• Company expands bench of former Braze executives with the appointment of Marissa Aydlett as fractional CMO

• Arrival of Dee Patel as CFO marks further commitment to boosting female leadership

• Further investment from Capital D will fuel Phrasee’s development of enterprise tooling for new era of brand language personalisation alongside rebrand

Phrasee, the leading purpose-built architecture for enterprise grade on-brand messaging, has fortified its executive bench with two new strategic hires–Marissa Aydlett and Dee Patel–on the heels of its January funding led by investor Capital D. These two appointments boost the company’s female leadership and continue to unite world-class leadership around the industry defining technology–with Jasper Pye recently promoted CTO, Chief Data Scientist Neil Yager, PhD., alongside other former Braze leadership Dan Head (CEO), Patrick Forquer (CRO), and Toby Coulthard (CPO).

“Marissa and I have covered so much ground together, which has built a wonderful foundation of trust, mutual understanding, speed of execution, and a passion for helping modern marketers expand their capabilities with technology”

Funding has been directed into an accelerated product roadmap to spearhead a new era of capabilities for its AI technology, as well as an exciting rebrand, to be unveiled in due course.

New hires to drive growth

As part of the invigorated leadership structure, fractional CMO Marissa Aydlett is heading up the marketing engine, with near-term emphasis on Phrasee’s rebrand and its presence at Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity. As such, Aydlett will play a pivotal role in steering Phrasee through its next phase of growth.

With a stellar career that includes exemplary growth stories from Quartz (qz.com) to Braze, Aydlett couldn’t pass up the opportunity to focus on her passion for language and technology to support Phrasee bring its compelling brand, product and proven technology for delivering value with AI to its nascent market. Aydlett brings significant experience in delivering commercial success by focusing on the core anchor product, branding and bringing it to life with operational nuance.

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“Marissa and I have covered so much ground together, which has built a wonderful foundation of trust, mutual understanding, speed of execution, and a passion for helping modern marketers expand their capabilities with technology,” says Dan Head, Phrasee CEO. “While at Braze, we experienced the rapid growth of a startup with purpose-built architecture to solve a modern challenge for marketers – mobile centricity. We also rebranded Braze from its previous name, Appboy. Marissa’s experience in media at Conde Nast and Quartz gives her an appreciation for language, messaging, and the art of copywriting. She couldn’t be a more perfect partner for this venture now.”

While Aydlett fortifies the marketing function, Dee Patel will draw on her 25 years of experience as a commercially focused finance executive to double down on Phrasee’s potential for financial growth and investor returns. With a long track record leading financial operations, strategy, M&A, and driving profitable growth, Patel brings significant expertise from across the economic ecosystem, having worked as CFO of Amplica Labs, a blockchain startup, and at Fandango and Universal Pictures Home Entertainment.

Patel will partner with the team to drive strategic and commercial growth through the business and oversee all aspects of planning, reporting, and financial operations.

“We are delighted that Dee Patel has joined Phrasee as Chief Financial Officer. Dee brings with her huge experience as a finance leader of companies all the way from start-ups to fully scaled enterprises. This was acquired through her previous roles as Chief Financial Officer of Amplica Labs, Fandango, and Universal Pictures Home Entertainment North America in a twenty-five year career spanning both sides of the Atlantic. Dee qualified as an ACA at PwC in the UK. We are looking forward to working closely with her at this very exciting point in Phrasee’s development,” said Daryl Cohen, Partner, Capital D.

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Increase in funding fuels development

Since 2022, Phrasee’s lead investor has been Capital D, a private equity fund that specialises in investing in disruptive European businesses, with co-investment from Morgan Stanley Expansion Capital and Keyhaven Capital Partners.

Commenting on this further investment, Daryl Cohen, Partner, Capital D, said: “We are truly excited by Phrasee’s potential and are delighted to be its leading investor. We see Phrasee as a highly technologically differentiated provider of enterprise-fit AI customer engagement content, capable of supporting the demanding communication requirements of leading global brands. As such, we believe Phrasee should become a mission-critical part of the enterprise customer communication technology stack.”

Unprecedented personalisation at scale

As an architect of the AI marketing category, Phrasee’s enhanced leadership team will harness the additional investment from Capital D to accelerate its product development roadmap. This will include the roll out of next generation product capabilities, which will enable marketers to harness the power of AI to scale personalised customer experiences like never before.

The state-of-the-art developments (to be announced in June) are set to transform the digital marketing landscape. Marketers will be, for the first time, equipped to deliver true 1:1 personalisation across every digital experience, with ease, efficiency and maximised impact.