Aware Announces Appointment of Digital Experience Veteran Marlan K. Hardie as Strategic Advisor

COLUMBUS, Ohio, June 27th, 2023 — Aware, the trailblazing AI-powered contextual intelligence platform, purpose-built to understand the unique human context of workplace conversations, today announced the appointment of Marlan K. Hardie as a strategic advisor. Marlan brings to Aware more than 20 years in the digital experience industry, where he works with global businesses on strengthening their brand by engaging their customers and empowering their employees. Marlan is currently the Chief Digital Officer of Global Service Providers at World Wide Technology (WWT), which partnered with Aware in January 2023.

“With over half of a decade investment in our enterprise specific and responsible AI platform, we are better positioned than anyone else in the market to leverage new technologies like generative AI to deliver insights with speed and accuracy. Now combining Marlan’s expertise in digital experience with our Aware platform roadmap, allows us to further sharpen our focus on continual innovation and transformative outcomes for our incredible partners and customers,” said Matt Pasternack, Aware’s Chief Product Officer. 

"2023 has been a banner year for Aware in terms of demand and growth, and I couldn’t be happier to have Marlan join our advisory board at such an exciting time,” said Jeff Schumann, CEO of Aware. “Marlan is a digital experience savant that believes, like we do, that empowering employees is the key ingredient for excellent customer experience. The powerful combination of Marlan's expertise and Matt's product roadmap will revolutionize the market, delivering unprecedented outcomes that will significantly elevate brand value."

Prior to his current role as Chief Digital Officer at WWT, Marlan was the Chief Experience Office at WWT for nearly four years. Before joining WWT, Marlan was a digital CX/EX sales leader—financial services—for Salesforce, and he held multiple positions at Cisco Systems, including CX/EX business development manager, US service provider CX leader, and, most recently, Chief of Staff and National Strategy. 

Marlan’s appointment as strategic advisor follows Aware’s integration partnership with Webex by Cisco, as well as Aware being named to Inc. Magazine’s list of Best Workplaces for 2023.  

"I continue to be impressed with how Jeff and Aware operate as a business, the partners and customers they’ve amassed, and the AI Platform they’ve built, which helps businesses strengthen the employee experience and customer experience like never before,” said Marlan. “As someone who has spent his career in digital experience, the way in which Aware is approaching the issue is truly unique and sets the company up for long-term success. In my role as an advisor, I look for companies that share the same strategic vision as I do and having worked with Aware for the last several months, it was clear they were a perfect match.”

Marlan joins an Aware advisory board that already includes Paul Albright, Former CRO of Marketo and EVP, Sales and CMO at SuccessFactors; Burt Podbere, CFO of CrowdStrike; Sally Jenkins, Chief Marketing Officer at SentinelOne; Udi Mokady, Founder & Executive Chairman at CyberArk; Malcolm Harkins, former Chief Security and Privacy Officer at Intel; Michael Hughes Chief Commercial and Revenue Officer at ChargePoint; and Dan O’Leary, Partner Growth and Services Leader at Box.

For more information about Aware and its solutions, please visit https://www.awarehq.com.  

About Aware  
 
Founded in 2017 and headquartered in Columbus, Ohio, Aware’s AI-powered contextual intelligence platform is purpose-built to understand the unique human context of workplace conversations across Slack, Teams, Zoom, WorkJam and other collaboration platforms. Aware’s data platform delivers actionable intelligence to the C-Suite that unlocks innovation and top-line growth. Consistently recognized by Gartner analysts as a market-leading vendor, Aware's technology helps IT, compliance, legal, and security teams address the risks present in the digital workplace. Learn more at www.awarehq.com.