Varun Sharma - Emplifi Vice President, Asia Pacific & Japan

Emplifi Appoints Varun Sharma as Vice President, Asia Pacific & Japan

Prior to Emplifi, Mr Sharma held senior leadership roles at Oracle and Adobe

Almost 8 in 10 people in Southeast Asia will be digital consumers by end-2021, digital consumer population to grow to 380 million by 2026.

Singapore, 12 October 2021Emplifi, the leading unified customer experience platform, today announced that it has appointed Varun Sharma as Vice President, Asia Pacific & Japan. In this role, Varun will lead Emplifi’s Japan and Asia Pacific business, with teams across Singapore, Emplifi’s JAPAC headquarters, and Sydney. He will report to Nikola Pantovic, Chief Revenue Officer, Emplifi.

Varun has over 18 years of experience in customer experience (CX), digital and hi-tech industries. Prior to joining Emplifi, he worked with Oracle, serving as Sales Director, Communications Global Business Unit for Asia Pacific, and later Head of Sales, Customer Experience (CX) Applications & Solutions for Southeast Asia. He also worked with Adobe where he led Strategic Industries for their Digital Experience business in Southeast Asia.

Varun will be key in driving growth and developing customer and partner relationships across the region as CX becomes a top priority for brands. According to the 2020 Digital Trends in Asia Pacific (APAC) report, CX will be the single-most important factor for businesses wanting to gain market share in the 2020s.

"We’re very excited to welcome Varun to the Emplifi family. His experience building and leading sales teams, combined with his understanding of the CX landscape and knowledge of the Asian market will be key, as we continue to strengthen our focus on the JAPAC region," said Nikola Pantovic, Chief Revenue Officer, Emplifi.

According to a report by Facebook and Bain & Company, almost 8 in 10 people (78%) in Southeast Asia will be digital consumers by end-2021. The region added about 70 million digital consumers since the Covid-19 pandemic began. This figure is expected to reach around 380 million by 2026, 1.4 times bigger than it was in 2019.

The report also revealed that the pandemic has caused a paradigm shift in the consumers’ purchase journey. From discovery to purchase, online channels have become ever more prevalent. At least 7 in 10 respondents said online is their top channel for considering brands as compared to offline channels. Social media videos also tripled in popularity as a discovery medium in comparison to 2020.

"I’m thrilled to be joining the JAPAC team at this exciting time in Emplifi’s journey. The pandemic really accelerated digitalisation in the region, across Asia and ANZ, driving marketers to greatly increase their spend on social media advertising and on CX solutions overall. Emplifi’s offering is well positioned to help businesses across JAPAC to deliver more connected brand experiences across channels, meeting customer needs at every touchpoint of the buyer journey," said Sharma.

The appointment follows the company’s rebranding earlier this year. With the goal of unifying marketing, commerce, and customer care through AI-powered CX solutions, Emplifi was born from the combined technology of the customer experience platform Astute Inc. and the social media marketing platform Socialbakers.

In JAPAC, Emplifi works with leading brands including the Australian Football League, ASUS, Shopee, The Body Shop and Toyota.

About Emplifi:

Emplifi is the leading unified CX platform that brings marketing, commerce and care together to help businesses close the customer experience gap. More than 7,000 brands, including Delta Air Lines, Ford Motor Company and McDonald's, rely on Emplifi to provide their customers with outstanding experiences at every touchpoint. For more information, visit www.emplifi.io.

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