Dive Brief:
- Eric Johnson, a 20-year IT veteran with past leadership roles at Talend and DocuSign, is SurveyMonkey's new CIO, the company announced Wednesday.
- Johnson's addition comes 10 months after SurveyMonkey's IPO. Johnson will work with the company to help execute its growth plan and increase its efforts in "safeguarding both company and customer data," said SurveyMonkey president Tom Hale, in the announcement.
- At the survey software company, Johnson will shape security, data infrastructure and business intelligence strategy.
Dive Insight:
SurveyMonkey became a publicly traded company in September. The software company bases its plans for growth partly on the People Powered Data, an enterprise-focused data insights platform used actively by 17 million users
The addition of Johnson to the team speaks to how central its IT roadmap is to the company's expansion. It also fits a broader trend in industry, one in which IT is seen as a value creator.
For SurveyMonkey, which provides data like employee feedback and net promoter score for Fortune 500 companies like Progressive and HP, cybersecurity must be a focal point.
In this respect, SurveyMonkey's no different than any other enterprise. CEOs cited cybersecurity issues like breaches and attacks, which some project could have a $6 trillion impact next year, as their top external concern in 2019.
That's partly why the company will entrust Johnson with getting SurveyMonkey ISO 27001 certified, an infosec seal of approval already earned by Usabilia, a customer feedback company acquired by SurveyMonkey in April.
