Mark Rabe will succeed Gordon Whitten as chief executive officer of Sojern, the Omaha-based company announced today. Whitten founded Sojern, which provides destination-specific content and advertising on airline online boarding passes, and has served as CEO of the company since its inception in 2007. Whitten will stay on at Sojern, focusing on next generation partnerships and product expansion plans and continuing to serve on the board of directors.
A Yahoo! veteran, Rabe (left, photo courtesy of Sojern) most recently served as the company’s managing director of the United Kingdom and Ireland, where he was responsible for the company’s largest international market. Before that, he led Yahoo!’s efforts to grow relationships with the largest global advertisers and agencies as vice president of global sales. Rabe came to Yahoo! when the company acquired Overture, where he served as vice president of strategy and operations.
“I’m pleased and excited to introduce Mark as the new CEO of Sojern,” Whitten said in a release. “Mark’s success running businesses for Yahoo! – both domestically and abroad — make him a perfect fit for our next stage at Sojern. Having Mark on board will give me the opportunity to focus on our rapidly growing new product and partner initiatives. Together, we plan to grow Sojern to become the number one travel media and solutions company worldwide.”
At Sojern, Rabe takes the reins of a company that in just under four years has received $25 million in venture funding from Focus Ventures, Trident Ventures and Norwest Venture Partners and another $3.3 million in funding from its founders and angel investors.
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“I have spent my career growing successful digital businesses, and I couldn’t be more excited to be joining Sojern at this stage of its evolution,” Rabe said in a release. “In just three years, Sojern has gone from concept to product to multimillion dollar business. I’m excited to build on Gordon’s success and scale Sojern into the largest digital platform for marketers who want to reach travelers across the globe.”
