlackLine became the market leader in automating and accelerating the financial close by building trusted client relationships around innovation, ease-of-use and a maniacal commitment to customer success," said Downing. "There is an enormous market opportunity ahead to build on this foundation by delivering a wider range of cloud-based, financial operations solutions that address the core needs of efficiency and risk mitigation."

Downing joins BlackLine with more than 30 years of experience at other leading enterprise software, cloud and ERP industry giants. He previously spent five years at NetSuite, most recently as senior vice president and CMO where he helped the company re-brand and re-tool to drive a major, multi-year initiative to scale up market, expanding from serving the ERP needs of small and medium-sized businesses to large global enterprises. Downing spent the previous 25 years in various senior marketing roles with other leading companies including SAP, Informatica, Oracle, Adobe, Seagate and Hill and Knowlton.

"David's extensive experience leading marketing programs for various Software-as-a-Service and ERP leaders will provide tremendous value to BlackLine as we enter our next phase of aggressive growth," Therese Tucker, CEO and Founder, BlackLine Systems, said. "David has been in the trenches in many different marketing positions and has been successful in helping many companies grow and expand their brands. We expect his leadership to help us clearly articulate to the market all the capabilities and benefits that BlackLine brings to our clients."

Under Tucker's direction, BlackLine Systems revenues have increased more than 50 percent annually for the past seven years. The company has seen substantial revenue increases since moving to a SaaS business model in 2008. In 2013, BlackLine partnered with Silver Lake Sumeru, the mid-market arm of leading technology-focused global private equity firm Silver Lake, to do a recapitalization of the company and drive its next phase of growth. The CMO appointment is one of several planned to round out the company's management team in an effort to strengthen and complement existing resources as the company continues to grow globally.

About BlackLine Systems
BlackLine Systems was the first to develop and offer a commercially available Balance Sheet Account Reconciliation solution. An experienced provider of software to companies from the Fortune 100 to beyond the Fortune 1,000, BlackLine provides quick-to-implement, scalable and easy-to-use applications that automate the entire financial close process to help improve financial controls for companies of all sizes. With more than 90,000 users in over 100 countries, BlackLine software applications complement existing Enterprise Performance Management (EPM), Governance Risk and Compliance (GRC) and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems.

Though ERP-agnostic, the BlackLine Financial Close Suite for SAP® Solutions is an SAP-endorsed business solution – joining the ranks of fewer than 40 other software offerings globally that are endorsed by the enterprise application software leader. BlackLine also is an SAP Gold Partner.

BlackLine offers clients its enterprise-class financial software in a simple and secure SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) platform. With a proven track record and a commitment to customer success, BlackLine seeks to reduce the burden the financial close places on accounting and finance professionals.

BlackLine headquarters are in Los Angeles, with offices in Atlanta, Chicago, London, Melbourne, New York City and Sydney to serve the company's growing global client base. For more information, please visit www.blackline.com.

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SOURCE BlackLine Systems