Drift Appoints Diana Brunelle as Chief People Officer

Brunelle to Lead Culture and Talent Strategy to Accelerate Growth and Increase Employee Engagement

Drift, the Conversation Cloud company, announced the appointment of Diana Brunelle to its executive leadership team as Chief People Officer (CPO). Brunelle brings more than 25 years of experience in human resources (HR) across multiple industries to her new role, where she will lead global talent acquisition, people operations, employee engagement and talent development.

“It is a unique opportunity to join and help lead a company that created the market and category in which it operates,” said Brunelle. “It was evident from my first conversations with Drift that there is an incredibly strong team in place with a culture grounded in unwavering leadership principles. I am energized by the vision we share to help make business buying more human and am excited to help Drift continue to evolve and scale through this next phase of growth.”

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Brunelle joins Drift after four years at Avid Technology, where she led the human resources department as Chief Human Resources Officer (CHRO). Brunelle played an active leadership role across the company as they successfully migrated to a recurring revenue model, achieving 80% ARR in 2022 (up from just 38% in 2016). She also drove significant improvements to the organization’s culture, improving eNPS from -15 to +30 and increasing diverse hiring by 25%. In addition to fulfilling multiple HR leadership roles throughout her career, Brunelle built her own HR consulting business, KaHRma Consulting, which helped organizations acquire, engage and develop talent via executive coaching, strategic partnerships, talent acquisition and more.

“Over the last two decades, Diana’s leadership experience has spanned global technology, digital media and advertising industries, where she’s helped companies and go-to-market teams successfully scale for growth,” said Scott Ernst, CEO of Drift. “She has significant experience helping teams navigate all stages of digital and cultural transformation, and I knew the first time we met she was the right person to lead our most valuable resource – our people.”

Brunelle’s appointment comes at an exciting time for the company with the recent launch of its new GPT integration, expansion into the manufacturing and financial services verticals, and key executive leadership hires of Senior Vice President of Strategy, David Voll and Senior Vice President of Product, Matt Tippets.

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