Big news, everyone! We’re excited to share that Christine Royston, formerly with Udemy, Bitly, Dropbox, Salesforce, and Cisco, has joined Wrike as our new Chief Marketing Officer (CMO).
With Christine leading our marketing team, we’re gearing up for some transformative growth and innovative strategies to take our customer engagement and global reach to the next level.
We caught up with Christine to get her insights on her new role, her background, and her plans for the company. Here’s what she had to say.
Q: Can you share a bit about yourself and your background?
A: Sure. I’m originally from the East Coast of the United States. I grew up in Virginia, outside Washington, D.C., and lived up and down the coast. After my MBA, I had a chance to live and work in Brussels and then in Shanghai, and I definitely learned a lot, personally and professionally. And then, after I came back to the U.S., I moved straight out to the San Francisco Bay Area, where I’ve been for the last 15-plus years now.
Q: What made you choose marketing as a career path?
I actually started my career in sales, selling financial software to Wall Street and banks. I was looking for a global career, and it was a little difficult to find early in a sales job, so I decided to go back to school for an MBA, specifically an international one. And that’s where I made the pivot to marketing. It kept me close to the customer and revenue, and I loved the combination of strategy, creativity, and analysis.
I built my marketing foundation in demand generation and campaigns at some very large companies and then started moving to smaller and mid-sized companies, where I could really see my direct impact on the business growth. I started taking on broader leadership roles at companies that had both a land and expand motion, as well as a self-service and a sales-led motion, and that’s really how I ended up here at Wrike.
Q: Why did you want to join Wrike?
A: First, the team. When Tom [Wrike’s CEO] reached out to me, I definitely enjoyed that first conversation. As I continued to talk to more of the team, I was really impressed with the thorough strategy and ideas about where the business could go. Also, the fact that the team sees marketing as a a key growth driver — that’s certainly something I believe in, something I want to make sure the company that I’m joining believes in.
The second piece was also the brand; I knew of Wrike, so it’s always great as a marketer to join a brand that you already know and consider how you can continue to drive that growth. Being able to see the impact of the work that we can do to grow and expand globally and think about how we can help our customers and users collaborate and work more efficiently — I love working with a product that can have a broad impact on so many types of teams and businesses.
Q: What are your plans for the first 30 to 90 days at Wrike?
A: First of all, meet the global team. It’s so important to me to get a chance to make those personal connections, learn more about the team, and meet people that I’ll be working with.
Second is getting a chance to meet customers and partners and really understand that full ecosystem and the value that we’re able to provide.
I also really want to become a product expert and a power user, so I’ll be spending a lot of time on that.
And then I’ll be working with my team and stakeholders on where we’re seeing growth and can invest more, where we need to adjust strategy, and where we haven’t tried something in the past and we can experiment. I want us to build a team that is agile and can scale to deliver impact throughout the full customer journey.
More to come from our CMO, so stay tuned!
